Dear Commons Community,

Within hours of former President Donald Trump being federally indicted, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) was  fundraising off of the news ― for Trump, but almost entirely for herself.

“President Trump has been indicted on federal charges,” reads the subject line of a Thursday-night email from Team Elise, Stefanik’s joint fundraising committee.

“Biden’s weaponized federal government has handed President Trump BOGUS CHARGES over the ‘Boxes Hoax,’” says the email. “They are just trying to keep him out of the White House in 2024. President Trump needs ALL of his loyal supporters to stand with him at this crucial time.”

“RUSH A DONATION TO OUR OFFICIAL TRUMP DEFENSE FUND TO STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP,” the email shouts.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

It’s pretty tacky to raise money off of a former president being indicted, but that’s not the worst of it. Stefanik uses a sneaky tactic in her fundraising email to try to get as much money from people as possible, even if they may not realize what they’re agreeing to.

Her email is set up so that if you click through to donate money to Trump, the website automatically checks a little box making your donation a monthly recurring donation. You have to be paying attention to notice this.

Stefanik’s fundraising email automatically checks a box that signs people up to give recurring donations to her and Trump.

And even though Stefanik’s fundraising email and landing page say these donations are for an official defense fund for Trump, when you read the fine print, you can see that virtually all of that money is set up to go to Stefanik.

Underneath brightly colored graphics of suggested donation amounts that you can directly click on ― $100, $500 or even $3,300, the maximum donation allowed ― is a tiny sentence that says to click on it for details about how your donation will be allocated. It’s here that you can see where your money is automatically set up to go.

There’s a tiny sentence in Elise Stefanik’s fundraising email that, if you see it and click on it, will show you that most of the money you’re giving to Trump is automatically set up to go to Stefanik.

A $250 donation to the “OFFICIAL TRUMP DEFENSE FUND,” for example, breaks down to $247.50 for Stefanik and $2.50 for the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.

A $500 donation translates to $495 for Stefanik and $5 for Trump.

A $3,300 donation breaks down to $3,267 for Stefanik and $33 for Trump.

You can edit these allocations, of course. But you have to be paying attention to that little sentence in the first place, and to the fact that you can edit the preset allocations.

A $3,300 donation to the so-called Official Trump Defense Fund breaks down to $3,267 for Elise Stefanik and $33 for Trump.

A Stefanik spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on why she is raising money off of Trump’s indictment, or why she is raising money for a so-called official defense fund for Trump when most of that money is set to go directly to her campaign.

There is slime and there is slime!

Tony

Illustration by Sarah Tretler

Dear Commons Community,

Earlier this week, Columbia University announced that it will no longer submit data to U.S. News & World Report for its undergraduate rankings this year. 

The announcement read:  “We are convinced that synthesizing data into a single U.S. News submission for its Best Colleges rankings does not adequately account for all of the factors that make our undergraduate programs exceptional.”

Furthermore, “We remain concerned with the role that rankings have assumed in the undergraduate application process,” reads the announcement, “both in the outsize influence they may play with prospective students, and in how they distill a university’s profile into a composite of data categories. Much is lost in this approach.”

U.S. News leaders say the rankings provide valuable information to prospective students, and that they will continue to rank colleges, even if they don’t submit data. “Students rely on the rankings and information we provide to navigate the confusing and uncertain admissions process,” Eric J. Gertler, chief executive of U.S. News, said in an emailed statement. “Our critics tend to attribute every issue faced by academia” to rankings, he added.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

To inform applicants, Columbia is publishing Common Data Sets, which are data sets that many colleges post voluntarily and include many, but not all, of the numbers that U.S. News and other rankers use in their calculations. For example, the Common Data Set asks for class sizes, but not for “reputation” or percent of alumni who donate, all of which U.S. News historically collects for its rankings. “We are committed to sharing extensive information about our programs and hope that prospective applicants and their families will spend time looking at our Common Data Sets and the information that accompanies them,” reads the Columbia announcement, which was signed by Mary C. Boyce, the provost, and the deans of Columbia’s three undergraduate schools.

In an interview with The Chronicle in March 2022, Michael Thaddeus, a mathematics professor at Columbia University, who opposes college rankings,  said he wished all of the Ivy League institutions would stop cooperating with U.S. News’ s undergraduate rankings, to send the message that they’re problematic. Columbia’s decision may be a start.

So be it!!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a surprise decision, ruled yesterday that Alabama had diluted the power of Black voters in drawing a congressional voting map, reaffirming a landmark civil rights law that had been thought to be in peril.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has often voted to restrict voting rights and is generally skeptical of race-conscious decision making by the government, wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 ruling, stunning election-law experts. In agreeing that race may play a role in redistricting, the chief justice was joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Voting rights advocates had feared that the decision would further undermine the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a central legislative achievement of the civil rights movement whose reach the court’s conservative majority has eroded in recent years. Instead, the law appeared to emerge unscathed from its latest encounter with the court.

The case concerned a voting map redrawn by Republican lawmakers after the 2020 census, leaving only one majority Black congressional district in a state with seven districts and a Black voting-age population that had grown to about 26 percent.  As reported by The New York Times.

The impact of the decision, which required the Legislature to draw a second district in which Black voters have the opportunity to elect representatives of their choice, will not be limited to Alabama. Other states in the South, notably Louisiana and Georgia, may also have to redraw their maps to bolster Black voting power, which could, among other things, help Democrats in their efforts to retake the House.

The chief justice wrote that there were legitimate concerns that the law “may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the states.” He added: “Our opinion today does not diminish or disregard these concerns. It simply holds that a faithful application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us do not bear them out here.”

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a slashing dissent. The majority’s approach, he wrote, “does not remedy or deter unconstitutional discrimination in districting in any way, shape or form.”

“On the contrary,” he added, “it requires it, hijacking the districting process to pursue a goal that has no legitimate claim under our constitutional system: the proportional allocation of political power on the basis of race.”

In all, he wrote, the majority ruled “that race belongs in virtually every redistricting.”

Justice Thomas’s bitter tone suggested deep disappointment with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh and profound regret over a missed opportunity. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined all or large parts of Justice Thomas’s dissent.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that it was possible that “the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”

Justice Thomas responded that his colleague had nonetheless voted “to sustain a system of institutionalized racial discrimination in districting — under the aegis of a statute that applies nationwide and has no expiration date — and thus to prolong the lasting harm to our society

rights leaders say the redistricting process often disadvantages growing minority communities. Republican state officials say the Constitution allows only a limited role for the consideration of race in drawing voting districts.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland welcomed the ruling. “Today’s decision rejects efforts to further erode fundamental voting rights protections, and preserves the principle that in the United States, all eligible voters must be able to exercise their constitutional right to vote free from discrimination based on their race,” he said in a statement.

Good news – good decision!

Tony

Credit: The Daily Beast

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump was indicted yesterday on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, a remarkable development that makes him the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges by the federal government.

The Justice Department was expected to make public a seven-count indictment ahead of a historic court appearance next week in the midst of a 2024 presidential campaign punctuated by criminal prosecutions in multiple states.  As reported by The Associated Press.

The indictment carries unmistakably grave legal consequences, including the possibility of prison if Trump’s convicted.

But it also has enormous political implications, potentially upending a Republican presidential primary that Trump had been dominating and testing anew the willingness of GOP voters and party leaders to stick with a now twice-indicted candidate who could face still more charges. And it sets the stage for a sensational trial centered on claims that a man once entrusted to safeguard the nation’s most closely guarded secrets willfully, and illegally, hoarded sensitive national security information.

The Justice Department did not immediately confirm the indictment publicly. But two people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly said that the indictment included seven criminal counts. One of those people said Trump’s lawyers were contacted by prosecutors shortly before he announced Thursday on his Truth Social platform that he had been indicted.

Within minutes of his announcement, Trump, who said he was due in court Tuesday afternoon in Miami, began fundraising off it for his presidential campaign. He declared his innocence in a video and repeated his familiar refrain that the investigation is a “witch hunt.”

The case adds to deepening legal jeopardy for Trump, who has already been indicted in New York and faces additional investigations in Washington and Atlanta that also could lead to criminal charges. But among the various investigations he faces, legal experts — as well as Trump’s own aides — had long seen the Mar-a-Lago probe as the most perilous threat and the one most ripe for prosecution. Campaign aides had been bracing for the fallout since Trump’s attorneys were notified that he was the target of the investigation, assuming it was not a matter of if charges would be brought, but when.

Appearing Thursday night on CNN, Trump attorney James Trusty said the indictment includes charges of willful retention of national defense information — a crime under the Espionage Act, which polices the handling of government secrets — obstruction, false statements and conspiracy.

…

The Justice Department has said Trump repeatedly resisted efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration to get the documents back. After months of back-and-forth, Trump representatives returned 15 boxes of records in January 2022, including about 184 documents that officials said had classified markings on them.

FBI and Justice Department investigators issued a subpoena in May 2022 for classified documents that remained in Trump’s possession. But after a Trump lawyer provided three dozen records and asserted that a diligent search of the property had been done, officials came to suspect even more documents remained.

The investigation had simmered for months before bursting into front-page news in remarkable fashion last August. That’s when FBI agents served a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago and removed 33 boxes containing classified records, including top-secret documents stashed in a storage room and desk drawer and commingled with personal belongings. Some records were so sensitive that investigators needed upgraded security clearances to review them, the Justice Department has said.

The investigation into Trump had appeared complicated — politically, if not legally — by the discovery of documents with classified markings in the Delaware home and former Washington office of President Joe Biden, as well as in the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence. The Justice Department recently informed Pence that he would not face charges, while a second special counsel continues to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.

But compared with Trump, there are key differences in the facts and legal issues surrounding Biden’s and Pence’s handling of documents, including that representatives for both men say the documents were voluntarily turned over to investigators as soon as they were found. In contrast, investigators quickly zeroed on whether Trump, who for four years as president expressed disdain for the FBI and Justice Department, had sought to obstruct the inquiry by refusing to turn over all the requested documents.

Congratulations to the U.S. Justice Department!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Former Vice President Mike Pence officially announced his presidential campaign in Iowa yesterday with a repudiation of Donald J. Trump, portraying his former boss as unfit for the presidency and going further than ever before in condemning the character and values of the man he loyally served for four years.

Before a crowd of several hundred on the campus of the Des Moines Area Community College, Mr. Pence focused on something that many in his party have tried to desperately avoid: Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.  As reported by The New York Times.

“Jan. 6 was a tragic day in the life of our nation,” Mr. Pence said. “But thanks to the courage of law enforcement, the violence was quelled, we reconvened the Congress. The very same day, President Trump’s reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol.”

He added: “But the American people deserve to know on that fateful day, President Trump also demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”

No other major Republican candidate for president has even mentioned the attack on the Capitol in an announcement speech. Most elected Republicans have contorted themselves to avoid ever talking about that day — believing it only alienates their voters. A growing number of Republicans are going even further, trying to falsely reframe the attack on the Capitol as an inside job by the F.B.I. or by leftist groups pretending to be Trump supporters.

Instead, Mr. Pence described his own actions that day in certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as a decisive moment that proved his mettle, and Mr. Trump’s actions that day as disqualifying.

“The Republican Party must be the party of the Constitution of the United States,” Mr. Pence said to applause.

“Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” he said. “And anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president again.”

Mr. Pence’s use of the word “never” took him across a line he had not breached until now, even as he has criticized Mr. Trump since Jan. 6. His announcement speech put him closer to more outspoken Republicans such as former Representative Liz Cheney, who have described Mr. Trump as morally unfit to occupy the Oval Office.

With his remarks, Mr. Pence raised an immediate question for his campaign: As one of the criteria for participating in the G.O.P. primary debates, the Republican National Committee requires each candidate to sign a pledge that they will support the party’s eventual nominee.

Mr. Pence has put himself in the potential position of having to support a candidate in Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the Republican Party, who he said should “never” be president.

Despite that, only minutes after his speech, Mr. Pence promised in an interview with Fox News that he would support the Republican nominee for president, “especially if it’s me.”

Pence cannot have it both ways!

Tony

Chris Licht

Dear Commons Community,

CNN CEO Chris Licht will leave his post after a little more than a year at the helm after losing the support of staff and enacting a series of chaotic editorial changes under the direction of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.  As reported by Variety.

David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, told staffers yesterday of the decision during CNN’s regular editorial call, according to three people familiar with the matter. These people said Zaslav and his team informed Licht as early as Tuesday that he could no longer stay in the role, which he assumed in May of last year. Licht was the subject of a disastrous profile in The Atlantic last week that depicted him as being aloof from staff, thin skinned in regards to press coverage, and annoyed by comparisons to his predecessor, Jeff Zucker.

In his place, a team of three executives will run CNN’s editorial operations for an interim period: Amy Entelis, a longtime CNN executive who worked with Zucker and helps manage talent relations; Virginia Moseley, recently named to oversee editorial operations; and Eric Sherling, recently appointed head of U.S. programming. David Leavy, a longtime Zaslav lieutenant who was named chief operating officer at CNN last week, will oversee business activities. Kris Coratti Kelly, who was named to oversee CNN’s communications in July, is leaving, according to two people familiar with the matter.

How long the trio is in place remains uncertain. Zaslav told staffers he was in no rush to name a new chief executive at CNN. Entelis is seen as an internal frontrunner to take on the top news job, according to one person familiar with the network, but may not mesh with Zaslav, because she is likely to push back harder on his directions if she does not think they are the best for CNN’s business.

“I have great respect for Chris, personally and professionally,” Zaslav said in a statement. “The job of leading CNN was never going to be easy, especially at a time of huge disruption and transformation, and he has poured his heart and soul into it. While we know we have work to do as we look to identify a new leader, we have absolute confidence in the team we have in place and will continue to fight for CNN and its world class journalism.”

Licht presided over a disorderly era at CNN, one that shifted anchors around in a bid to follow a new mission installed by the parent company: tamp down on the crusading tone the network took on during its coverage of the Trump administration under Zucker. But Warner Bros. Discovery did so in combative fashion, demanding more from staff even as it squeezed costs, scuttled new operations like the streaming hub CNN+ and gutted the ranks of the journalists working at the operation. Licht never meshed well with his staff, who had close ties to Zucker, and ran into trouble after holding a live town hall with former President Trump and moving provocative primetime anchor Don Lemon to a morning program where he clashed with his co-anchors. Lemon was ousted in April.

The results? Viewership has plummeted and projections for CNN’s business performance in 2023 are not robust. CNN is estimated to see 2023 ad revenue fall about 5%, to $562.6 million, according to Kagan, a market-research unit of S&P Global Intelligence, largely to declines in ratings. And a significant number of talented CNN anchors and producers have made their way to rivals like MSNBC, CBS News and ABC News.

Warner Bros. Discovery has only so much time to find a working plan for CNN. The 2024 presidential election looms, an event which gives rise to a news cycle that typically draws bigger audiences, generates higher ratings, and wins new sponsorships from advertisers. Its arrival comes as cable networks face an era of diminishing returns, when viewers are more prone to zap over to their favorite streaming hub and create their own primetime schedule. What’s more, advertisers have grown increasingly nervous about supporting news programming in a time when a fracturing audience has grown increasingly polarized and more prone to take sponsors to task on social media

Inside CNN, staffers are tired of the drama that came during Licht’s tenure, according to one person familiar with the network, but some have empathy for the executive. These staffers believe Licht was relentlessly micromanaged by Zaslav, and lay many of CNN’s problems — poor ratings, staffing decisions and programming gaffes — at his feet and those of Warner Bros. Discovery. The company has treated its makeover of CNN as if it were trying to revamp one of its unscripted holdings, like DIY or Travel Channel, this person says, rather than understanding how journalism is made and valued.

A lengthy profile of Licht in Atlantic magazine that came out last week, titled “Inside the Meltdown at CNN,” proved embarrassing and likely sealed his fate. Author Tim Alberta discussed how Licht’s effort to reach viewers turned off by CNN’s hostility to Trump had failed and damaged his standing with CNN journalists.

“Licht’s theory of CNN — what had gone wrong, how to fix it, and why doing so could lift the entire industry — made a lot of sense,” Alberta wrote. “The execution of that theory? Another story. Every move he made, big programming decisions and small tactical maneuvers alike, seemed to backfire.”

In the piece, Licht talked about how some of CNN’s COVID coverage had been high-strung and lost touch with the country, a criticism that angered many in the newsroom.

Ultimately, Alberta could not get Zaslav to agree to an on-the-record assessment of Licht’s tenure, an ominous sign.

Some of CNN’s chief anchors — Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett — had privately expressed their reservations about Licht’s leadership, according to a Wall Street Journal article that was posted Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, viewers were disappearing, a decline exacerbated by the quickening trend of consumers cutting the cord from traditional cable. CNN’s prime-time viewership of 494,000 in May was down 16% from April and was less than half of its closest news rival, MSNBC. It was down 25% from the average of 660,000 in May 2022.

CNN’s profits have also been sinking. The network generated $892 million in profit in 2022, down from $1.08 billion in 2020, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

We wish Licht well in his next venture!

Tony

Chris Christie

Dear Commons Community,

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasted no time going after Donald Trump while launching his presidential campaign on yesterday, calling the former president and current Republican primary front-runner a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog” and arguing that he’s the only one who can stop him.

Christie began his run with a town hall in New Hampshire. The former governor and federal prosecutor ran for president and lost to Trump in 2016 and went on to become a close off-and-on adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.

Now that Trump is trying again for the White House, Christie is out to do everything in his power to deny him. After criticizing other Republican primary rivals for being afraid to directly challenge Trump, Christie made clear that he had no such concerns.

“The person I am talking about, who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong — but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right — is Donald Trump,” he told a small, mostly friendly crowd at Saint Anselm College.

“A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader,” Christie said, saying Trump “made us smaller by dividing us even further and pitting us one against the other.”

But he also said President Joe Biden “is doing the same thing, just on the other side.” He noted that he’d known Biden for decades and said the president is “out of his depth” because “he’s not the guy he used to be,” referencing the 80-year-old Biden’s advanced age.

But Christie’s chief target was Trump.

“There’s a big argument in our country right now about whether character matters, and we have leaders who have shown us over and over again that not only are they devoid of character, they don’t care.” Christie said. “We can’t dismiss the question of character anymore, everybody. If we do, we get what we deserve, and we will have to own it.”

Christie enters a growing primary field that already includes Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Former Vice President Mike Pence will be formally launching his own campaign in Iowa on Wednesday.

During his time as governor, Christie established a reputation as a fighter with a knack for creating viral moments of confrontation. But he faces an uphill battle to the nomination in a party that remains closely aligned with the former president, despite Trump’s reelection loss in 2020 and Republicans’ poorer-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections.

Christie argues that unless top Republicans dare confront Trump, there will be a repeat of the 2016 GOP primary, when Trump rolled over a host of alternatives with more political experience who split the support of voters opposing him.

Christie said Tuesday that the only way to win the GOP nomination was to topple Trump, but he was in the race to win the White House, not just the primary. He made fun of Trump’s failed promise to wall off the entire southern U.S. border and have Mexico pay for it but said that voters who believed Trump in 2016 now knew better.

Anti-Trump Republicans are particularly eager to see Christie spar with Trump on a debate stage — if, of course, Trump agrees to participate in primary debates and Christie meets the stringent fundraising criteria set by the Republican National Committee for participation.

I don’t know that Christie will be able to win the nomination but he will make life uncomfortable for Trump which is more than what the other Republican candidates are doing!

Tony

The sun rises in a hazy sky behind the Empire State Building in New York City. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Dear Commons Community,

Intense Canadian wildfires are blanketing the northeastern U.S. in a choking haze, turning the air acrid, the sky yellowish gray and prompting warnings for vulnerable populations to stay inside.

The effects of hundreds of wildfires burning across the western provinces to Quebec could be felt as far away as New York City and New England, blotting out skylines and irritating throats.

U.S. authorities issued air quality alerts. Hazy conditions and smoke from the wildfires were reported across the Great Lakes region from Cleveland to Buffalo.

A smoky haze that hung over New York City yesterday thickened in the late afternoon, obscuring views of New Jersey across the Hudson River and making the setting sun look like a reddish orb. In the Philadelphia area, dusk brought more of a lavender haze.

Smoke from the fires has wafted through northeast U.S. states for weeks now, but it’s only recently been noticeable in most places.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said yesterday’s hazy skies “were hard to miss,” and New York City Mayor Eric Adams encouraged residents to limit outdoor activities ”to the absolute necessities.”

It is pretty ugly here in New York!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading Quantum Supremacy:  How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything, by Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics here at the City University of New York. It covers a lot of ground in reviewing the development of quantum computers and predicting their contributions in helping to advance major developments in  humankind’s evolution especially in science and medicine.  The first part of the book referring to the work of Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Niels Bohr is well done and accessible. However, the evolution of quantum computers based on the nature of qubits versus the nature of simpler digital bits is not easy material.  The second part of the book focuses on the potential impact of quantum computers for solving and helping us understand major universal phenomena.  As with most predictions in technological evolution and prediction, it is not a question of whether but of when.  In this respect, Kaku joins many others who have ventured into this realm.  Below is a brief review that appeared in the audio book section of the New York Times Book Review.

Try it if you have an interest in the quantum world.

Tony

—————————————-

The New York Times Book Review

Audiobooks

From Subatomic Particles to the Cosmos, and Every Bird in Between

Sebastian Modak

May 26, 2023

If you’d asked me a month ago what quantum theory was, I would have tried to answer only to stop myself once I realized that I didn’t actually know. It’s one of those concepts, like space-time or artificial intelligence, that many of us recognize (from science fiction, from the news) without ever really understanding them. That’s where QUANTUM SUPREMACY: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything (Random House Audio, 10 hours, 41 minutes), by the renowned translator of theoretical physics Michio Kaku, comes in. Named for the theoretical stage at which “a radically new type of computer, called a quantum computer, could decisively outperform an ordinary digital supercomputer on specific tasks,” the audiobook, read with deliberate — if at times robotic — clarity by Feodor Chin, begins with claims, by a handful of companies, that we are already there.

Kaku explains how we’ve come to such an “inflection point,” at which the potential benefits of quantum computing — that is, computing at the subatomic level, without the need for microchips — are increasingly outweighing the risks, like the need for extremely controlled conditions. Kaku spends much of the audiobook recounting the history of computing, bringing listeners back to the Turing machine and the invention of transistors as crucial foundations.

That mind-blowing future is the focus of the final five or so hours of the audiobook, which explores the real-world impacts quantum computing could have: altering our immune systems to avoid cancer and Alzheimer’s, increasing crop yields, ending world hunger. As Kaku puts it, “the familiar laws of common sense are routinely violated at the atomic level”; but his lucid prose and thought process make abundant sense of this technological turning point.