That’s not good news. RFK Jr. has bought into a lot of conspiracy theories, including:
Chemtrails — a conspiracy theory from the 1990s, and you can find out more about this wacky idea on David Keith’s Geoengineering page on Harvard’s (yes, that Harvard) site.
We’re back in Dr. Strangelove territory, folks, and should RFK Jr. get a hold on the reins of national health in the U.S., prepare for an era of unprecedented quackery.
Bonus video: Last Week Tonight on RFK Jr.
Because you might need a reminder of what RFK Jr. is all about:
Bonus video: Prince (yes, that Prince) on chemtrails!
Here’s Prince talking about chemtrails in a rare interview on Tavis Smiley’s show. He can be forgiven for his wacky belief in chemtrails considering he also believes — and you’ll hear him say so in the interview — that there were eight U.S. presidents before George Washington:
Here’s a set of videos produced in the first (and hopefully last) Trump era that explained the techniques, tactics, and goals of the alt-right movement, and they’re incredibly well-done. Even though they date back to seven years ago, they’re still applicable today.
They were put together by Ian Danskin, and you can find out more about them in this CTV (Canadian) news piece.
The CHIPS Act — also known as the CHIPS and Science Act, where CHIPS is short for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors” — authorizes $280 billion in new funding to boost manufacturing of semiconductors (a.k.a. “microchips”) in the United States. Its goal is to make our semiconductor supply chain more resilient and prevent China from owning the industry outright.
The CHIPS and Science Act is incredibly important. Here’s Renée James, former President of Intel — if you have a computer running Windows or Linux or have a Mac made prior to 2020, there’s a good chance that its central processing unit was made by Intel — explaining just how important it is:
The CHIPS and Science Act also represents a much-needed return to industrial policy, a practice where a government directs or influences a country’s industrial development and economic growth in a specific direction or towards specific fields. This may sound like an outlandish idea in 2024 America, where there’s been a steady drumbeat of propaganda that government is incapable of doing anything (usually shoveled out by conservatives working in the government), but industrial policy has created some of the biggest success stories in the past century, including:
Japan’s post-WWII targeting of electronics and automobiles
America’s emphasis on science, engineering, and space after the wake-up call of Sputnik
South Korea’s development of heavy industries and electronics (which was once Japan’s thing)
China’s current focus on manufacturing goods for Western customers (which was once Japan’s thing), and now semiconductors and electric vehicles
Here’s a Wall Street Journal piece on how the CHIPS Act signals a much-needed return to industrial policy:
There is a race to be number one in the semiconductor game, and I’d rather the Chinese Communist Party not win it. Want to know how high-stakes this race is? Here’s a Financial Times piece that explains things:
When campaigning for Trump and the Republican Party on Saturday, November 2nd, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was asked if he and his party would try to repeal the CHIPS Act if Trump wins and they have control of Congress. His answer: “I expect that we probably will.”
BREAKING: I asked @SpeakerJohnson if he’ll try to repeal the CHIPS Act if Trump wins and they have control of Congress.
Instead of using federal money to encourage American firms to build fabrication plants (or “fabs,” which are factories that produce chips), he’d rather hit foreign companies with high tariffs to force them to force them to build fabs in the U.S.. The problem with his idea is that tariffs are paid by the people importing them, not the exporters.
Trump also says that companies like TSMC “stole” chip manufacturing from America, but that’s not true either.
Intel was originally in the DRAM (dynamic RAM) business, but Japanese companies like NEC, Toshiba, and Hitachi were producing DRAM chips with defect rates of about 10 parts per million, while American companies were relative slackers, producing the same chips, but with defect rates were anywhere from 10 to 100 times greater and at twice the cost. By 1986, Japan had 80% of the DRAM market.
These days, it’s Taiwan-based TSMC that owns the semiconductor market, as they make about 90% of the most advanced chips. But what’s truly interesting is TSMC’s origin story.
Morris Chang founded TSMC in 1987 in collaboration with the Taiwanese government and the electronics company Phillips. He could have been an American success story — although he was born in Taiwan, he got his education at MIT and Stanford and spent most of his career in the U.S. as an executive at Texas Instruments for 25 years. Despite having a strong performance record at Texas Instruments, he was passed up for the CEO role. Racism may have played a role (it’s a company based in Texas, he’s Asian, it was the 1980s, you do the math), but so did his concept of only manufacturing chips instead of designing and manufacturing them, which was revolutionary at the time.
The Taiwanese government recruited Chang to lead their industrial policy initiative, providing a lot of the capital to get it started, and partnered with Phillips for their tech, their manufacturing expertise, and to provide credibility with initial customers.
TSMC’s approach succeeded because:
It let chip design companies avoid massive factory investments.
Companies that designed chips didn’t have to worry about TSMC becoming a competitor.
Single focus: TSMC could concentrate entirely on the manufacturing process and excelling at it.
It enabled the rise of “fabless” chip companies like Qualcomm and the company that just displaced Intel on the Dow Jones Industrial Average: Nvidia!
Asian companies didn’t steal the chip industry from America; America simply handed it over to them.
The most advanced chips in the world, including Apple’s new M4 CPU and Nvidia’s Blackwell and Rubin AI chips, are made by a single company in a single factory in Taiwan, a mere 100 miles from China.
China has been performing military exercises in the general area of Taiwan, partially as an intimidation tactic, partially as a rehearsal for a military takeover or blockade, and they also have the “soft power” option of getting China-leaning politicians elected.
Taiwan is the weak link in the semiconductor supply chain, and it’s better for security — and not just for the U.S., but the world — if there were other places that could produce advanced semiconductors. The CHIPS Act is not a guarantee that the U.S. will go back to being a semiconductor manufacturing leader, but it’s the best shot we’ve got.
Don’t let Trump and company kill the CHIPS Act!
Recommended viewing
Want a crash course in chips, their importance, and the current state of the industry? Watch this video, which came out only two days ago:
Perhaps I need to remind you that this happened during “Orange Julius Caesar’s” first election campaign back in the more innocent time of 2016:
The reason it’s a headline is because of this ad:
The “controversial” part of the ad is that it tells women that they can vote for the candidate of their choice, even if it’s not the same as their husband’s choice.
As you’ve probably surmised, the ad has some high-profile conservative pundits up in arms:
But imagine the gender-flipped scenario: An ad that tells you that you don’t have to vote for who your wife wants to vote for, and you don’t even have to tell her who you voted for — after all, you’re your own man, right? Suddenly, it sounds like common sense.
The risks for domestic and foreign policy are amplified by the last big difference between Mr Trump’s first term and a possible second one: he would be less constrained. The president who mused about firing missiles at drug labs in Mexico was held back by the people and institutions around him. Since then the Republican Party has organised itself around fealty to Mr Trump. Friendly think-tanks have vetted lists of loyal people to serve in the next administration. The Supreme Court has weakened the checks on presidents by ruling that they cannot be prosecuted for official acts.
If external constraints are looser, much more will depend on Mr Trump’s character. Given his unrepentant contempt for the constitution after losing the election in 2020, it is hard to be optimistic. Half his former cabinet members have refused to endorse him. The most senior Republican senator describes him as a “despicable human being”. Both his former chief-of-staff and former head of the joint chiefs call him a fascist. If you were interviewing a job applicant, you would not brush off such character references.
Good presidents unite the country. Mr Trump’s political genius is for turning people against each other. After the death of George Floyd, he suggested the army shoot protesters in the leg. America’s prosperity depends on the idea that people are treated fairly, regardless of their politics; Mr Trump has threatened to turn the Justice Department on his political enemies.
This is in response to the Trump campaign rally last night where comedian* Tony Hinchcliffe warmed up the crowd with racist jokes:
In response, Maria Salazar posted the tweet above that Jef Poskanzer is referencing. She’s a Republican and a U.S. representative for Florida’s 27th congressional district (Miami and area). Some people forget (and worse people wish otherwise) that Puerto Rico, while not a state, is a U.S. territory, and if you’re born in Puerto Rico, you are a U.S. citizen.
I’m sure she’s getting a lot of colleagues telling her, “Hey, when we say ‘those dirty people,’ we don’t mean you — you’re one of the good ones!” I know — I get this from time to time from conservatives who only have the best of intentions.
In case you were wondering, the term “leopards ate my face” comes from a tweet made by Adrian Bott back in 2015, and is generally used as a joke to refer to people complaining about suffering from easily-foreseen consequences:
