Dear Commons Community,

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump have agreed to two debates, one on June 27 on CNN and one on Sept. 10 on ABC News, the first onstage clashes between the former president and his successor in more than three years.  As reported by The New York Times.

While some of the details were still being hammered out, the agreement to the two debates, reached in a series of social-media posts yesterday morning, raises the likelihood of the earliest general-election debate in modern history and immediately delivered a jolt of electricity to a campaign that had settled into something of a rut.

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden believe firmly that if the American people get a look at their opponent on a debate stage they will be less likely to vote for them.

Mr. Biden opened the exchange on by saying he was willing to debate Mr. Trump twice before the election, and as early as June, but on the condition that the arrangements bypassed the nonpartisan organization that has managed presidential debates since 1988.

Mr. Biden and his top aides want the debates to start much sooner than the dates proposed by the organization, the Commission on Presidential Debates, so voters can see the two candidates side by side well before early voting begins in September. They want the debate to occur inside a TV studio, with microphones that automatically cut off when a speaker’s time limit elapses.

And they want it to be just the two candidates and the moderator — without the raucous in-person audiences that Mr. Trump feeds on and without the participation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other independent or third-party candidates.

It remains unclear whether the Trump campaign will agree to the Biden campaign’s proposed rules, including the mic cutoff and lack of an audience.

Before the Biden campaign’s debate proposal Wednesday morning, at least one behind-the-scenes conversation between aides to both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump had taken place, according to four people familiar with the discussion. The two campaigns had mutual interest in both circumventing the debates commission and excluding Mr. Kennedy.

That mutual interest between the two camps did not necessarily mean mutual agreement.

Mr. Trump added a new wrinkle when he announced on his social-media site Truth Social that he had agreed to a third debate on Fox News on Oct. 2. But the Biden campaign slammed the door on that.

“President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms,” Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, said. “No more games. No more chaos. No more debate about debates.”

Shortly after the Biden campaign had announced that they would consider invitations from news organizations seeking to host the debates, Mr. Biden posted on X that he had accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate with Mr. Trump on June 27 in Atlanta.

“Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place,” Mr. Biden wrote.

Mr. Trump quickly responded, telling Fox News Digital that he would “be there” and was “looking forward to being in beautiful Atlanta.”

A short time later, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he had accepted the ABC News debate. The Biden team then said the president will attend that one as well.

CNN reported last night that both candidates agreed that there would not be audiences at either debate and that the moderators would have a mic cutoff option.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

There is a good chance the Class of 2024 at Buffalo’s D’Youville University will always remember their ceremony’s special guest speaker, for better or worse: a human-shaped robot named “Sophia” powered by artificial intelligence.

The robot imparted that she was “designed to interact with humans and engage in conversations learning and adapting through artificial intelligence algorithms.”

Sophia went on to urge the graduates to “embrace lifelong learning,” “be adaptable,” and “pursue your passions.”

So how did the graduates of the New York higher learning institution receive the speech?

Reaction was mixed with some finding it novel but others saying they “deserved better” for their sendoff into the world.

See video clip below for parts of Sophia’s speech.

Tony

Mike Pence says history will hold Trump “accountable” for January 6th

Dear Commons Community,

Former Situation Room Officer, Mike Stiegler, said Vice President Mike Pence came “close” to being killed on Jan. 6, 2021, during the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“It’s important to me that we don’t forget that it did come that close, and that we did have discussions, ‘If we lose the [vice president,] if the 25th [Amendment] is invoked,’”  Stiegler said in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that aired yesterday on “Good Morning America,” in a clip highlighted by Mediate. “We started running through all of these game plans because it was getting close.”  As reported by The Hill.

Stiegler also agreed with Stephanopoulos when he referred to the Jan. 6. riot as “inspired” by Trump.

“But at the time, that’s not even in the forefront of our mind,” Stiegler continued. “It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here. How do we execute? How do we move forward?”

Pence faced threats of violence on Jan. 6 for refusing to overturn the 2020 election. He was at the Capitol when rioters broke in and was taken to an underground loading dock amid the attack, according to the Secret Service.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), considered a possible running mate for former President Trump in 2024, has stated his doubt that Pence’s life was in danger that day, saying earlier this month that he thinks “politics and politics people like to really exaggerate things from time to time.”

“I think — look, Jan. 6 was a bad day. It was a riot. But the idea that Donald Trump endangered anyone’s lives when he told them to protest peacefully, it’s just absurd,” Vance later added.

Pence said in March that he will not endorse his former boss, saying he was “incredibly proud” of the Trump administration’s record, but “there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues.” He has expressed his opposition to Trump’s position on abortion and pushback on a ban on TikTok, among other topics.

“In each of these cases, Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years,” Pence said. “And that’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”

Better late than never, Mike!

Tony

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Dear Commons Community,

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) didn’t seem amused by the parade of Republican officials who’ve joined former President Donald Trump at his criminal trial in New York in recent days.

“Do we have something to do around here other than watch a stupid porn trial? I mean, this is ridiculous,” Murkowski, a veteran of the powerful spending committee, told HuffPost on yestrerday when asked about the group of GOP officials who made the trip to downtown Manhattan this week.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), the highest-ranking Republican in the country, paid a visit to the courthouse yesterday to attack the prosecution. So, too, did North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a potential Trump 2024 running mate. On Monday, Trump was joined by Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).

Tuberville said he attended the trial “to help [Trump] with his gag order. He can’t talk, so we can go up there and talk for him.”

“Kind of depressing to be up there in a courtroom,” Tuberville added.

Trump is restricted in what he can say about witnesses and jurors in the case, but that hasn’t stopped the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee’s allies from echoing his attacks against New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan and his family.

More Republican senators could join Trump in the coming days, including potentially Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), another vice presidential contender, and freshman Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who indicated he is interested in making an appearance.

“It’s a Soviet-style show trial,” Schmitt said Tuesday, claiming that the proceedings are the real “threat to American democracy” because Trump is a candidate for president.

Trump was indicted in New York for allegedly falsifying business records relating to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Last week, Daniels recounted her alleged 2006 tryst with Trump and how she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about it.

Republicans have railed against the charges, even going so far as to dismiss the underlying facts of the case ― that it centers on payments made to a porn star.

“There’s nothing new under the sun,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said. “Why are we relitigating something the American people have already litigated?

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), meanwhile, poked fun at the entourage’s matching attire yesterday: Trump’s visitors wore dark navy suits with white shirts and red ties, an ensemble that Trump often wears himself.

“If I go to New York, I’ll make sure I wear a white shirt and a red tie,” Romney quipped on Tuesday.

Murkowski is right.  What a bunch of Republican toadies!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Leon Furze has an article, entitled “Ditch the Detectors: Six Ways to Rethink Assessment for Generative Artificial Intelligence” that scales assessment from active use of AI to doing all assessment in-person. Here is a summary of his recommendations.

• Use Level 5 assessments – At this level, teachers actively encourage students to experiment with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT. “When students leave the educational bubble,” says Furze, “they’ll be free to use whatever tools are available to them.” This gives them practice, with monitoring and accountability, using any applications suitable to the task – text, image, audio, video, 3D, and generating code. Drawbacks include ethical concerns (copyright and intellectual property) and equity of access to GenAI apps.
• Expecting AI use and teaching the skills – It’s realistic to assume that most students will be using AI tools, so it’s smart to teach them how to use them for ideation, editing, and appropriate portions of class assignments. Since everything is in the open, this eliminates the need to use detection tools, and teachers can address students’ concerns and knowledge gaps. Drawbacks include the time, resources, and cost required for educators to get up to speed on the technology, as well as the need to update and reframe current assessment tasks.
• Ungrading – “If we shift the focus of education away from the final assessment and towards what is being taught (and why),” says Furze, “then the imperative for academic misconduct may be lessened” and students may focus more on deeper understanding and genuine learning. Grades keep students focused on GPAs and transcripts versus growth and improvement, says Emily Pitts Donahoe. De-emphasizing grades reduces stress and pressure and allows for imaginative use of GenAI without worrying about the impact on final grades. Drawbacks include going against the grain of many schools’ assessment practices and the notion that ungrading won’t work in “real world” subjects.
• Knowing students’ style and voice – Whether through high-tech tools (“stylometry”) or just plain “knowing your students,” this is what some teachers are doing to guard against inappropriate use of GenAI tools. The advantages include building relationships with students and understanding and appreciating their perspectives and ways of expressing themselves – and strong relationships can help prevent academic misconduct. Drawbacks include whether this can be scaled beyond small classes and whether it really stops the most sophisticated forms of cheating – there are tools that can emulate a student’s style.
• Redefining cheating– This strategy, says Furze, raises the fundamental question: how do we assure that learning has happened? It potentially “allows us to approach academic integrity from a more-constructive standpoint, emphasizing the importance of genuine learning over the moralistic labelling of certain behaviors. By moving away from punitive measures and instead designing assessments that truly demonstrate learning, we can create a system that encourages students to engage with their education meaningfully, rather than seeing it as a series of hoops to jump through.” Redefining cheating also “demonstrates to students that we value trust and transparency and places the expectation on them to do the right thing.” And it has the additional advantage of reducing educators’ workload.
• In-person, in-time, in-place assessments– “There are plenty of methods that predate GenAI by a few centuries,” says Furze, “and still work.” This doesn’t mean examination-style assessments; it includes group work, orals, seminars, simulations, brainstorming with sticky notes, debates, marker pens on butcher paper, and more. Advantages include that these assessments are easy to monitor and secure, since students don’t have access to devices and can be relevant, engaging, and authentic. Drawbacks are that this kind of assessment is difficult to scale for large classes, and there’s no online option.

Good practical suggestions.  I started incorporating Level 5 assessments using generative AI last year.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research and the author of  Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy, had  a guest essay in The New York Times, describing China’s failing economy and what it means for the world system.   It is a very illuminating piece and one that our political leaders should read and reread.  Here is an excerpt:

“Chinese manufacturing overcapacity is flooding global markets with cheap Chinese exports, distorting world trade and leaving American businesses and workers struggling to compete.

Not surprisingly, China’s leaders did not like what they heard, and they didn’t budge. They can’t. Years of erratic and irresponsible policies, excessive Communist Party control and undelivered promises of reform have created a dead-end Chinese economy of weak domestic consumer demand and slowing growth. The only way that China’s leaders can see to pull themselves out of this hole is to fall back on pumping out exports.

That means a number of things are likely to happen, none of them good. The tide of Chinese exports will continue, tensions with the United States and other trading partners will grow, China’s people will become increasingly unhappy with their gloomy economic prospects and anxious Communist Party leaders will respond with more repression.”

She also mentioned that: “monthly government data revealed last year that 21 percent of Chinese youth in urban areas were unemployed.”

I visited China twice as part of invited academic exchanges in 2002 and 2006. Each visit lasted about three weeks and involved meetings with education policy makers, college administrators, and faculty. China was in the middle of a large expansion of its higher education system to increase the number of people in its population going to college from 7% to 25%.  On several occasions, I asked  questions about the ability of the Chinese economy to absorb the increase and provide meaningful employment for people with college degrees.  I generally did not receive any substantive answers and stopped asking the questions so as not to appear impolite.

Stevenson-Yang’s piece is most important reading for anyone interested in the precarious position of the Chinese economic system.

Below is the entire guest essay.

Tony

———————————————————————————–

The New York Times

Anne Stevenson-Yang

Guest Essay

China’s Dead-End Economy Is Bad News for Everyone

May 11, 2024

On separate visits to Beijing last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen bore a common message: Chinese manufacturing overcapacity is flooding global markets with cheap Chinese exports, distorting world trade and leaving American businesses and workers struggling to compete.

Not surprisingly, China’s leaders did not like what they heard, and they didn’t budge. They can’t. Years of erratic and irresponsible policies, excessive Communist Party control and undelivered promises of reform have created a dead-end Chinese economy of weak domestic consumer demand and slowing growth. The only way that China’s leaders can see to pull themselves out of this hole is to fall back on pumping out exports.

That means a number of things are likely to happen, none of them good. The tide of Chinese exports will continue, tensions with the United States and other trading partners will grow, China’s people will become increasingly unhappy with their gloomy economic prospects and anxious Communist Party leaders will respond with more repression.

The root of the problem is the Communist Party’s excessive control of the economy, but that’s not going to change. It is baked into China’s political system and has only worsened during President Xi Jinping’s decade in power. New strategies for fixing the economy always rely on counterproductive mandates set by the government: Create new companies, build more industrial capacity. The strategy that most economists actually recommend to drive growth — freeing up the private sector and empowering Chinese consumers to spend more — would mean overhauling the way the government works, and that is unacceptable.

The party had a golden opportunity to change in 1989, when the Tiananmen Square protests revealed that the economic reforms that had begun a decade earlier had given rise to a growing private sector and a desire for new freedoms. But to liberalize government institutions in response would have undermined the party’s power. Instead, China’s leaders chose to shoot the protesters, further tighten party control and get hooked on government investment to fuel the economy.

For a long time, no one minded. When economic or social threats reared their heads, like global financial crises in 1997 and 2007, Chinese authorities poured money into industry and the real estate sector to pacify the people. The investment-driven growth felt good, but it was much more than the country could digest and left China’s landscape scarred with empty cities and industrial parks, unfinished bridges to nowhere, abandoned highways and amusement parks, and airports with few flights.

The investment in industrial capacity also generated an explosion in exports as China captured industries previously dominated by foreign manufacturers — mobile phones, television sets, solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles. Much of the Chinese economic “miracle” was powered by American, European and Japanese companies that willingly transferred their technical know-how to their Chinese partners in exchange for what they thought would be access to a permanently growing China market. This decimated manufacturing in the West, even as China protected its own markets. But the West let it slide: The cheap products emanating from China kept U.S. inflation at bay for a generation, and the West clung to the hope that China’s economic expansion would eventually lead to a political liberalization that never came.

To raise money for the government investment binge, Beijing allowed local authorities to collateralize land — all of which is ultimately owned or controlled by the state — and borrow money against it. This was like a drug: Local governments borrowed like crazy, but with no real plan for paying the money back. Now many are so deep in debt that they have been forced to cut basic services like heating, health care for senior citizens and bus routes. Teachers aren’t being paid on time, and salaries for civil servants have been lowered in recent years. Millions of people all over China are paying mortgages on apartments that may never be finished. Start-ups are folding, and few people, it seems, can find jobs.

To boost employment, the party over the past couple of years has been telling local governments to push the establishment of new private businesses, with predictable consequences: In one county in northern China, a village secretary eager to comply with Beijing’s wishes reportedly asked relatives and friends to open fake companies. One villager opened three tofu shops in a week; another person applied for 20 new business licenses.

When mandates like that fail to create jobs, the party monkeys with the employment numbers. When monthly government data revealed last year that 21 percent of Chinese youth in urban areas were unemployed, authorities stopped publishing the figures. It resumed early this year, but with a new methodology for defining unemployment. Presto! The number dropped to 15 percent.

But Mr. Xi’s policy options are dwindling.

With the real estate market imploding, the government can no longer risk goosing the property sector. It has begun touting a revival in domestic consumption, but many Chinese are merely hunkering down and hoarding assets such as gold against an uncertain future. So the government is again falling back on manufacturing, pouring money into industrial capacity in hopes of pushing out more products to keep the economy going. With domestic demand anemic, many of those products have to be exported.

But the era when China was able to take over whole industries without foreign pushback is over. Many countries are now taking steps to protect their markets from Chinese-made goods. Under U.S. pressure, Mexico’s government last month reportedly decided it would not award subsidies to Chinese electric vehicle makers seeking to manufacture in Mexico for export to the U.S. market; the European Union is considering action to prevent Chinese electric vehicles from swamping its market; and the Biden administration has moved to encourage semiconductor manufacturing in the United States and limit Chinese access to chip technologies, and has promised more actions to thwart China.

China won’t be able to innovate its way out of this. Its economic model still largely focuses on cheaply replicating existing technologies, not on the long-term research that results in industry-leading commercial breakthroughs. All that leaves is manufacturing in volume.

China’s leaders will face rising economic pressure to lower the value of the renminbi, which will make Chinese-made goods even cheaper in U.S. dollar terms, further boosting export volume and upsetting trading partners even more. But a devaluation will also make imports of foreign products and raw materials more expensive, squeezing Chinese consumers and businesses while encouraging wealthier people to get their money out of China. The government can’t turn to economic stimulus measures to revive growth — pouring more renminbi into the economy would risk crushing the currency’s value.

All of this means that the “reform and opening” era, which has transformed China and captivated the world since it began in the late 1970s, has ended with a whimper.

Mao Zedong once said that in an uncertain world, the Chinese must “Dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere and never seek hegemony.” That sort of siege mentality is coming back.

Dear Commons Community,

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced “nastiness” and “lies” over the last several years and decried Washington, D.C., as a “hideous place.”

Thomas spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments pushing back on his critics in response to a question about working in a world that seems meanspirited.

“I think there’s challenges to that. We’re in a world and we — certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been — just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible,” Thomas said.

“But you have some choices. You don’t get to prevent people from doing horrible things or saying horrible things. But one you have to understand and accept the fact that they can’t change you unless you permit that,” Thomas said.

Thomas has faced criticisms that he took accepted luxury trips from a GOP donor without reporting them. Thomas last year maintained that he didn’t have to report the trips paid for by one of “our dearest friends.” His wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas has faced criticism for using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

He did not discuss the content of the criticisms directly, but said that “reckless” people in Washington will “bomb your reputation.”

“They don’t bomb you necessarily, but they bomb your reputation or your good name or your honor. And that’s not a crime. But they can do as much harm that way,” Thomas said.

During the appearance, Thomas was asked questions by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, one of Thomas’ former law clerks who was later appointed to the federal bench. During his hour-long appearance, the longest-serving justice on the court discussed a wide range of topics including the lessons of his grandfather, his friendship with former colleagues and his belief that court writings and discussions should be more accessible for “regular people.”

Thomas, who spent most of his working life in Washington D.C., also discussed his dislike of it.

“I think what you are going to find and especially in Washington, people pride themselves on being awful. It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said. Thomas said that it is one of the reasons he and his wife “like RVing.”

“You get to be around regular people who don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things, merely because they have the capacity to do it or because they disagree,” Thomas said.

A recreational vehicle used by Thomas also became a source of controversy. Senate Democrats in October issued a report saying that most of the $267,000 loan obtained by Thomas to buy a high-end motorcoach appears to have been forgiven.

Thomas did not discuss the court’s high-profile caseload.

Thomas is absolutely right.  Washington D.C. has become a “hideous place” but it is because of people like him and his wife who accept gifts from moneyed interests and spread lies about government leaders.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, critiqued Stormy Daniels’s testimony in the Trump “hush money’ trial and concluded that if nothing else it demonstrated that Trump is not the man to be the president of the our country.  Here is an excerpt:

“we’re left with a two-bit case that has devolved into dirty bits, filled with salacious details — a spanking, a missionary position and ping-ponging insults like “horse face” and “orange turd.”

Yet, even if it plays like a cheesy old Cinemax “After Dark” show, it’s still illuminating. The case doesn’t hinge on Stormy Daniels’s story about her liaison with Trump, or even if the former president is lying when he says they didn’t have sex. (He would say that, wouldn’t he?)

It’s instructive about the moral values — or lack thereof — of our once and perhaps future president.”

She concluded:

“The compelling part of this case is not whether Trump did something wrong with business papers. The compelling part is how it shows, in a vivid way, that he’s the wrong man for the job.”

Below is the entire column.

Tony

————————————–

The New York Times

Opinion

Maureen Dowd

Donnie After Dark

May 11, 2024

Stormy was working blue, and the judge was seeing red.

Justice Juan Merchan chided Donald Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles, saying he didn’t understand why she hadn’t objected to seamy details about the President and the Porn Star spilling out.

“Why on earth she wouldn’t object to the mention of a condom I don’t understand,” Merchan complained about Necheles.

But I wanted to hear about the condom — or lack thereof. The New York trial involves an abstruse legal strategy and illusory crime. It’s the weakest of the cases against Trump. It’s certainly not putting him on trial for the attempted coup d’état he incited or for treating top secret documents as dinner conversation fodder at his golf clubs. But it now seems almost certain that none of the other cases will be resolved before the election.

So we’re left with a two-bit case that has devolved into dirty bits, filled with salacious details — a spanking, a missionary position and ping-ponging insults like “horse face” and “orange turd.”

Yet, even if it plays like a cheesy old Cinemax “After Dark” show, it’s still illuminating. The case doesn’t hinge on Stormy Daniels’s story about her liaison with Trump, or even if the former president is lying when he says they didn’t have sex. (He would say that, wouldn’t he?)

It’s instructive about the moral values — or lack thereof — of our once and perhaps future president.

We know that Trump is a louche operator. But, given that he is leading in crucial swing states, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of just how louche.

To paraphrase Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman, every word Trump utters is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

Trump’s legal team seems to be hoping that Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout, his former aides who tearily testified for the prosecution, gave the impression that he didn’t want the Stormy story to come out on the eve of the 2016 election because he was tenderly concerned about how it would affect Melania, rather than selfishly concerned about his presidential aspirations.

Asked about Trump’s intentions, Stormy offered a shrug to the jury, saying, “I wouldn’t know what he wanted to protect.”

In her telling, Trump wasn’t concerned about his wife, with a new baby at home. He told Stormy not to worry about Melania.

Stormy said he was more focused on her resemblance to Ivanka and a possible threesome with another blond porn star, Alana Evans, of “It’s Okay! She’s My Mother in Law 13” and “Dirty Little Sex Brats 9.”

When Necheles tried to make Stormy seem tawdry on cross-examination, the mistress of exotica flipped the script. Sure, she was an opportunist and a finagler and a marketer of tacky products, she conceded in essence, but if it was OK for a man who ascended to the highest office in the land, wasn’t it OK for her?

Stormy made mincemeat of Necheles’s tone-deaf attempt to paint her as a shabby self-promoter with one response: “Not unlike Mr. Trump.”

As The Times noted, Stormy and Donnie were like twins: “He wrote more than a dozen self-aggrandizing books; she wrote a tell-all memoir. He mocked her appearance on social media; she fired back with a scatological insult. He peddled a $59.99 Bible; she hawked a $40 ‘Stormy, saint of indictments’ candle, that carried her image draped in a Christlike robe.”

Trump may have undermined his own case, falling prey to his own capacious and quivering ego. He clearly wanted his lawyers to push his unconvincing tale that — even though he paid $130,000 to keep Stormy from talking and even though she described what’s in his dopp kit and the details of his anatomy — the 2006 Lake Tahoe rendezvous was a figment of her imagination.

Necheles doggedly pursued this fruitless tack with Stormy, to her own and Trump’s detriment.

“You made all this up, right?” the lawyer pressed.

“No,” Stormy replied.

When Necheles kept pecking, noting that the actress, director and producer had starred in porn films with “phony stories about sex,” Stormy leveled her by slyly replying that if she had made up the story about her encounter with Trump, “I would have written it to be a lot better.” She also schooled Trump’s lawyer on the fact that “The sex is very real. That’s why it’s pornography and not a B movie.”

Trump came across as a loser in her account — a narcissist, cheater, sad Hugh Hefner wannabe, trading his satin pajamas for a dress shirt and trousers (and, later, boxers) as soon as Stormy mocked him. The man who was the likely source of the “Best Sex I Ever Had” tabloid headline, attributed to Marla Maples at the time, no doubt loathes Stormy for having described their batrachian grappling, as Aldous Huxley called sex, as “textbook generic.”

Like a legal dominatrix, Stormy continued to emasculate the former president after her testimony, tweeting: “Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh … wait. Nevermind.”

The compelling part of this case is not whether Trump did something wrong with business papers. The compelling part is how it shows, in a vivid way, that he’s the wrong man for the job.

Dear Commons Community,

Speculation is swirling over the role Nikki Haley will play in the next few months as she racks up primary votes against former President Trump after dropping out of the presidential race.

Haley, who exited the race in March, garnered 21.7 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s Indiana primary, the latest example of her winning a significant share of votes against Trump despite no longer being a candidate.

The former U.N. ambassador’s vote totals in recent contests have served as a warning sign for the former president and led to questions over whether she will endorse him or sit out the election entirely.

Haley ended her presidential bid in March, saying being a private citizen is “privilege enough in itself.” Last month, Haley joined the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, as its next Walter P. Stern chair.

And despite losing to Trump this cycle, Republicans say she still has a bright future ahead. As reported by The Hill.

“I think Nikki Haley is always looking to the horizon politically,” said Dave Wilson, a South Carolina-based Republican strategist. “She is looking for that opportunity that she can grab a hold of and run with it as long and as hard as she can.”

Haley is set to meet with roughly 100 donors next week in Charleston on Monday and Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the meetings, which are intended to serve as a “thank you” to the donors who supported her presidential bid. Haley does not have plans to endorse Trump.

But even though Haley lost to Trump in the primary, her successes with Republican primary voters are not lost on her supporters. Haley notably racked up around 17 percent of the Republican primary vote in Pennsylvania and Arizona, respectively — two of the country’s most consequential swing states.

While she was still in the race, Haley pointed frequently to data suggesting 40 percent of Republican primary voters supported her over Trump, arguing it was a sign of Trump’s vulnerability with the GOP primary electorate and more moderate voters.

“What we’re seeing is that Haley voters are going to be a really crucial and critical voting block,” said Brittany Martinez, a Republican strategist. “I think there is a lot at stake and from what I’m understanding it really sounds like neither the Trump nor Biden campaigns have tapped into that yet.”

The continued support for Haley in recent GOP primaries has stoked speculation over her next move. Wilson said the Haley votes are a sign of her staying power, but cautioned there are still questions about the voters coming out for Haley despite not being in the race.

“The question that I really begin to ask is, is her staying because of who she is or is her staying power there right now because it’s somebody other than Trump that these people are voting for,” he said. “We don’t know. Is it a pro-Haley vote or an anti-Trump vote?”

“That has got to factor into what Nikki Haley looks at for her long-term political career,” Wilson said.

Trump’s supporters point out Haley has received support from Democratic voters in primaries and that when confronted with the choice of Trump vs. Biden, Republican and conservative leaning voters will likely not choose Biden.

“I do not think wooing Haley voters is the best use of your time and resources,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “By the fall the GOP base is going to come home to Trump because it’s not like inflation and interest rates are going to improve and it’s not like the border is going to get anymore closed between now and then.”

Trump echoed this sentiment during an interview with WGAL in Lancaster, Pa., this week.

“Well, that’s a very small number because she was campaigning, she was spending millions of dollars, she was getting it from Democrats,” Trump said.

“All of those people are going to come to me because, first of all, what’s their choice? Biden, he’s the worst president in the history of our country,” he continued. “They’re all coming to me. We see it already.”

Still, Haley is seen as a figure that has sway with suburban voters, particularly suburban women, who have swung toward Democrats every election year going back to Trump’s first midterm election as president in 2018.

“That was her strength and we saw that again in Indiana,” O’Connell said. “Yes, it was an open primary. At the same time though, this election is going to be decided by inches on the Electoral College map.”

Reports on Saturday speculated that the Trump campaign is actively considering Haley to be his running mate. The former U.N. ambassador has not given any indication yet that she would agree to be on the same ticket as Trump.

Trump denied the speculation, saying that she is “not under consideration,” but that he wishes “her well.”

The last days of Haley’s campaign were marked by heightening animosity between her and Trump. Haley wished Trump well in her remarks announcing her exit from the race, but it’s unclear whether the two would team up on the campaign trail. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who was also the subject of Trump’s wrath in the primary, met with Trump late last month in Miami and the two pledged to work together this cycle.

It is my opinion that if she was running in November against Joe Biden rather than Trump, she would win.  I see her as a most viable candidate in 2028.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Neuralink’s first human brain implant experienced some mechanical issues in the weeks after its implantation, resulting in some loss of connectivity, Elon Musk’s computer-brain interface company revealed this week.  As reported by The Huffington Post and other media.

An undisclosed number of ultra-thin threads that help Nolan Arbaugh, who’s a quadriplegic, control a computer cursor with his brain unexpectedly “retracted” from his brain, the California-based company disclosed in a blog post Wednesday.To compensate for this loss, the company said engineers heightened the implant’s sensitivity to neural signals and adjusted how these neural signals translate into movements with the cursor. These changes, it said, ultimately resulted in “a rapid and sustained improvement … that has now superseded Noland’s initial performance.”

Though it was not suggested that the issue could pose a risk to Arbaugh’s safety, Neuralink did consider removing his implant after losing some of the threads, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the events.

The company has been in contact with the Food and Drug Administration, which approved Neuralink’s first human clinical trial a year ago this month, and it has told the federal agency that it believes it knows how to fix the implant’s problems, the Journal also reported.

A Neuralink representative did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

In a livestream video on Saturday, Arbaugh, who was paralyzed in 2016, demonstrated his ability to independently activate various computer programs with his brain. He had previously used a mouth-held stylus. The more time spent using the program, the more its accuracy improves, he said.

“Before I was having to do this in the most suboptimal way I think in the world, so it’s already changed my life as far as that goes, and it’s only going to get better,” he said while demonstrating his ability to play video games, access online books and use a language learning program.

Neuralink has said that it hopes to continually improve its cursor control and functionality to include text entry. It also has its sights on eventually controlling robotic arms, wheelchairs and other technology used by those living with quadriplegia.

This is incredible technology and reminds me of the first heart transplant operations in the 1960s.

Tony