You can’t make this shit up!
Wait, what? UK testers just saw OpenAI/Anthropic AIs create fake identities and spear-phish devs to push malicious code. July 28. This isn't just a vulnerability, it's autonomous deception. Where does this go next?
— serena666.bsky.social (@serena666.bsky.social) August 5, 2026 at 10:02 AM
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In June, 2026, a state law went into effect in Oregon that blocks, for one year, new data centers from receiving millions in local and state tax breaks for building the politically-toxic and environmentally-unredeemable AI data centers. Even so, Hillsboro, Oregon and Washington County politicians chose to rush through their own local statutes that provide (before the state moratorium went into effect) millions of dollars in public money giveaways for future corporate welfare data center payments to the likes of Intel, Amazon, Dropbox, etc.
The result has been the filing a lawsuit by some elected officials and NEA affiliate, the Oregon Education Association, to halt the further draining away of public school funds for the billionaire tax bros to get even fatter at the expense of taxpayers’ children.
And we’re talking about big money here. In 2024, alone, Oregon’s public schools and education services agencies lost $275,000,000 in tax giveaways to Big Tech. For context, Oregon’s school districts spent $247 million on child nutrition in 2023.
While Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, cuts sweetheart deals with the Tech Bros to impose AI on teachers and students, it’s good to see that there are teacher union efforts now joined to limit the harm that the AI insanity is bringing to public education.
Two nights ago I watched the Toni Morrison documentary, The Pieces I Am. In it, there’s an abundance of wonderful insights, but this clip captures the most powerful, distilled framing of racism that I have ever heard.
Trump’s christofascists are finalizing plans to destroy Head Start through deregulation. Eliminating standards for Head Start programming will throw open the door for states and localities to send our most vulnerable children to white nationalist versions of vacation bible school to begin their oppressive indoctrinations with taxpayer dollars.
Story in the Times:
The Trump administration is preparing a major rollback of federal requirements for Head Start, a change that supporters of the child care program fear could gut its longstanding antipoverty mission.
The proposed changes would remove most of Head Start’s 133 pages of requirements for math and literacy curriculums, class sizes, medical screenings, home visits and even a requirement that children brush their teeth after meals, according to three people with knowledge of the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
Administration officials say the changes will streamline a heavily regulated program while giving states and cities more control over how it is run.
But Head Start advocates say that erasing regulations serves as a backdoor way to dismantle a program the administration does not like. The White House last year called Head Start “radical” and tried but failed to freeze spending on it. . . .
TN’s governor, Bill Lee, approved a proposal on March 26 of this year that offered a detailed plan for making Tennessee the main U.S “campus” for a nuclear “life cycle innovation center,” i.e., a “one-stop shop” for nuclear waste storage.
Lee and his cronies sent the proposal to Trump's boys at the Department of Energy in hopes of landing another massive federal handout—the kind of federal welfare payment that “small government” Tennessee Republicans have come to depend on to keep the state functioning at least minimally.
. . . the State intends to transform the nuclear lifecycle by embracing fuel reprocessing and recycling as well as diverting critical materials and isotopes into other health, defense, and industrial uses. This substantially reduces the amount of material to be stored and reshapes the country’s needs for interim and long-term materials management solutions. The State remains interested in identifying and assessing candidate sites for interim storage and long-term storage of nuclear materials. Interim storage is already underway in Tennessee at current nuclear power generation sites, and the State is exploring innovative methods to expanding storage capacity with federal and private partners. The State has also identified next steps for site assessment and testing to identify a long-term geologic repository option in Tennessee.
. . . . Selection of Tennessee as a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus will allow the State to hasten planned development in this sector and benefit DOE and the country through establishment of a comprehensive, one-stop-shop for nuclear lifecycle management and reindustrialization.
With Bill Lee known nationally as one of Trump’s most loyal sycophants, this week Tennessee was named as one of the five finalists to be rewarded with fed dollars to become the research center and central depository for U.S. nuclear waste.
More on the story from WKRN.
A shakedown www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
— Molly Jong-Fast (@mollyjongfast.bsky.social) July 31, 2026 at 8:03 AM
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"Negative free cash flow" means your costs are growing faster than your revenue. If you retreat and draw down the insane levels of spending on data centers, then everyone will know it’s time to cash out. Can’t do that. So you just keep pumping.
From the NYTimes:
. . . . Across this year and next, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are expected to spend a staggering $1.5 trillion building data centers and stuffing them with advanced chips, according to Wall Street estimates compiled by FactSet.
“The scale of it is nuts,” said Melissa Otto, who leads research at S&P Global’s Visible Alpha division.
Alarms are rising as Wall Street and others question whether this spending can be justified. On Thursday, shares of Microsoft, which did not change its spending forecast, jumped more than 15 percent, but Meta’s stock sank more than 7 percent after it revealed its A.I. outlays and that costs were growing faster than its revenue.
And last week, for the first time since going public in 2004, Google said it had “negative free cash flow,” which meant it was spending more on day-to-day operations and building new infrastructure than it was taking in from its businesses. Google’s stock fell more than 6 percent the next day. . . .
How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/t...
— James Horn (@schools-matter24.bsky.social) July 27, 2026 at 5:29 AM
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While Grandma Marsha spends her campaign funds fearmongering about the Chinese making nonexistent purchases of TN farmland, and ginning up hate with lies against brown and black immigrants, Democratic candidate, Jerri Green, mother of three school-age boys, has a detailed and multifaceted plan for her first term as Governor of Tennessee. Including education, which is a top priority.
Green has said she supports suspending the state’s voucher program - so, at a minimum, halting future growth - so state funds can be directed toward public schools.
Her campaign also spells out the framework for a comprehensive Pre-K-12 education agenda.
Jerri Green will:
Fully fund K-12 public education—not siphon dollars into unaccountable voucher schemes
Raise teacher pay and restore respect to the profession
Expand access to school counselors, nurses, and support staff
Protect honest, inclusive education—not censorship and political theater
Invest in universal pre-K, special education, and rural schools
Launch Public Service Year Program for high school graduates
Waive GED testing fees and take testing to all corners of the state
Start a dedicated childcare and early education fund, to include investments in afterschool and summer care programming for households making less than $75K a year
Ensure every public high school provides mental health screenings any parent can opt their child into
Set up a Special Education Equity Fund to ensure no students fall through the cracks as the Trump Administration cuts critical services for students with disabilities and special needs
Set up a “Teach Every Student” fellowship to encourage more teachers to go into special education
Use all possible medicaid dollars within schools to make sure students have the supports they need
After Marsha Blackburn co-sponsored the federal legislation that made it almost impossible for DEA to apprehend mail-order opioids, she received $120,000 from the drug industry.
Link to the 60 Minutes story: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-dea-agent-opioid-crisis-fueled-by-drug-industry-and-congress/
