The next hurdle for AI agents: getting websites to let them in

Personal AI agents promise to shop, book flights, and make reservations for you. But deliberate blocks and anti-bot defenses are getting in the way, leaving consumers caught in the middle. A new standard aims to help.

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Instinct brings its AI agent to group chats, even for friends without an account

Instinct is launching group chats that let friends use its AI agent together for tasks like planning trips, organizing carpools, and coordinating events. The company says personal accounts remain separate, with permission required before personal agents share information or take action.

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Quelle Surprise: Karoline Leavitt Is Joining Fox News As Network Infuriates Trump

In a move that comes as a shocking surprise to precisely no one, the New York Times has confirmed that former Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is slated to join Fox News as an on-air contributor. According to the report, Leavitt is expected to start with the network on November 1, and Fox is expected to make an official announcement soon.

In a statement published by the Times, Fox News Media CEO said, "Karoline’s firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape."

Karoline gave her own statement to the NYT, promising to offer viewers "the unique perspective and candor that defined my tenure with the Trump administration."

Leavitt joins Dana Perino and Kayleigh McEnany as former White House press secretaries who ended up at Fox.

Karoline's move to Fox comes as her former boss, President Trump, has repeatedly expressed his outrage with the network, most recently complaining that Fox has not adequately covered his recent rallies.

Just yesterday morning, he raged, "Fox spends more time talking to Communists, Socialists, and Dumocrats, often without rebuttal, and MAGA is not, to put it mildly, happy."

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Can ‘super intelligence’ and a non-binding safety pact solve AI’s image problem?

On Equity, we discussed the Trump administration's attempts to rebrand AI.

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Todd Blanche Defends DOJ Sending Federal Agents To Polling Stations

Responding to critics of the DOJ sending a thousand "election monitors" to polling stations during the midterms," Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche claimed the DOJ has been doing it since the 60s and Senators should instead thank God they are doing it.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin is, "introducing a new bill to protect voters from intimidation or interference by federal agents at polling locations called the Safe Access to the Polls Act."

Blanche was on Fox News Sunday today and received no pushback for many of his answers.

BREAM: The DOJ planning to send out a thousand monitors to the polls during the midterm elections," Shannon Bream said.

Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin has said this about the upcoming election. She says our democracy demands or depends on Americans being able to show up at the ballot box and have their voices heard.

But that's all at risk this November as President Trump openly weighs sending in armed federal agents to our schools, churches, fire stations and other polling locations.

So what exactly is the plan? Who are these monitors gonna be?

And how do you answer critics who say it's about intimidation?

BLANCHE: I wish that the senators that are in the congressmen that are saying this fear of fear-mongering false statements would just not do that.

It's not fair to the American people.

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White House Calls Republican Senator A ‘P*ssy’ After He Told Trump To F*ck Off

The White House has responded to the explosive text messages that Sen. Thom Tillis sent to Donald Trump earlier this year, and the response is almost as remarkable as the messages themselves. But it's predictable for the Trump White House.

As we noted on Friday, Tillis told Trump in one text that he had never been directly threatened with a primary contest—and said that if Trump had actually made such a threat, he would have told him to “f*ck yourself”

Tillis’s messages, which are expected to appear in his upcoming book, showed the senator bluntly rejecting Trump’s attacks and political pressure. In one message, Tillis told Trump that he did not take “bullshit” from anyone and warned that the country was failing. In another, he said that if Trump had personally threatened him with a primary rival, he would have told the president to “fuck yourself” and immediately announced his retirement.

“I don’t take this bullsh*t from anyone, including you,” Tillis wrote, adding that Trump should save the threats and games for people who didn't care whether he succeeded.

“I care if you fail,” Tillis added, “and right now we are failing.”

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Federal judge calls Flock ‘indiscriminate mass surveillance’

A federal judge ruled that a sheriff’s deputy violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights when using Flock to search for her license plate without a warrant. 

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JD Vance Calls Jeffrey Epstein ‘Great Character Reference’ For Trump

Clearly, Sean Hannity was hoping Vice President J.D. Vance would have some memeable defense for the Trump administration’s ongoing cover-up of the Epstein files. What he got was memeable alright, but for a whole ‘nother reason.

Hannity tried to raise the matter gently during his interview with Vance. “I’ve had a lot of callers, maybe they’re mad, I don’t know,” Hannity said. But believe me, he knows they’re mad. Then he came out with it. “Some people are still mad over the Epstein files,” he said.

Vance’s response was a stunner.

“Donald Trump threw that idiot out of his club what 25, 30 years ago, and wanted nothing to do with him,” Vance began. “And when you look at the Epstein files, which were released, we've got millions and millions of documents that have been out there. Sean, what is the one obvious thing? One, Donald Trump didn't just throw him out of his club. He turned Jeffrey Epstein into the local police for being a creep.”

Reality check: Trump did not turn Epstein into the police. However, Trump’s 2006 phone call to then-Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, telling him that Epstein's sex crimes were well known in New York and Palm Beach, contradicts his claim not to have known about them.

Nobody should be surprised that Hannity let the lie go uncorrected.

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F*ck Yourself': GOP Senator’s Private Messages To Trump Are Brutal

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis apparently had quite a bit to say to Donald Trump behind the scenes.

Newly revealed text messages show Tillis pushing back forcefully against the president during their increasingly bitter political feud. In one message, Tillis told Trump that he had never been directly threatened with a primary contest—and said that if Trump had actually made such a threat, he would have told him to “f*ck yourself” and immediately announced his retirement, Politico Playbook reports.

Tillis also made clear that his criticism of Trump wasn't coming from a desire to see the president fail. Quite the opposite, he said, explaining that he still wanted to help but wasn't willing to put up with Trump's treatment of him.

“I don’t take this bullsh*t from anyone, including you,” Tillis wrote, adding that Trump should save the threats and games for people who didn't care whether he succeeded.

“I care if you fail,” Tillis continued, “and right now we are failing.”

The messages, obtained by the outlet and set to appear in Tillis' forthcoming book, offer a remarkably blunt insight into the Republican senator's deteriorating relationship with Trump.

The exchange followed Trump's public attacks on Tillis, in which the president called him “weak and ineffective,” a “Nitpicker,” and a “QUITTER” after Tillis announced that he would retire rather than seek reelection.

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Affected by layoffs? Don’t miss this $75 deal for your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Expo+ Pass

Your next opportunity could be one conversation away. Get your Expo+ Pass for just $75. Limited to the first 100 qualifying people.

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Trump Just Floated The Idea Of Jailing Reporters Over Leaks

Just days after Donald Trump was forced to lift his White House ban on CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO, the president is now floating the notion of jailing reporters over leaks.

On September 18, Trump announced that he was banning the trio of media outlets for "their constant 'reporting' of FAKE NEWS!" All three outlets sued, and a 14-day temporary restraining order against the ban was implemented by Trump-appointed Judge Timothy Kelly, which ordered the outlets' access to be restored.

Despite that TRO, the president continues to target CNN specifically, with the outlet being removed from the press pool traveling with Trump during his trips to Texas and Oklahoma.

Following a rally for Ken Paxton in Texas, Trump spoke from the tarmac in Dallas, where a reporter confronted him: "You've been critical of CNN and other media outlets for their coverage."

Before the reporter could even finish their sentence, Trump interjected, "They're terrible!"

"What do you feel about those who feel like you’re doing too much with your executive power, you’re using it too much to go after political opponents, against the media," the reporter continued to press, "Things like that?"

Trump's response was beyond unsettling:

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'They Voted Against Me': Trump Says Quiet Part LOUD; Regrets His SCOTUS Picks

In his sprawling new interview with TIME, President Donald Trump finally said the quiet part out loud with respect to his Supreme Court justice picks -- Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett -- flat-out admitting that he regrets all three of them because they "voted against me too often."

Trump's entire second presidential term has been inundated with one Supreme Court defeat after another, despite his best efforts to stack the highest Court in the land with his own devout loyalists. In February, the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not, in fact, give him the authority to implement his sweeping emergency tariffs. Kavanaugh dissented, while Gorsuch and Barrett joined the controlling opinion.

Just a few short months later, Trump was hammered again when the Supreme Court rejected his attempt to impose severe restrictions on birthright citizenship. Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal-leaning justices in striking down Trump's attempt as unconstitutional. Kavanaugh joined a separate majority that concluded the restrictions violated federal law. Gorsuch dissented.

Just one day before that loss, the Supreme Court blocked his efforts to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in a 5-4 decision.

When asked point-blank in the TIME interview whether he regretted his SCOTUS choices, Trump did not mince his words.

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Google thinks SpaceX’s Starship has to launch 1,600 times before space data centers get off the ground

Google launched its first advanced chip into orbit to pave the way for space data centers.

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Mike Johnson Cuts Dem Ad By Promising To Do Same Thing For Next Two Years

Speaker Mike Johnson told CNBC that if Republicans keep the House after the midterms, they will do exactly the same thing in the final two years of the Trump administration economically as they've been doing, which is good news for the Democratic party and bad news for the country.

The Democratic Party couldn't ask for a better political ad to run the next 30 days before the November election.

Joining Squawk Box, pro-Trump co-host Joe Kernen asked this question which resulted in a most peculiar reply from Jebus Johnson.

"What if you keep the House, what would you do for the final two years..." Kernen asked.

"What we would do in the next two years is exactly what we have been doing already,and that is putting the conditions in place for a strong America again," Johnson replied.

Since Republicans controlled all of Congress since Trump started his second term, the economy is tanking, job creation is flat, Trump's illegal tariffs ended up raising inflation and taxed the entire population. Fuel costs are devastating most of America, thanks to his dirty little Iran war.

Rents and mortgages are unmanageable, while food and service costs have skyrocketed. Couple that with rogue ICE agents killing US citizens wearing masks along with an unwarranted and disastrous war with Iran and we are where we are today.

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Tesla secures $30B in new credit lines as it looks to scale Cybercab, Optimus

The company says it won't draw on the new debt facilities this year, as it has already planned at least $25 billion in capital expenditures.

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OpenAI repotedly in talks to raise $30B round at $1.4T valuation

The new round is anticipated to be the company's last before its delayed 2027 public debut.

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The AI boom took over Climate Week and not everyone is happy about it

Just like the rest of the U.S, data centers and AI are dividing climate tech founders and investors.

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FBIA Light Switch Went On's Wannabe Frat Boy Kash Patel Caught Partying With Suspected Russian Double Agent: Even Trump’s Front Row Joes Are Done With His Act

Donald J. Trump is losing some of the people who formerly seemed practically inseparable from his political rallies.

The “Front Row Joes” became known for following Trump around the country and staking out spots at the front of his rallies. But now, two of the group’s prominent members have had enough. They are done, Politico reports.

Rick Frazier, who says he has attended more than 100 Trump rallies, is so disillusioned that he is considering not voting in November. He points to Trump’s handling of the Iran war and the Epstein files, saying the president’s actions have fallen far short of what he promised his supporters.

“Epstein crimes and feeding the industrial military complex … those are big nos for me,” Frazier told the outlet. “He promoted himself as a no-war president. That didn’t work out.”

Trish Hope, another longtime Trump loyalist who once published a book containing nothing but Trump’s social-media posts, has also turned against him. She says Trump’s dismissal of questions about Epstein was a turning point, describing it as the moment when “a veil lifted” and she began seeing him differently.

Hope has also criticized Trump for claiming that the Front Row Joes are “very rich,” arguing that members sacrifice substantial amounts of time and money to attend his events.

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Todd Blanche Falls Flat On His Face Defending Trump's Illegal Media Ban

Attorney General Todd Blanche's claims to ABC News that certain media outlets have become a national security threat in their reporting on the Trump administration fell flat and sounded moronic in his defense of Trump's media ban.

Even after the judge issued a temporary restraining order on Trump's ban of MS NOW, CNN, and Politico, Trump barred CNN from flying on Air Force One. When host Martha Raddatz called him out on it, Blanche got angry.

The ABC host described Trump's disregard to the First Amendment and said he has "denied access." This upset the AG, complaining it was not the right way to describe it.

Rewriting what Trump says is one of his prime functions as AG.

"What I'm talking about is the government's position and what the Department of Justice said in court, which is the same thing that President Trump has said repeatedly, which is at some point, at some point, the complete misinformation and the inaccuracy and the one-sided news out of certain organizations does become a national security issue and it's not right for the people of the United States to have to put up with it," Blanche said.

It's not the country that is upset with accurate reporting, it's Vonshitzhispants.

RADDATZ: So are you saying you're going to screen people before they get on a flight coming to the White House?

BLANCHE: I did not say that. No, no. I did not say that.

RADDATZ: But you said the President gets to decide.

BLANCHE: Don't get to put words in my mouth.

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Karl Rove Made A Perfect Campaign Ad For James Talarico

I have no idea if James Talarico’s campaign will really use any of Karl Rove’s comments about fellow Republican Ken Paxton. But Rove surely meant to draw proverbial blood when he stuck a very public knife into Paxton, then twisted it a few times for good measure.

Rove all but leaped at the opportunity to attack Senate candidate Paxton during an appearance at the 2026 Texas Tribune Festival. Rove also took a swipe at Donald Trump for pushing Paxton over the primary finish line.

It started after interviewer and CNN reporter Patrick Svitek asked Rove if the $100 million spending by the Senate Leadership Fund to help Paxton beat Talarico is a “good use of money?”

“No,” Rove said, “But they’re going to have to do it, and that’s just the start.”

That was just Rove’s start, too. He noted that the $100 million was only enough to get through September. He added pointedly, “If John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over.”

Rove next launched into a recitation of Paxton’s many, many scandals:

“You know, when you got a guy who's got multiple girlfriends and $200,000 worth of improvements in his house from a corrupt business guy for whom he does favors, I mean, my personal favorite is the Uber account in the name of David P. Since [Paxton] drives around in a car that has SO4 license plates, it made it a little difficult to have assignations with one of his mistresses.

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Can Muse overcome Meta’s trust issues?

On Equity, we discussed how Meta's AI announcement managed to steal the spotlight from OpenAI and Anthropic.

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Google tests buying from Walmart-owned Flipkart through Gemini and AI Mode in India

The limited test covers select products and users, with a broader rollout planned for later in October.

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Insurers claim AI is already increasing healthcare costs

Blue Cross Blue Shield says hospital use of AI tools led to an additional $942M in healthcare spending over a two-year period.

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TikTok agrees to pay at least $100M in Alabama settlement

TikTok will pay Alabama at least $100 million in a settlement tied to allegations that the short-form video platform misled users about safety and was designed to addict children.

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Banning Reporters Doesn’t Do What Trump Thinks It Does

Trump banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, and for once the rest of the press corps refused to play along. All three are suing. And the other TV networks walked out of the pool. That makes it the right week to ask what access is truly worth and if corporate media can hold the line at all.

Cliff, David Shuster, and Maritsa Georgiou of Grounded took it from three angles: a political operative, a former White House correspondent, and a longtime anchor who's watched her industry shrink. David argued the ban has cost reporters less than anyone admits, and added he wants every network to get itself banned in response.

And they all discussed the inherent misogyny and stupidity of Trump's statement on his way into the United Nations, when he turned on CNN's Kaitlan Collins (yet again) and told her she should not be there at all. As if Old Man Orange has any control over which media is granted access by the UN.

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Nexterity wants to automate the hard, dangerous part of pipefitting

The startup's robot can tighten or loosen four bolts at a time, and it fits in a Pelican case.

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Meet Feather, the startup building the ‘Android of robotics’ for developers

Feather is betting on a customizable, $30,000 platform built for software developers.

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Melania Trump Gave A Rather Awkward, Lukewarm Assessment Of Her Husband's Second Term

Amid his ongoing war of choice with Iran that's now raging well into its seventh month after swearing it would be over in a matter of weeks back in February, President Donald Trump's approval ratings are sinking to career lows, as all of America begins to realize that he really is every bit as awful as we've been telling them for years.

In what I can only assume is a desperate attempt to patch even a few small holes in that sinking ship, Fox News invited the rarely seen First Lady Melania Trump onto the Fox & Friends segment this morning, where she gave her husband a little impromptu job performance assessment.

"How's the president doing in Trump 2 as compared to Trump 1?" Fox host Brian Kilmeade asked Donald Trump's third and current wife. "How do you see him handling the job differently?"

It took a few awkward seconds for Melania to open her mouth and respond, but what came out wasn't exactly the most gushingly flattering thing we've ever heard.

Melania described her husband as "very focused," despite having "a lot on his plate."

"It's very different, what's going on around the world now, but I think he's doing the best that he can," the First Lady went on to say about her husband's second presidential term that has been plagued by scandal and screw-ups. "He works nonstop, he has the most energy than anybody, he's, from morning to evening, nonstop working."

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VC firm Bessemer now has another $5.75B to invest in (what else?) AI

The VC firm says that AI-native companies are growing faster than any technology, ever.

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Modal Motors is trying to cut China out of electric motors entirely

The startup is working on small, light motors with no rare-earth magnets that are suited for drones, fans, and robots.

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Tammy Bruce Furious Fox Biz Host Highlighted Trump's Low Approval Ratings

Trump spokesperson and former Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce became quite disturbed when Fox Business host Stuart Varney interrupted her fictitious picture of the US economy under Trump's leadership and asked her to explain Trump's horrific poll numbers.

BRUCE: People who watch your show know that the economy is doing well, that savings is growing.

Great interview with Steve just a little bit ago.

The nature of the stock market, the choices of the modern world that we have to face like AI, the nature of what we did with the Internet, and the fact that that created giant American businesses which have made the world better.

VARNEY: So why is he so low in the polls? Why is his approval rating in the low 30s?

How dare Varney break the MAGA hypnotic enchantment on his audience Bruce was spinning.

Instead of responding to his question, she spun a tale of when Trump first ran and said, "When did we start believing?"

BRUCE: The nature of what media does to try to shift the American public's view of this man.
It has not worked because we see what he delivers. What he's concerned about is not the polls.

He wants to make sure the American people are informed, they know what he's doing, and of course we trust him to be doing the right thing.

It's why he's president, and we know that he makes choices based on what he understands is best for this country.

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Qualcomm launches two new smartphone chips with emphasis on AI

Qualcomm said that its new top chip can run 30B mixture-of-expert model locally.

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Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence

Meta says Muse was built from scratch, but acknowledges the AI assistant was "heavily inspired" by OpenClaw — down to some of its workspace filenames and content.

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JD Vance Insists Trump 'Not Banning Media' When He Says 'I Am Banning' Press Outlets

Vice President JD Vance insisted President Donald Trump is "not banning media outlets," three days after the president literally said that he was "banning" three of them.

Vance took questions from reporters Monday morning at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, shortly before leaving for a campaign stop in North Carolina. The White House rapid response account posted a clip of the exchange on X at 10:47 a.m., stacking the vice president's denial directly above a screenshot of Trump's announcement.

"Do you think it's appropriate for the president to be banning media outlets just because he doesn't like what they report?" a reporter asked.

"Well, I take some issue with the premise. So he's not banning media outlets. What he's doing is saying, we're not gonna give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda," Vance replied.

Trump announced the ban Friday in a Truth Social post that named CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

"I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW … and Politico … from the White House as a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS! … Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow," Trump wrote.

"Sir, you talked a lot about free speech over the years. How is this not an attack on free speech?" a second reporter asked at the Maryland air base.

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Fox News Host Advising Trump Pushes White House Press Ban Over Report On His Stepson

Fox News host Mark Levin backed President Donald Trump's ban on Politico at the White House, citing the outlet's report on his stepson.

Levin made his case Monday in a post on X, hours after Politico's Playbook newsletter reported that his stepson had solicited cash wedding gifts from Israeli citizens.

The stepson, David Milstein, is a senior adviser to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and holds a top-secret security clearance, according to Playbook.

"President Trump was right to ban Politico from the White House. And I want to tell you why, and about a specific situation this morning involving my stepson, David Milstein," Levin wrote.

Trump announced the ban three days earlier, writing on Truth Social on Friday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would be barred because of their "constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS," the Guardian reported. Journalists from all three outlets had their White House badges disabled Saturday, the paper said.

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Meta’s Muse is outpacing ChatGPT’s early mobile launch

Meta’s new AI agent Muse has racked up more downloads and daily active users in the U.S. and Canada than ChatGPT did over the same period after its mobile debut, according to new estimates from Appfigures.

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Van Orden Thinks First Gay President Will Be Republican

Last week, Pete Buttigieg said that he thought America was ready for a gay President. TMZ reporter Charlie Cotton asked Rep. Drunken Van Orden whether he agreed with Buttigieg. DVO's answer will leave you flabbergasted.

Before answering the question, DVO bragged about being endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay caucus of the Republican Party. DVO also boasted that he didn't worry about a person's sexuality and that he never considered it. Yet this is the same DVO who had a public temper tantrum in the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library over a Pride Month display, screaming and threatening a 17-year-old girl. All that alcohol probably killed off some of his memory brain cells.

Eventually, DVO got around to answering the question by saying that he thought the first gay president would be Republican. The reasoning behind this statement is absurd:

Rep. Derrick Van Orden tells @hicharliecotton that Black voters aren't ready for a gay president. pic.twitter.com/3GJDjYWCG4

— TMZ (@TMZ) September 17, 2026

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Is the AI industry really ready to slow down?

On Equity, we debated whether Ai executives are serious about wanting to slow down.

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Third Party Attack Ad Against Talarico Backfires Hilariously

Protect America's Future Super PAC, a right-wing, dark-money, special-interest group, released an attack ad against James Talarico and accidentally hit Rep. Brandon Gill.

The ad shows Gill driving a car and saying all sorts of nasty and untrue allegations against Talarico, such as that he supports child rapists, that he supports child mutilation, etc. The only problem is that the captions don't mention Talarico. All they show is a picture of Gill's ugly face next to the words "protects child predators."

Oh well, Gill can always say that it shows how much he supports Trump.

The moral of the story is to always use a good comms person before releasing an ad.

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Donate To Duffy's Son-In-Law, Win A Prize

Michael Alfonso, Trans Secretary Sean Duffy's son-in-law, has raised $1.35 million in his campaign to fill Duffy's old seat in Congress. But only 5% of that money came from small donors who gave $200 or less.

Per a report from The Bulwark, much of Alfonso's money came from transportation CEOs, lobbyists, and PACs. And what is surely a massive coincidence, each of those big-money donors who gave to Alfonso received a large favor from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Funny how that works, isn't it?

For example, David Parker, chairman and CEO of the trucking company Covenant Logistics, and his wife each gave Alfonso $10,000. Just a few weeks later, just long enough for the checks to clear, USDOT granted another five-year exemption from driver supervision requirements. As I said, I'm sure it's just an amazing coincidence.

Just like all the other times that have happened, too, with other companies.

In another example of sheer coincidence, Duffy's dormant campaign donated $1.5 million to a Super PAC supporting Alfonso. That is more money than Alfonso got through those other happenstance donations and rewards put together.

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Trump suggests rebranding AI with a new name, says he’s also creating an AI Force

Trump claimed, without evidence, that the AI backlash is a Democratic hoax.

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World model companies are keeping a lot of secrets

Everyone in the world-models space is sitting on a pile of cash and a ton of buzz, but good luck getting anyone — from the founders to their own data suppliers — to tell you what they're actually building.

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A new kind of AI model from a ChatGPT inventor is thrilling developers

Jev, a new kind of AI model, is showing developers a cheaper and faster path to software intelligence.

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Is the AI safety debate about safety or control?

Not everyone agrees with Amodei's call for globally coordinated action for AI safety.

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UN turns to Google to make its global data ready for AI agents

The shift comes after a UNICEF test found leading AI models struggled to accurately retrieve global development statistics.

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Microsoft exec called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ new unredacted filings reveal

Newly unsealed court filings show Microsoft privately called OpenAI's data practices "theft" while both companies scraped paywalled Times content, built datasets from it, and warned internally it would gut publishers.

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X will now let US users trade via Cashtags

The move closes the gap between the market discussions taking place on the timeline, and the market itself.

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Former Waymo CFO jumps to self-driving startup Wayve

Elisa de Martel, who left her position as chief financial officer at Alphabet's autonomous vehicle company Waymo in January, will be based out of Silicon Valley.

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George Bush Is Secretly Painting 'Ugly' Portraits Of Donald Trump As 'Art Therapy'

If there's one thing you can guarantee George W. Bush is not gonna do, it's publicly speaking out with any genuine conviction about pretty much anything -- including the current president, who is ripping the very fabric of this nation to smithereens right in front of our eyes.

But don't worry, George is coping in his own way.

Former Slate editor and CEO-turned-author Jacob Weisberg once compiled a set of bestselling "Bushisms" books that poked fun at the 43rd president's incessant history of verbal gaffes. Now, it seems Weisberg is taking aim at ole George once again, in his latest book, "Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era," in which he takes the former president to task for continuing to enable Donald J. Trump and his destruction of America-- not through his actions, but his blatant inaction.

In a new interview to promote his book with The Intelligencer's Michael Calderone, Weisberg didn't pull any punches for the 43rd president, noting that "There's sins of commission and sins of omission" and George W. Bush falls firmly into the second category, as he has stood by and idly watched as President Trump "dismantled USAID," the agency that helped to operate PEPFAR, the very same global HIV/AIDS program that Bush himself brought to life.

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Don Jr.’s Russian Wedding Gift Comes Back To Bite Him...HARD

A top Democrat in the House is investigating Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev's involvement in an expensive event he gifted Donald Trump Jr. to celebrate his wedding after a bombshell report, raising questions about the Trump family’s financial ties to foreign figures.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent letters to both White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Trump Jr. seeking records related to Kremlev and his involvement in the May celebration in the Bahamas, Axios reports.

According to the damning ProPublica report, Kremlev covered hundreds of thousands of dollars in event expenses, including one of the two private islands used for the celebration and a fireworks display. Kremlev is the president of the International Boxing Association, which receives financing from Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, and he is known to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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The AI graveyard: a running list of projects and startups that didn’t make it

From Apple's repeatedly delayed Siri AI to OpenAI's messy 'super app' launch, here's a look at the AI projects that shut down or missed expectations.

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Trump Unleashes Furious Word Salad On Supreme Court Over Mail Voting

Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social to lash out at the Supreme Court in a sprawling post after the justices declined to allow new restrictions on mail-in voting to take effect before the 2026 midterm elections.

Trump’s 463-word screed included his randomly capitalized words and his typical juvenile “Dumocrats” slam, which sounds like something from a 4chan shitpost.

"Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting “disaster,” which is a laughing stock all over the World, and where we are the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM," he wrote.

Trump called the ruling a major setback for Republicans and argued that it would make election cheating involving mail-in ballots easier. He praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito for dissenting, of course, while accusing other members of the Court of being unwilling to stand up to Democrats.

Trump also broadened his criticism to several other Supreme Court decisions, including rulings involving his administration's tariffs and his effort to restrict birthright citizenship. He claimed those decisions would cause enormous financial and legal damage to the country, arguing that the Court has repeatedly issued rulings that undermine his administration and harm the United States.

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Bessent's 'Furious' Reaction To Fraud Claim Poses 'Real Risk' To Economy: Experts

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has frozen out the news outlet that reported his own contradictory mortgage pledges, a campaign media figures warn could endanger the economy.

The account comes from a Sunday report by Semafor media editor Max Tani, based on interviews with reporters, editors and Treasury officials.

Tani reported that Bessent threatened Bloomberg News with retaliation last September, then spent a year carrying the threat out.

Several media figures Tani contacted warned that a hostile relationship between the Treasury secretary and the press corps could pose a "real risk" if the United States hits an economic crisis, Semafor reported.

The warning comes as high interest rates remain front-page news, according to the report, and as so-called bond vigilantes — investors who dump government debt to force a change in policy — test the Treasury's credibility. Those shut out are the outlets bond traders read.

The fight began with a telephone call last September, according to Semafor.

Bessent was "furious" that Bloomberg reporters Anthony Cormier and Zachary Mider planned to report that he had once agreed to occupy two different houses as his "principal residence" at the same time, two people familiar with the exchange told Semafor. He phoned Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait directly.

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OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300 million, report says

Glass Imaging was founded by a pair of former Apple engineers who previously led the team that developed Apple's Portrait Mode.

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AI infrastructure company Cornelis raises $205M to chip away at Nvidia’s dominance

The company also announced a product called Active Compute Fabric, a network technology that targets the fact that much GPU time is wasted waiting for data to arrive.

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Patel Ordered FBI Agents To Rebut Twitter Bot Calling Him A ‘Retard’

FBI Director Kash Patel has once again conclusively demonstrated he is unfit and unqualified for his job. The fact that he was not fired long ago speaks volumes about Donald Trump’s unfitness, too.

In addition to Patel's reported drunkenness, neglect of duties and shocking incompetence, he seems more interested in protecting his image than Americans.

The latest evidence comes from a telling anecdote via The Telegraph. The article reported that Patel ordered FBI agents to spend their important, taxpayer-funded work time on rebutting a tweet.

“The post, shared by an account called ‘Retard Finder’ with the username ‘ifindretards’, included a picture of Mr Patel alongside the caption: ‘His retard rating just went to all-time highs. Congratulations Kash,’” The Telegraph said.

Patel reportedly told the FBI’s assistant director for public affairs to find and rebut all such posts. He was not dissuaded by Assistant Director Ben Williamson’s advice that it “would look bad” for Patel, that the post had not gone viral, and that it appeared to have been shared by a bot account. Instead, Patel insisted that the FBI should spend time bolstering his ego because “people see it and need to be seeing our stats”.

Critics claim Patel “is unusually preoccupied by his personal image,” The Telegraph noted.

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The 9 buzziest startups from Y Combinator’s latest Demo Day, according to VCs

From floating reactors to brain chips: VCs picked their favorite YC startups from the summer batch.

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What’s behind the AI industry’s latest warnings of doom?

On Equity, we discussed the AI industry's latest debate about whether it poses an existential threat to humanity.

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Tarlov Mocks 'Betas' At GOP Convention For Staring At 'Half-Naked Socialist'

During a discussion on this Friday's The Five on Fox, where most of the hosts were doing some heavy revisionist history on what actually occurred there, Jessica Tarlov injected some reality into the conversation with this dig at how ridiculous they were for posting the "half-naked" picture of streamer Hasan Piker up on their jumbotron.

WATTERS: There was some concern, Jessica, even among Republicans, that they weren’t gonna be able to pull the convention off, but it does seem they did a pretty good job.

TARLOV: Yeah, well, they got all the best photos of Hasan Piker in a Speedo so —

WATTERS: I missed that.

TARLOV: You missed the banana hammock situation?

WATTERS: I missed that.

TARLOV: They used it both nights.

WATTERS: No, I didn’t catch it.

TARLOV: That’s how ripped he is, for a bunch of betas standing around looking at a half-naked socialist.

Watters lies as easily as he breathes. There's no way he didn't see that. Tarlov went onto rip JD Vance for the racist "dirty" immigrants remark, and Trump for his pathetic $5000 bribe attempt.

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OpenAI’s Sam Altman says it would be ‘ill-advised’ to go public in 2026

While OpenAI has filed confidentially for an IPO, the company will not be going public this year, according to CEO Sam Altman.

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Tesla says it will finally unveil the second generation Roadster on October 1

Tesla’s halo sports car was first announced in November 2017.

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Final, final, final call for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Side Events

The absolute last chance to apply to host an official Side Event during TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is tonight, September 11, at 11:59 p.m. PT.

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Central Eurasia names its 2026 Road to Battlefield winners: Cerberus, WeGlobal AI, and LOOQ

Cerberus, WeGlobal AI, and LOOQ took the top three spots at the regional final of Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026 and will represent Central Eurasia in the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this October.

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Trump Pissed Slain 9-11 Hero Is More Famous Than He Is

On Tuesday, Trump spoke at the Steel Across America event at the Ellipse. During the award ceremony honoring fallen hero Wells Crowther with the Medal of Freedom, the president moaned that the "red bandana" man had become more famous than he is.

"I don't like it," he groused.

While recounting the heroics of Wells Crowther, "a 24-year-old equities trader and volunteer firefighter from Rockland County, N.Y., was working in the South Tower of the World Trade Center when the building was struck and he sprang into action," before losing his life.

Trump's statements are a great example of his narcissism and uncouth attitude towards others whom he feels upstage him, whether alive or dead.

TRUMP: A group of people on the 78th floor were trapped with broken bones, charred skin and eyes and lungs filled with black smoke.

Death was all about them. It was certain they were sure they were gonna die.

Then suddenly a rescue appeared.

They call him the man in the red bandana. Have you heard that term?

The man in the red bandana has become more famous than me.

I don't like it. Very unhappy, but he's become much more famous than me.

Now he's the man in the red bandana.

Usually Trump claims that some of the horrible things he says are meant as a joke, but he wasn't joking here.

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There are new shiny iPhones, so Apple is making you pay more for older models

Apple is raising the price of its existing iPhone models by $100, including iPhone 16, iPhone 17, and iPhone Air.

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Apple Watch’s new feature listens to your chats and recaps them

The Siri Recap feature is similar to other note-taking apps like Granola.

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The Exploration Company nabs $450 million to challenge SpaceX

The Exploration Company (TEC) has raised $450 million to build reusable spacecraft, in what it describes as “the largest-ever Series C by a European space company.”

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Meta debuts its Muse AI agent. Will consumers trust it?

Meta's new personal AI agent Muse wants access to users' email, calendars, payments, health services, and more — making the company's biggest consumer AI bet yet a major test of whether people still trust Meta with their data.

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Trump Judge Just Ruled That Americans Do NOT Have A Right To Safe Drinking Water

According to a truly horrifying new report from Mother Jones, a Trump-appointed judge has made it abundantly clear that safe, clean, uncontaminated drinking water is, in fact, not a right afforded to Americans.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kurt Engelhardt, who was appointed to his position by none other than Donald J. Trump, delivered that bone-chilling ruling in his dismissal of a lawsuit brought against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, by its residents, in which they accused the city of knowingly allowing them to consume water that was heavily contaminated with lead for upwards of six months in 2015.

"Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information," Engelhardt wrote in his dismissal on Friday. "These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”

Nine US states and more than a dozen countries around the world maintain protections surrounding citizens' right to clean, safe drinking water. In both New York and Massachusetts, that basic human right is intertwined into their state constitutions.

But according to Engelhardt, the US Constitution does not provide that basic human right to all American citizens.

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Cait Conley Would Impeach Hegseth: He's A 'Disgrace To The Office'

Combat veteran Cait Conley, who was awarded the bronze star three times said in no uncertain terms that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a disgrace and should be removed from office.

Conley, a sixteen year Army veteran is running against Rep. Mike Lawler, a Trump toady who is speaking at Trump's narcissistic convention.

BASH: You've said Hegseth should be fired. But if you are elected, would you support actually impeaching him?

CONLEY: I believe he has been a hazard to American national security and a disgrace to the office.

I would absolutely support removing him from office because his actions and decisions are failing service members who have sworn an oath to this country and deserve respect and for politicians to actually value their lives and their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice instead of thinking that it's a game or some movie like Hegseth continuously talks about.

And I do believe that the decisions out of this administration made by Hegseth, but also enabled by Congressman Mike Lawler and Republicans in Congress, just like with the Iran war where Lawler voted five times to give Donald Trump a blank check on this conflict that they continue to bungle.

That's not leadership. And America deserves better.

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Opaque recurrence, and other AI terms that you should probably know

The rise of AI has brought an avalanche of new terms and slang. Here is a glossary with definitions of some of the most important words and phrases you might encounter.

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Authors push back as publishers and agents make claims on Anthropic settlement

Authors say publishers seem to be claiming more than their fair share of settlement payments.

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Lutnick Lies Nearly As Easily As His Boss

Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary and former lunch buddy to Jeffrey Epstein, hit up CNBC on Wednesday to lie about the environmental costs of data centers. He also dismissed questions about government corruption as “minor stuff.”

“One of my favorite things is when people talk about data centers using water,” Lutnick said when asked about the general dislike Americans have for the server warehouses. “The No. 1 product in America that uses water is cattle. I mean, data centers don’t use water. The data centers—this is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down, right?”

Coincidentally (see: not coincidentally at all), Cantor Fitzgerald, which Lutnick used to run, is heavily invested in data center projects. Though Lutnick transferred his ownership stake in the company to his kids right before becoming commerce secretary, Cantor Fitzgerald has been making all kinds of big money since he became part of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

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Trump Claims He Controls MAGA Inc. PAC Money

Never mind those pesky FEC rules. Laws are for suckers, apparently. As we already discussed, Republicans are becoming concerned about Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., sitting on a pile of money rather than helping candidates.

This Friday, Trump was asked about it at the White House and here was his response:

TRUMP: I'm going to spend whatever amount of money necessary to try and help us. And this is money from MAGA Inc. This is the money that I control.

Now, this is separate from the RNC. It's separate from people having money. And I think it's not even counted in terms of the media. I'm not sure that they ever talk about it. They just found out about it.

But, yeah, we have around a billion dollars that I can spend. I can spend for the next race also. I can spend it for what I want to spend it for, but I'm going to help a lot of the congressmen and senators that need help.

REPORTER: Are you going to use it for 2028?

TRUMP: I could use it for '28. Yes, if I want. Sure. I mean, I expect to have money left over and we can use that for '28.

Here's more from CNBC:

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Hikers rescued after using Google Gemini for planning

The sheriff’s office said the hikers “were advised by Gemini to bring far less food and water than their group required."

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'Small Potatoes.': Trump Dismisses 18 American Deaths In Iran War

Donald Trump seems rather annoyed that people are questioning his needless, unpopular, and costly war against Iran. On Friday, he downplayed the seemingly endless war and its costs as “small potatoes for us” and “not a big thing.”

“We did Venezuela, and we did this in Venezuela,” Trump continued. “We lost nobody, and this we lost 18 people. And in Vietnam, you lost 100,000 people, and in other conflicts, you lost tens of thousands of people.”

It seems odd, or maybe telling, that President Draft Dodger would compare his latest war, which people are already calling a “quagmire,” to the quagmire he dodged in Vietnam.

Maybe the Iran war is no biggie for a guy who has used his 19 months in the White House to enrich himself and his family by billions – and whose military-age son still shows no sign of enlisting. But it’s a hell of a biggie for those of us non-billionaires struggling with the soaring costs of gasoline thanks to the war he predicted would end in 4-6 weeks. Instead, the war he has repeatedly claimed to have already won is now in its seventh month.

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Bartiromo’s Lawyer Insists She Wasn’t Fired And Still Has Fox Job

Fox News Media abruptly announced on Thursday that it had parted ways with Maria Bartiromo. The terse statement strongly suggested she had been fired. So did subsequent reporting.

In the wake of Fox’s announcement, two, separate reports said she was likely fired from Fox for tattling to the Trump White House that her higher-ups had barred her from promoting covering President Sore Loser’s 2020 conspiracy theories in his July, 2026 speech.

On Friday, CNN’s Brian Stelter tweeted that Bartiromo has retained a lawyer who insists not only that she was not fired but that she still has her job: Attorney Bryan Freedman blasted as “absolutely and unequivocally false"the “irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox”

“Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise,” Freedman added. “Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth."

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Van Orden Tries To Start A Fight But Keeps Getting Beat Up

Rebecca Cooke, Drunken Van Orden's opponent, was doing the usual campaign things over the weekend, such as visiting American veterans at a breakfast event. She posted about it on Xitter and said she comes from a long line of veterans and that, if elected, she will fight to help them get and keep the benefits they deserve.

This was enough to set off DVO, who accused Cooke of using the vets as political props:

It wasn't long before DVO was called out by James Wigderson, a Wisconsin native and a Never Trump type of Republican. Wigderson pointed out that DVO was a traitor, not a hero, because he participated in the insurrection. DVO shot back with a personal insult and a threat because that's what insecure drunks do:

Wigderson has been mocking him ever since. And not to be left out of the action, Rep Mark Pocan got his punches in from the left:

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GOP Personality Complains DSA Members Think They's Latest Birthright Citizenship Idiocy

Reince Priebus was complaining on Fox about Democratic Socialists and said that they were the wrong kind of radicals:

Sorry, he doesn't get the credit he deserves, but you know, the most offensive thing that's going on now with these guys and and and Nixon in Florida and El Sayed, you know, they're they're they're trying to equate themselves to Jesus. They're calling themselves radicals, you know, Jesus was a radical. I'm a radical, you know; using the same word doesn't make them equivalent.

I mean, Jesus was radical because he said, you know, in a theological explosion that, you know, I'm the only, only through me will you enter the kingdom of heaven. That was radical, but Jesus wasn't advocating the abolition of the Electoral College, the Supreme Court, the presidency, the elimination of the Department of War, you know, all these things that they're talking about.

These people are radical for a different reason. They're radical because they're advocating for things that are contrary to the United States Constitution. Yes, they're radical.

That's the problem. They're always wrong and they're never in doubt, and this is what this group is all about and that's what makes it easier for us to win these races because they're caught between their base and normal and and they can't get on the right side of normal and as long as they keep playing around in that zone that they're in, we have a good shot in a midterm that is usually pretty tough for the incumbent party.

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Why Isn’t Elon Musk Getting The Hasan Piker Treatment From The Media?

Elon Musk has publicly expressed his belief that Jews are not white.

In response to a Xitter poll asking if Jews are white, Musk seemed enthusiastic to let the public know he doesn’t think so. He even offered up scientific-sounding mumbo jumbo to back up his antisemitism. “I’ve met so many people who look extremely European in every way and tell me they’re Jewish,” he said in his three-paragraph response. “Well, maybe there are a few OG ‘Jewish ACTG’ sequences in there somewhere, but clearly not many! Where is the list of these ACTG sequences?”

Gonna print this out and put it under wipers on Teslas in Los Angeles

— Razzball (@razzball.bsky.social) 2026-09-02T22:01:22.540Z

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Utilities are racing to link up with fusion startups, with Realta Fusion the latest to benefit

The grid has been straining under the weight of new AI data centers, and that has utilities courting fusion startups.

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Delivery Hero board backs Uber’s $15B takeover bid

If approved, the combined company would become one of the largest food delivery platforms in the world.

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Apparently Trump Thinks The Iranian People Should 'Fight' In His War... Against Iran

In what may be the most unhinged, insane thing he's said since launching his senseless war, President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform last night to express his frustration with not only "ABC Fake News'" reporting on his efforts to strike a deal with Iran, but with the Iranian people themselves, who he apparently thinks should "rise up and fight" this war with him.

Despite his vehement insistence that this conflict with Iran would barely last a week or two, Donald Trump's war with Iran has now fully surpassed its six-month mark, and even the mere concept of an end to the war isn't even a blip on the horizon.

Reports have confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an extensive presentation in the Situation Room on February 12th, in which he claimed that the country of Iran was ripe for a takeover, according to Israeli intelligence. According to reporting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the presentation "bullshit" the moment Netanyahu left the room.

Trump did it anyway.

Since launching his war just days later, on February 28th, Donald Trump has repeatedly tried and failed to strike a deal with Iran, as the country makes a complete and utter fool of him at every turn. He has continually claimed that Iran "badly" wants to cut a deal with him, yet they're refusing to negotiate at all, and they made quick work of spitting on the one deal Trump did manage to strike before the ink had even dried.

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X says attackers are targeting user accounts after the launch of X Money

X is investigating a wave of unsolicited password reset emails that it believes may be tied to the rollout of its new payments service.

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Thrive’s Kushner defends involvement in FIFA mess, hires Elon’s go-to lawyer

New York's prestigious-yet-secretive venture firm Thrive Capital finally speaks out about its involvement in the messy drama upending international soccer.

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Kalshi bans George Santos for life over State of the Union bets

The disciplinary action comes two months after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission settled charges against Santos.

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Grindr wants to be the everything app for gay men; investors are still deciding whether it can pull it off

George Arison is done letting Wall Street's "Grindr discount" go unchallenged — in a wide-ranging Q&A, the CEO walks us through how AI, a controversial $350-plus EDGE tier, and a bet on healthcare and long-distance matchmaking are turning Grindr into the "gayborhood in your pocket" he's been promising since 2022.

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Trump 'Lake America' Lampooned As Insane Distraction

The United States is locked in another Middle East quagmire, the American economy is shedding jobs, wage growth is decelerating, and the costs of essentials are rising, but President Donald Trump on Thursday took time to hold an Oval Office event for the signing of an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” as his damaging trade war with Canada intensifies.

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Trump To Welker: Report The Truth, I'll Report You To The FCC

On Sunday Donald Trump vowed to report Meet the Press host Kristen Welker to the FCC because she rightly reported that Trump has had mixed results on his endorsements leading up to 2026 midterm elections.

This is another blatant attempt to bully the media and undermine the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Welker did a pre-MTP interview on NBC and made these statements.

Politico recently reported that his picks for governor in four states failed to win the nomination." While House backed candidates in Tennessee and Michigan failed as well, while Lindsey Graham's sister was forced into a runoff in Georgia.

WELKER: Well, he's going to loom large over these midterms, there's no doubt about that.

He of course has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries.

He's had some mixed results, but most recently his pick of Senator Darline Graham, of course the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was successful in her primary battle, so now she takes on Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina.

Maybe Demented Donald thought she said he was of "mixed" race?

Vonshitzhispants is having sh*t fits over the slightest thing.

He continues to dissemble right before our eyes. His threat is empty, just a way to make sure we all know he's still the boss. Here's what he wrote:

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Why Doesn't Fox News Call Out Trump's Other Horrific Lies?

On Thursday, Fox News host Bret Baier took umbrage when Trump attacked Fox News' Jonathan Hunt as a "flunky" over his report on the Iran war.

Oh, the horror.

Trump responded, "Jonathan Hunt of Fox News did a particularly inaccurate report on the Failing Islamic Republic of Iran. I don’t want to meet; they do. In fact, they are begging to make a deal. Bret Baier should straighten out his flunkies, for a change! President DJT.”

Bret Baier would not have it.

BAIER: First of all, Jonathan Hunt's not a flunky.

He's a great reporter.

Second of all, Mr. President, we didn't say you wanted to meet.

In fact, we played a soundbite that you didn't want to meet, and there are no negotiations.

We said that Treasury Secretary BesSent is hoping to meet with G20 countries to increase the pressure on Iran and that Gulf state allies, including Qatar, are inside Tehran trying to get Iran to agree to concessions.

That was what it said.

Too bad Baier and every other Fox News host refused to call out Trump when he repeatedly lies and makes sh*t up against anyone that disagrees with him or caused him consternation in the past or present.

Ron has it right.

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Is Scott Bessent Trying To Blow Up The Global Financial System?

“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a press conference earlier this week, while discussing Iran. In our history, no president or White House would deliberately hurt the global economy, right?

However, some believe Treasury Secretary Bessent and President Trump have harmed both our economy and the global economy through self-inflicted errors. The U.S. Bond Market is making headlines this week.

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller blasted Bessent in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Druckenmiller’s column, “Let the Bond Market Speak,” set off alarms.

The respected billionaire said that Bessent’s bond market maneuvers are not the way to fix bond yields, that his efforts will fail, and that it will give allies another reason to lose trust in America.

Stephanie Ruhle tried to explain why Druckenmiller’s op-ed was a big deal:

Self-Inflicted Errors

According to reports from MSNow, the Trump administration has made multiple self-inflicted errors:

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Trump Sneakily Working To Give Away Part Of Yosemite To Private Developer

The Trump administration has been “secretly plotting” to give away a portion of America's public land in Yosemite National Park to a private developer with ties to Trump cronies. The developer wants to build a road into the park and develop two 40-acre parcels near the park, according to The New York Times.

The road “would give the land exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests,” NOTUS said.

In other words, the road would almost certainly give a tremendous boost to the value of the developer’s real estate, at the expense of the public. The developer is supposed to buy and donate back to the government some other piece of land for public use. I think it's a safe bet it will be nowhere as valuable or meaningful as the piece of historic Yosemite being taken away.

The portion of Yosemite Trump wants to give away “is near one of its most iconic sights, the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, which President Abraham Lincoln signed a grant to protect during the American Civil War,” The Daily Beast noted.

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Federal Judge Blocks Trump's Attempt To Restrict Mail-In Voting

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump's attempt to derail the midterm election by restricting mail-in voting.

Judge blocks rule implementing Trump plan to restrict mail-in voting:

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing core parts of a new rule it adopted at President Donald Trump's direction that would tighten mail-in voting requirements ahead of the November congressional elections.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a temporary restraining order at the behest of Democratic-led states and voting rights groups after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a ruling that led to the lifting of earlier injunctions blocking Trump's plans to restrict mail-in voting.

That decision led to a frantic effort by dozens of Democratic state attorneys general and voting rights groups including the League of Women Voters to renew their legal fight and secure an order that would prevent the USPS from enforcing a rule that was allowed to take effect on Wednesday.

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Neocloud Lambda secures $1B in debt to buy more chips

Neocloud Lambda has raised $1B in private debt to buy Nvidia AI chips and lease them to Microsoft. It's the latest in a string of loans, underscoring the high cost of the AI boom.

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Brave’s browser one-ups Chrome with its new support for email aliases

The feature, announced this week, allows Brave's users to sign up for websites and other online services without having to share their personal email addresses.

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Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder who defected to OpenAI, is now at Google

Zoph, who co-founded Thinking Machines Lab alongside Mira Murati and also served as the startup's CTO, led a brief stint at OpenAI and is now at Google.

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It's August 2001 Again, And We're Watching Sharks

Julie Roginsky came on Tequila Talk with a story almost nobody in U.S. media would touch: for most of the week, NATO's been massing serious force near Kaliningrad, and no one will explain why. CIA Director Ratcliffe has suddenly flown to Moscow for an emergency meeting. What's going on? We may be the closest to a hot war with Russia we've been in a long time.

NATO just flew a U.S.-led air exercise on Russia's doorstep—AWACS, electronic warfare, dozens of aircraft over Poland and the Baltic—as Russian drones cross NATO lines and a frigate with hypersonic missiles prowls the Baltic Sea. Cliff and Joe Walsh pour one out and ask a question most are avoiding: what happens if testing stops being a test?

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CIA Director Takes Covert Trip To Moscow: What Are They Hiding?

The CIA Director from the United States made a secret trip to Russia. This morning, a military plane landed just outside Moscow, and a diplomatic motorcade was seen driving through the city center. According to CBS News, CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Russia on a military transport plane for meetings in Moscow today.

Sources shared the following information about Trump’s CIA Chief with CBS News:

"It appears to be Ratcliffe's first known trip to Russia as CIA director, though he has maintained contact with Russian intelligence counterparts."

Totally normal, nothing to worry about, right?

The media outlet pointed out that it is unusual for a CIA chief to visit Moscow:

“Former CIA Director William Burns traveled to Moscow in November 2021, when he met with senior Russian officials and spoke directly with President Vladimir Putin to warn him against invading Ukraine.”

Why Did CIA Director Go to Moscow?

News came out this morning about a C-17 military cargo plane landing in Russia. The Kremlin said it had "no knowledge" of the plane. The plane America's CIA Director used is unusual.

The UK media outlet iNews reported:

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X sends cease-and-desist to open-source project Nitter over alleged scraping

X has sent cease-and-desist letters to Nitter, the open source project behind privacy-friendly X frontends, demanding its instances and code repository be taken down over alleged scraping.

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Stability AI, maker of image generator Stable Diffusion, raises $76 million in fresh funding

The company's new fundraising total now stands at $232 million.

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'I've Had Enough': Trump And Melania's Heated Clash At Indy Race Decoded By Lip Reader

A professional lip reader decoded a heated exchange between President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump at Sunday's race, capturing the president reportedly saying he had "had enough."

The exchange took place at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, the first IndyCar street race ever held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Professional lip reader Nicola Hickling, speaking to Metro, described the conversation as "intense."

The first lady was seen leaning over to speak in the president's ear before the two began talking over each other and she raised her hand, according to Metro.

"That is private and valuable text," Melania Trump reportedly told her husband.

"Was it enough?" Donald Trump replied, according to the lip reader.

Melania Trump answered: "I don't know."

"Then I need to see it," Donald Trump continued.

"Donald, listen, I'm gonna go," Melania Trump said, the lip reader determined.

"It's bad news, but it's a bad timing Melania," Donald Trump said as the exchange grew more pointed, according to Hickling.

"That's crazy," Melania Trump was said to have replied.

Melania Trump then whispered in the president's ear, according to Hickling.

"I've had enough of her," Donald Trump shot back, Hickling reported

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