Sam Altman

Dear Commons Community,

From the moment OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stepped onstage, it was clear this was not going to be a normal interview.

Altman and his chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap, stood awkwardly toward the back of the stage at a jam-packed San Francisco venue that typically hosts jazz concerts. Hundreds of people filled steep theatre-style seating on last night to watch Kevin Roose, a columnist with The New York Times, and Platformer’s Casey Newton record a live episode of their popular technology podcast, Hard Fork.

Altman and Lightcap were the main event, but they’d walked out too early. Roose explained that he and Newton were planning to — ideally, before OpenAI’s executives were supposed to come out — list off several headlines that had been written about OpenAI in the weeks leading up to the event.  As reported by MSN News.

“This is more fun that we’re out here for this,” said Altman. Seconds later, the OpenAI CEO asked, “Are you going to talk about where you sue us because you don’t like user privacy?”

Within minutes of the program starting, Altman hijacked the conversation to talk about The New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and its largest investor, Microsoft, in which the publisher alleges that Altman’s company improperly used its articles to train large language models. Altman was particularly peeved about a recent development in the lawsuit, in which lawyers representing The New York Times asked OpenAI to retain consumer ChatGPT and API customer data.

“The New York Times, one of the great institutions, truly, for a long time, is taking a position that we should have to preserve our users’ logs even if they’re chatting in private mode, even if they’ve asked us to delete them,” said Altman. “Still love The New York Times, but that one we feel strongly about.”

For a few minutes, OpenAI’s CEO pressed the podcasters to share their personal opinions about the New York Times lawsuit — they demurred, noting that as journalists whose work appears in The New York Times, they are not involved in the lawsuit.

Altman and Lightcap’s brash entrance lasted only a few minutes, and the rest of the interview proceeded, seemingly, as planned. However, the flare-up felt indicative of the inflection point Silicon Valley seems to be approaching in its relationship with the media industry.

In the last several years, multiple publishers have brought lawsuits against OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta for training their AI models on copyrighted works. At a high level, these lawsuits argue that AI models have the potential to devalue, and even replace, the copyrighted works produced by media institutions.

But the tides may be turning in favor of the tech companies. Earlier this week, OpenAI competitor Anthropic received a major win in its legal battle against publishers. A federal judge ruled that Anthropic’s use of books to train its AI models was legal in some circumstances, which could have broad implications for other publishers’ lawsuits against OpenAI, Google, and Meta.

Perhaps Altman and Lightcap felt emboldened by the industry win heading into their live interview with The New York Times journalists. But these days, OpenAI is fending off threats from every direction, and that became clear throughout the night.

Mark Zuckerberg has recently been trying to recruit OpenAI’s top talent by offering them $100 million compensation packages to join Meta’s AI superintelligence lab, Altman revealed weeks ago on his brother’s podcast.

When asked whether the Meta CEO really believes in superintelligent AI systems, or if it’s just a recruiting strategy, Lightcap quipped: “I think [Zuckerberg] believes he is superintelligent.”

Later, Roose asked Altman about OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, which has reportedly been pushed to a boiling point in recent months as the partners negotiate a new contract. While Microsoft was once a major accelerant to OpenAI, the two are now competing in enterprise software and other domains.

“In any deep partnership, there are points of tension and we certainly have those,” said Altman. “We’re both ambitious companies, so we do find some flashpoints, but I would expect that it is something that we find deep value in for both sides for a very long time to come.”

OpenAI’s leadership today seems to spend a lot of time swatting down competitors and lawsuits. That may get in the way of OpenAI’s ability to solve broader issues around AI, such as how to safely deploy highly intelligent AI systems at scale.

At one point, Newton asked OpenAI’s leaders how they were thinking about recent stories of mentally unstable people using ChatGPT to traverse dangerous rabbit holes, including to discuss conspiracy theories or suicide with the chatbot.

Altman said OpenAI takes many steps to prevent these conversations, such as by cutting them off early, or directing users to professional services where they can get help.

“We don’t want to slide into the mistakes that I think the previous generation of tech companies made by not reacting quickly enough,” said Altman. To a follow-up question, the OpenAI CEO added, “However, to users that are in a fragile enough mental place, that are on the edge of a psychotic break, we haven’t yet figured out how a warning gets through.”

This battle is not going away anytime soon

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

 The stunning success of Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described democratic socialist, in the race for New York City mayor has exposed anew the fiery divisions plaguing the Democratic Party as it struggles to repair its brand nearly half a year into Donald Trump’s presidency.

A fresh round of infighting erupted among Democratic officials, donors and political operatives on Wednesday, a day after Mamdani’s leading opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, conceded the Democratic primary. Mamdani appears on a glide path to the nomination, though ranked choice vote counting will determine the final outcome next week.  As reported by The Associated Press.

Many progressives cheered the emergence of the young and charismatic Mamdani, whose candidacy caught on with viral campaign videos and a focus on the cost of living. But the party’s more pragmatic wing cast the outcome as a serious setback in their quest to broaden Democrats’ appeal and move past the more controversial policies that alienated would-be voters in recent elections.

Indeed, Wednesday’s debate was about much more than who would lead America’s largest city for the next four years.

Giddy Republicans viewed Mamdani’s success as a political gift that would help shape elections across New Jersey and Virginia this fall and into next year’s midterms. And while such predictions are premature, national conservative media focused on the New York election with fresh zeal, suggesting that Mamdani’s emerging profile as a prominent Democratic leader will surely grow.

Trump took aim at Mamdani on social media, calling him “a 100% Communist Lunatic.”

“We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous,” the president wrote. “Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country.”

Some Democrats think so, too.

Lawrence Summers, the Treasury Secretary under former Democratic President Barack Obama, aired dire concerns on social media.

“I am profoundly alarmed about the future of the (Democratic Party) and the country” because of the New York City results, Summers wrote.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had endorsed Mamdani, scoffed at such Democratic critics and instead called for them to follow Mamdani’s lead.

“In many ways, Mamdani’s campaign really shows the direction in which the Democratic Party should be moving. And that is not to worry about what billionaires want, but to worry about what working-class people want,” Sanders told The Associated Press.

The Vermont senator warned Republicans against premature celebration.

“People like Mamdani are their worst nightmares,” Sanders said of the GOP. “It’s one thing for the Democrats to be strongly against Donald Trump. It is another thing to give working class people something to vote for — a positive agenda.”

Assuming Mamdani ultimately is the Democratic nominee, he would move to a November election against embattled Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and maybe even Cuomo again, should he also choose to run as an independent.

A member of the New York state Legislature since 2021, Mamdani won over Democratic primary voters with an optimistic message centered on the cost-of-living backed by a sprawling grassroots campaign that brought out thousands of volunteers across the city’s five boroughs. Initial precinct data shows that he did well in the city’s wealthier enclaves while Cuomo struggled in all but majority Black and orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, along with the more conservative Staten Island.

Mamdani’s rise was aided by Cuomo’s baggage. The 67-year-old Democrat was trying to mount a political comeback from a sexual harassment scandal that forced him to resign the governorship in 2021.

Mamdani has had to sidestep a field of landmines of his own making, centered on his policies and political rhetoric.

He called the New York Police Department “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety” in a 2020 social media post. As a mayoral candidate, he softened his stance and said that the police served a vital role. Still, he pushed for the creation of a new public safety department that would rely more on mental health care services and outreach workers.

On Israel’s war in Gaza, he used the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in the conflict. In the primary’s closing stretch, Mamdani also defended the phrase “ globalize the intifada,” which he described as “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”

He also faced criticism over his identity as a democratic socialist, a label he refused to back away from.

Mamdani’s agenda includes free city bus service, free child care, government-run grocery stores, a rent freeze for people living in rent-regulated apartments and new affordable housing — all paid for by raising taxes on the rich.

Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic group Third Way, warned that Mamdani’s policies are a political problem for the Democratic Party.

“The fact that Mamdani is young, charismatic, a great communicator — all of those things are to be emulated,” Bennett said. “His ideas are bad. … And his affiliation with the (Democratic Socialists of America) is very dangerous. It’s already being weaponized by the Republicans.”

Mamdani’s age and ethnic background also earned praise from allies across the country. He would be the youngest New York City mayor in more than a century and its first Muslim and Indian American mayor if elected.

After keeping quiet on Mamdani throughout his primary campaign, three of New York’s top Democrats, Gov. Kathy Hochul, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, praised the progressive upstart but stopped short of endorsing him after his victory seemed assured.

The Democratic leaders, largely considered moderates, applauded his focus on affordability and said they had spoken with him, although none explicitly said they would support him in the November general election.

Mamdani’s Democratic critics feared that he would make their task this fall and in next year’s midterm elections, which will decide the balance of power in Congress, even more difficult.

The group, Republicans Against Trumpism, a key Democratic ally in the 2024 election, predicted that Republicans would make Mamdani “the face of the Democratic Party, hurting moderates in swing districts and Democrats’ chances of taking back the House.”

In a Wednesday radio interview with WNYC, Mamdani acknowledged that his contest had become part of the national debate.

“It has been tempting I think for some to claim as if the party has gone too left,” he said. “When in fact what has occurred for far too long is the abandonment of the same working-class voters who then abandoned this party.”

Mamdani’s mayoral campaign will be closely watched nationally by Democrats.  Regardless of the outcome, it may be a blessing or a disaster for them nationally.

Tony

Zohran Mamdani.  Courtesy of AP.

Dear Commons Community,

Zohran Mamdani declared victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary last night after Andrew Cuomo conceded the race in a stunning upset, as the young progressive who was virtually unknown when the contest began built a substantial lead over the more experienced but scandal-scarred former governor.

Though the race’s ultimate outcome will still be decided by a ranked choice count, Mamdani took a commanding position just hours after the polls closed.

With victory all but assured, Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist who ran an energetic campaign centered on the cost of living, told supporters, “I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City.”  As reported  by The Associated Press.

“I will be the mayor for every New Yorker, whether you voted for me, for Governor Cuomo, or felt too disillusioned by a long-broken political system to vote at all,” he said. “I will work to be a mayor you will be proud to call your own.”

Cuomo, who had been the front-runner throughout a race that was his comeback bid from a sexual harassment scandal, conceded the election, telling a crowd that he had called Mamdani to congratulate him.

“Tonight is his night. He deserved it. He won,” Cuomo told supporters.

Cuomo trailed Mamdani by a significant margin in the first choice ballots and faced an exceedingly difficult pathway to catching up when ballots are redistributed in New York City’s ranked choice voting process.

Mamdani, a member of the state Assembly since 2021, would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if elected. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams skipped the primary. He’s running as an independent in the general election. Cuomo also has the option of running in the general election.

“We are going to take a look and make some decisions,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo and Mamdani were a study in political contrasts and could have played stand-ins for the larger Democratic Party’s ideological divide, with one candidate a fresh-faced progressive and the other an older moderate.

Cuomo characterized the city as a threatening, out-of-control place desperate for an experienced leader who could restore order. He brought the power of a political dynasty to the race, securing an impressive array of endorsements from important local leaders and labor groups, all while political action committees created to support his campaign pulled in staggering sums of cash.

Mamdani, meanwhile, offered an optimistic message that life in the city could improve under his agenda, which was laser-focused on the idea that a mayor has the power to do things that lower the cost of living. The party’s progressive wing coalesced behind him.   

Unofficial results from the New York City’s Board of Elections showed that Mamdani was ranked on more ballots than Cuomo. Mamdani was listed as the second choice by tens of thousands of more voters than Cuomo. And the number of votes that will factor into ranked choice voting is sure to shrink. More than 200,000 voters only listed a first choice, the Board of Elections results show, meaning that Mamdani’s performance in the first round may ultimately be enough to clear the 50% threshold.

The race’s ultimate outcome could say something about what kind of leader Democrats are looking for during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The primary winner will go on to face incumbent Adams, a Democrat who decided to run as an independent amid a public uproar over his indictment on corruption charges and the subsequent abandonment of the case by Trump’s Justice Department. Republican Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, will be on the ballot in the fall’s general election.

…

Mamdani’s grassroots run has been hard not to notice.

His army of young canvassers relentlessly knocked on doors throughout the city seeking support. Posters of his grinning mug were up on shop windows. You couldn’t get on social media without seeing one of his well-produced videos pitching his vision — free buses, free child care, new apartments, a higher minimum wage and more, paid for by new taxes on rich people.

That youthful energy was apparent last evening, as both cautiously optimistic canvassers and ecstatic supporters lined the streets of Central Brooklyn on a sizzling hot summer day, creating a party-like atmosphere that spread from poll sites into the surrounding neighborhoods.

Outside his family’s Caribbean apothecary, Amani Kojo, a 23-year-old first-time voter, passed out iced tea to Mamdani canvassers, encouraging them to stay hydrated.

“It’s 100 degrees outside and it’s a vibe. New York City feels alive again,” Kojo said, raising a pile of Mamdani pamphlets. “It feels very electric seeing all the people around, the flyers, all the posts on my Instagram all day.”

Cuomo and some other Democrats have cast Mamdani as unqualified. They say he doesn’t have the management chops to wrangle the city’s sprawling bureaucracy or handle crises. Critics have also taken aim at Mamdani’s support for Palestinian human rights.

In response, Mamdani has slammed Cuomo over his sexual harassment scandal and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cuomo resigned in 2021 after a report commissioned by the state attorney general concluded that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women. He has always maintained that he didn’t intentionally harass the women, saying he had simply fallen behind what was considered appropriate workplace conduct.

Congratulations to Mr. Mamdani!

Tony

Dear Colleagues,

An English translation of a chapter I wrote which was published last year in German (Bildung und Digitaler Kapitalismus) has been translated back to English and published in the Norwegian Seminar.net  as an article.  Entitled, “The Education-Industrial Complex Going Global”  here is a summary.

“In 1994, I first wrote about an education-industrial complex that was emerging in the United States. In 2013, Joel Spring and I published a book entitled, The Great American Industrial Complex: Ideology, Technology, and Profit.  The education-industrial complex was defined as networks of ideological, technophile and for-profit entities that sought to promote their beliefs, ideas, products and services in furtherance of their own goals and objectives. In the years since, the education-industrial complex has grown into a global phenomenon and has become a major force among powerful players (i.e., mega-corporations, international interest groups, and government officials) to influence education policy. This article describes the present global education-industrial complex and concludes with a call to monitor and study its further evolution.”

Seminar.net is open-access so take a look!

Tony

This image shows a small section of NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s view of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, including two spiral galaxies (lower right).  NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Dear Commons Community,

The first test images from a groundbreaking observatory named for trailblazing astronomer Vera Rubin have captured the light from millions of distant stars and galaxies on an unprecedented scale and revealed thousands of previously unseen asteroids.

While the National Science Foundation initially released only a couple of images and a brief video clip of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s first imagery, more images and videos taken using the largest camera ever built were shared yesterday on the agency’s YouTube channel. The facility is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The new images represent just over 10 hours of test observations, offering a brief preview of the observatory’s decade-long mission to explore the mysteries of the universe like never before.

“NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined,” said National Science Foundation Chief of Staff Brian Stone, who is currently performing the duties of the NSF director.

If you have the time, the ninety-minute NASA Youtube video cited above is most informative.

Tony

This composite image combines 678 separate images to show faint details like clouds of gas and dust in the Trifid nebula (top right) and the Lagoon nebula. – NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The Trifid Nebula is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula of glowing clouds of gas and dust that emits its own light (the pink region), a reflection nebula that reflects the light of nearby stars (the blue region), and a dark nebula so dense it blocks light from objects behind it (the dark regions). – RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA

Dear Commons Community,

Alan Turing — British mathematician, World War II codebreaker, and computer science trailblazer — would have been 113 years old yesterday. The piece below highlights his key achievements and impact on the computer science and machine learning (ML) and speculates on what he may have thought of the state of AI today. Courtesy of dataiku.

Academic and Wartime Background

Turing’s genius is evidenced by his academic history — he studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge, pursued a fellowship at King’s College for his research in probability theory, and eventually received his doctoral degree in mathematical logic at Princeton.

He wrote a famous paper “On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem [Decision Problem]” which aimed to find a valid method for solving the fundamental problem of identifying which mathematical statements are provable within a given formal mathematical system and which are not. It was revealed that this decision method has no clear resolution, meaning no consistent formal system of arithmetic can solve, calculate, or compute every instance of the problem.

During his research for Entscheidungsproblem, Turing invented the Turing machine, a computing device that was designed to further investigate the extent and limitations of what can in fact be computed. Today, Turing machines are considered to be one of the foundational elements of computability and theoretical computer science and a precursor to the modern computer.

Further, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS), a British code-breaking organization. It was here that he made five major advances in the field of cryptanalysis, including specifically the Bombe, an electromechanical device used to help decipher Enigma, the main machine used by the German military to encrypt secret radio messages.

During this time, German submarines were hunting Allied ships carrying important cargo for the war. The Allied forces relied on Turing and the cryptologists at GCCS to decode messages to alter their course, so it is for this reason that the code breakers are viewed as playing a pivotal role in the Allied war victory. In early 1942, the team at GCCS is said to have decoded about 39,000 intercepted messages per month (a figure that rose to over 84,000 per month) and indicates two messages per minute, day and night.

Turing also developed a machine called Delilah that could securely encode a voice message, based on arithmetic, which could be used to scramble a radio or telephone conversation. It worked by combining the speech to be scrambled with what sounded like a random noise, similar to radio static.

What Would Turing Think of Enterprise AI Today?

In the biography “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges, Turing says, “The isolated man does not develop any intellectual power. It is necessary for him to be immersed in an environment of other[s]… The search for new techniques must be regarded as carried out by the human community as a whole, rather than by individuals.

While Turing himself was a genius, his work was not achieved alone — collaboration and teamwork was very important to him throughout his career, working with other mathematicians, engineers, and scientists. This notion of collaboration rings true with global data teams today, and Turing would likely approve.

Collaboration on AI projects between different people with different experiences, strengths, and educational backgrounds enables a myriad of positive outcomes, including but not limited to increased levels of transparency, visibility, and job ownership and responsibility. Further, different teams working together to achieve a common goal can eventually ladder up to the wider adoption of AI processes throughout an organization, completely transforming how teams work and driving more efficiency.

Further, Turing’s achievements in cryptography were developed during wartime to help maintain public safety and security and the emphasis on compliance and fairness still applies. Today, it is business critical for teams pursuing data efforts to have systems and processes in place that allow them to extract insights that demonstrate the true value of data without compromising individuals’ privacy. In order to achieve data minimization (where only the personal data needed for each project gets processed due to the proper separation of projects, anonymization, and pseudonymization wherever necessary), teams need to know which data sources are used where and which ones contain sensitive or personal information.

Data leaders also need to determine what “responsible” practices are, both in their organizations and in the context of AI. The guidelines should reinforce concepts like explainability, transparency, and inclusivity. Dataiku’s end-to-end platform, for example, is committed to supporting organizations in building an AI strategy that is responsible through accountability, sustainability, and governability. We aim to ensure models are designed and behave in ways that align with their intended purpose and do so in a way that is centrally controlled and managed.

Next, Turing’s work with the Delilah is highly connected to natural language processing (NLP), a branch of AI that deals with the interaction between humans and computers using the natural language. The primary objective of NLP is reading, deciphering, understanding, and making sense of the human languages, so Turing would likely be deeply interested in finding new subfields and applications for NLP, in addition to the growing use of things like sentiment analysis, speech recognition, and information extraction. In 1999, “Time” magazine named him one of its “100 Most Important People of the 20th Century,” citing that everyone who works at a keyboard, opens a spreadsheet, or works in a word-processing program “is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.”

Turing’s impact on the state of ML today is vast. I think Turing would be proud of the great strides that have been made in data science, machine learning, and AI. I am not sure what his opinion would be of where they are leading us.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

 Former President Bill Clinton endorsed Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City yesterday, the last day of early voting.

“The election will decide the next mayor of New York, and I urge you to vote for Andrew Cuomo,” Clinton said in a news release. “As President, I chose Andrew to be my Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and he never let me down—but more importantly, he didn’t let the nation down. He built public housing all across the country, from Chicago to LA, designed and implemented new innovative programs to successfully combat homelessness, and fought discrimination, including against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and antisemitism.”

Cuomo worked for the Clinton administration as the housing secretary.

He also served as governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in 2021, after he was accused of sexual harassment and trying to silence his victims.

Cuomo thanked Clinton in a news release, calling Clinton a “personal mentor, friend and hero.”

“His administration was one of the most accomplished in modern political history — and that’s what government is supposed to be all about,” Cuomo said in a news release. “He never ran from a challenge and in fact ran towards them. Together we built housing, battled homelessness and fought for justice for communities too often left out and left behind. His belief that change was not only possible but is the foundational work of government inspires me in every action I take.”

In-person primary voting day is tomorrow in New York!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Oklahoma City Thunder, who led the league in defensive rating in the regular season and the playoffs, turned in another gem in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, a 103-91 victory over the Indiana Pacers last night. Oklahoma City held the Pacers to 41.4% shooting in the deciding game, far below the 48.4% Indiana shot percentage in the playoffs overall. The Thunder forced 21 turnovers and blocked eight shots. As reported by The Associated Press.

“You have to really grind it out,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It’s an endurance race. You have to be able to win in the mud. You have to be able to win ugly, have to be able to gut it out. That’s what we did. The team did an unbelievable job of that.”

The defensive effort, combined with another strong offensive performance by Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, put Oklahoma City over the top. The Thunder became the youngest NBA champions since the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers, with an average age of 25.68 years.

“It’s one of the biggest moments in city history,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said. “We’ve achieved sports immortality, and that will open doors in our community far beyond basketball for years, decades to come. It’s a very, very special day we can build upon forever.”

Chet Holmgren led the way with five blocks, the most by a player in an NBA Finals Game 7 since blocks were first recorded in the 1973-74 season.

“Honestly, I never really play for records,” the 7-foot-1 forward said. “I never play for stats. All that will be forgotten. But us winning is forever. It’s immortal. I’m just so happy we were able to do that together as a team.”

Thunder guards Lu Dort, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace each had three steals.

Indiana played most of the game without guard Tyrese Haliburton, who suffered a lower right leg injury in the first quarter. Bennedict Mathurin did his best to help the Pacers stay in the game with 24 points and 13 rebounds.

Another spectacular effort by veteran TJ McConnell prevented Oklahoma City’s swarming defense from being even more dominant. McConnell scored 16 points on 8-for-13 shooting, confounding Thunder defenders with crafty moves around the basket.

But he also had seven turnovers.

“Their pressure can really get to you, but I was just trying to be aggressive and had some uncharacteristic turnovers, but that happens,” McConnell said. “Just proud of the fight. We fought to the end. Credit to OKC. They are just really good.”

Pascal Siakam, who had caused problems for the Thunder throughout the series, was held to 16 points on 5-for-13 shooting.

Dort, an All-Defense first-team selection, gave Indiana credit for hanging tough.

“I mean, they’re a great team,” he said. “They’ve got great players. I feel like we was just trying different stuff to mess them up and to disturb them. We threw them a lot of different defensive stuff. We were just trying to slow them down.”

I watched the NBA playoffs from start to finish.  Growing up on the streets of New York City and playing in the schoolyards, basketball is in my blood. The Thunder deserve all the praise that is being heaped upon them.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Congressional leaders reacted to Trump ordering attack on Iran.  The quotes below were collected by ABC News.

Tony

———————————-

Congressional leaders expressed surprise Saturday night about President Donald Trump’s announcement he had ordered a U.S. attacked on three Iranian nuclear sites, with some Republicans praising the move and some Democrats questioning the president’s authority.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, an Israel hawk, said in an X post moments after Trump announced the attack that it was “the right call.”

“The regime deserves it. Well done, President @realDonaldTrump,” he said. “To my fellow citizens: We have the best Air Force in the world. It makes me so proud.”

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images – PHOTO: President Donald Trump points to the new flag on the south lawn of the White House on June 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

But the top Democrat in the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said Trump had “misled the country.”

“Donald Trump promised to bring peace to the Middle East. He has failed to deliver on that promise. The risk of war has now dramatically increased, and I pray for the safety of our troops in the region who have been put in harm’s way,” he said in a statement.

“President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East,” he continued.

“First, the Trump administration bears the heavy burden of explaining to the American people why this military action was undertaken. Second, Congress must be fully and immediately briefed in a classified setting. Third, Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action,” he added.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was on stage at one of his “Fight Oligarchy” events in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he read a portion of President Trump’s post about the strikes to an audience that immediately began booing.

“Not only is this news this that I’ve heard this second alarming — all of you have just heard. But it is so grossly unconstitutional. All of you know that the only entity that can take this country to war is the U.S. Congress. the president does not have the right,” he added.

Rep. Rick Crawford, an Arizona Republican and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he was in touch with the president before the attack and still monitoring the situation.

“As I have said multiple times recently, I regret that Iran has brought the world to this point. That said, I am thankful President Trump understood that the red line — articulated by Presidents of both parties for decades — was real,” he said.

At least one Republican in the House, however, questioned the president’s action without congressional authorization.

“This is not Constitutional,” GOP Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky posted.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, posted on X, “According to the Constitution we are both sworn to defend, my attention to this matter comes BEFORE bombs fall. Full stop.”

“We need to immediately return to DC and vote on @RepThomasMassie and my War Powers Resolution to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said in an X post.

House Speaker Mike Johnson was briefed ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Johnson was supposed to be in Israel Sunday to address the Knesset, but the trip was scrapped because of the ongoing conflict.

The speaker also put out a statement endorsing the strikes, calling it a “decisive” action that prevents terrorism.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was also briefed ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iran, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming posted, “President @realDonaldTrump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear program is the right one. The greatest threat to the safety of the United States and the world is Iran with a nuclear weapon. God Bless our troops 🇺🇸”

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn posted, “President Trump made the courageous and correct decision to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. God Bless the USA. Thank you to our extraordinary military and our indomitable @POTUS This is what leadership on the world stage looks like.”

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said on X, “As I’ve long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS. Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities. I’m grateful for and salute the finest military in the world. 🇺🇸”

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York posted that President Trump’s strike on Iran constitutes “ground for impeachment,” saying he was “in grave violation of the Constitution” without first receiving congressional authorization.

American Bombs Targeted Three Sites in Iran. Courtesy of AP News.

Dear Commons Community,

Trump bombed three sites in Iran late last night, directly joining Israel’s war aimed at decapitating the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.

Three key developments:

• Trump delivers remarks: President Donald Trump says Iran’s key nuclear sites were “completely and fully obliterated” by U.S. strikes. Speaking at the White House hours after the attacks, he threatened more strikes and said Iran faced a choice between “peace or tragedy.”
• Iran issues warning: Iran’s top diplomat warned Sunday that the U.S. attacks on its nuclear sites “will have everlasting consequences” and that Tehran “reserves all options” to retaliate. The comment from Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on X represents the first ranking official to comment on the strikes on Isfahan, Fordo and Natanz by the Americans.
• How we got here:Israel launched a surprise barrage of attacks on sites in Iran on June 13, which Israeli officials said was necessary to head off what they claimed was an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs. Iran has retaliated with a series of missile and drone strikes in Israel, while Israel has continued to strike sites in Iran.

We will wait and see where this leads but it is not likely to be pretty and could be quite tragic.

Tony