Friday Nite Videos | August 22, 2025

Putin Is Trapped by Trump's Misunderstandings. The Catastrophic Risks of AI — and a Safer Path | Yoshua Bengio. Lonely Avenue | Jon Batiste. White House Evacuated After Trans Alarm Goes Off.

The Antisemitism Is Coming From Inside the House

Trump’s crackdown on antisemitism seems to have strangely missed all of his appointees and allies who associate with a range of unabashed anti-Jewish bigots. It almost makes you suspect the White House’s charges of antisemitism are purely cynical.

How a Gov't Autism Study Could Destroy Vaccine Access

A government study promising to identify "the cause" of autism by September is being positioned to blame vaccines despite decades of evidence to the contrary. These aren't isolated policy changes. They're coordinated elements of a strategy.

Colonizing Mars Is a Really, Really Terrible Idea

Woah! say Kelly and Zach Weinersmith in this romp through the many rooms of a space folly. “Leaving 2C warmer Earth for Mars would be like leaving a messy room so you can live in a toxic waste dump.”

Pushing MAGA Out: The Resistance Ramps Up

Zohran Mamdani wins big, outrage mounts at Israel’s genocide, and new projects take off, including One Million Rising and the Battleground Alliance PAC—all building momentum against MAGA’s drive toward authoritarian rule.

Netanyahu Is Dragging Israel, Global Jewry to the Abyss

There are two options: either Israel finally pulls into its defensible and normal borders, or the circles of condemnation will widen, culminating in the inclusion of all Israelis in the maligned group, indiscriminately.

The Democratic Establishment’s Shunning of Mamdani

The shunning of Mamdani is an important illustration of the state of the Democratic Party in 2025. It shows some unfortunate truths about the party’s center-left establishment and points to some clear steps progressives must take.

RFK Gutted Our Best Defense Against Future Pandemics

mRNA technology saved America’s bacon in 2020. Now RFK Jr. is defunding it. In reality, mRNA is by far the best vaccine option should a new viral outbreak strike because climate change is expanding mosquito habitat, or bird flu...

As Fires Rage Worry About Region’s Radioactive History

The frequency and intensity of wildfires in the West adds another variable to the equation, given the high concentration of uranium mines, mills and disposal sites on the Western Slope and in the Four Corners region. And: leakage from atom bomb tests

Reader Comments & Tidbits, Aug 21, 2025

Readers Comments: Trump-Putin Summit; Trump White-Washington Slavery; Trump's DC Takeover; Zohran Mamdani - the “Commie Corridor”; Zoom this Sunday: Gaza & the West Bank: Views from the Israeli and Palestinian left; Cartoons and more...
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Culture

poetry

Rogues in a Nation

Robert Burns
Scotland's national poet, Rabbie Burns, criticized the members of the Scottish aristocracy who in 1707 signed the Act of Union thereby ending Scottish home rule.

books

Why Architecture and Urban Space Are Always Political

George Themistokleous LSE Review of Books
The contributors to this latest volume of the Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics offer a wide ranging discussion about social justice-oriented responses to the politics of our constructed, lived environment.

poetry

My California

Beau Beausoleil
West Coast poet Beau Beausoleil reflects on the momentary beauties which somehow compensate for our everyday sense of exile and displacement.

books

Genocide in Perspective

David Finkel Against the Current
"It must be said," writes reviewer Finkel, "that this book is essential reading, but not pleasant for anyone."

Labor

labor

What Trump’s Decertification of Federal Employee Unions Means

Marc Kagan Jacobin
The Trump administration moved ahead last week with its plans to void the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The labor movement appears largely quiescent in the face of this historic union busting.

labor

Trump Termination of Bargaining Agreements

Rebecca Beitsch The Hill
The Trump administration has quietly terminated collective bargaining agreements at the Department of Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Services; the Coast Guard;...

Friday nite video

video

Putin Is Trapped by Trump's Misunderstandings

Trump has misunderstood what Putin told him, and that is a problem for the Russian president. Is this is a negotiation tactic or just Trump not understanding the issues?

video

White House Evacuated After Trans Alarm Goes Off

Officials confirmed the White House’s Transgender Alert System was triggered this morning after infrared estrogen sensors in the West Wing detected a large spike in gender fluidity dangerously close to the Oval Office.