All posts tagged: Dictator

Dario Amodei Says Trump Is a Dictator

Dario Amodei Says Trump Is a Dictator

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s insistence that the company’s AI models may not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or directing killer drones has kicked up a major storm. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth and president Donald Trump came out swinging, directing all government agencies to stop using the company’s software “effective immediately” and labeling the company as a “supply chain risk,” sending shockwaves across the entire tech industry. Very little love has been lost between the AI leader and the White House. In a leaked Friday memo to employees obtained by The Information, Amodei ignited the powder keg by calling out the president — as well as his arch nemesis and fellow OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman for bending the knee. “The real reasons [Department of War] and the Trump admin do not like us is that we haven’t donated to Trump,” he wrote, adding that “we haven’t given dictator-style praise to Trump (while Sam has).” It’s true that …

A Dictator Was Seized. The Pope Spoke. Everyone Else Paused.

A Dictator Was Seized. The Pope Spoke. Everyone Else Paused.

Published by Sam Flores

What religious silence reveals when power moves faster than conscience (RNS) — Religious leaders stayed quiet after the United States seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face drug charges — a dramatic move that scrambled political instincts and left many faith leaders unsure how to respond. As details emerged, the silence was striking. American evangelical leaders hesitated. Mainline churches paused. And then, from Rome, Pope Leo broke the quiet — calling for respect for Venezuela’s constitution, the rule of law and the dignity of its people. It was language that sounded less like pastoral concern and more like diplomacy. In this episode of Complexified, Amanda Henderson talks with Religion News Service Editor-in-Chief Paul O’Donnell about how the story unfolded in real time, why so many religious leaders waited and what made the pope’s response feel different — not just morally, but legally and politically. It’s a conversation about power exercised faster than moral consensus, about what silence signals when institutions don’t yet know the stakes and about how religion …

Andrew ‘tried to set up meeting’ between Epstein brutal dictator | Royal | News

Andrew ‘tried to set up meeting’ between Epstein brutal dictator | Royal | News

Published by Sam Flores

A series of emails appear to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor attempting to arrange a meeting with Colonel Gaddafi for the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The newly-discovered email were sent from Andrew in late 2010, according Channel 4 News findings. The emails suggest that the disgraced financier wanted to secure a role in managing the Libyan dictator’s money. Epstein, who took his own life in 2019, appears to say that people who have met Gaddafi “have asked me if I want to meet him as he does not know where to put his money” and goes on to attempt to arrange a meeting with either Gaddafi or his associates via the disgraced royal. Further emails suggest the meeting ultimately did not go ahead as Epstein did not fly to Tripoli as planned. Colonel Gaddafi, and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, were both public figures whom Andrew had met in Libya during his role as trade envoy. Channel 4 News then understands Colonel Gaddafi is referred to as “the father” to distinguish him from his well-known son …

Trump is right about one thing: Many Americans want a dictator

Trump is right about one thing: Many Americans want a dictator

Published by Sam Flores

Following his rambling, incoherent speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Donald Trump said that his opponents often call him “a horrible dictator-type person.” He continued, “But sometimes, you need a dictator.” He is certainly trying to govern as one. Under Trump, the Department of Justice has begun targeting Democratic elected officials such as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, as well as private citizens who oppose the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and the administration’s increasingly reckless and violent mass deportation campaign. In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly suggested that the midterm elections should not take place and has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and impose martial law. He has also suggested that he and his administration are not bound by the U.S. Constitution and continues to recast the Jan. 6 insurrection — and the broader effort to overturn the 2020 election — as peaceful, patriotic protest. On the international stage, Trump claims to be following the “Donroe Doctrine,” his version of James Monroe’s declaration that the …

How to Tell If Your President Is a Dictator

How to Tell If Your President Is a Dictator

Published by Daniella Wilson

President Trump prosecutes his political opponents; deports immigrants, including some here legally, to foreign prisons without due process; solicits tribute payments from corporations and foreign governments; deploys soldiers to American cities that are not, in fact, in civil-war-level chaos; and puts his name and image on government buildings that quite obviously don’t belong to him. So, a question: What do you call this form of government? Authoritarian? Kleptocratic? Totalitarian? Fascist? Above all, Trump attempts to govern by decree, unconstrained by norms, shame, or the Constitution. (The only limits he sees on his powers come from “my own morality,” he recently told The New York Times. “My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”) But any analysis that attempts to answer the question of whether this makes him a despot must take into account that he is still not terribly successful at despotism. Sometimes he gets his way, but sometimes he does not. The White House on occasion seeks Congress’s approval and is periodically thwarted. Courts block his administration’s moves weekly, even if …