Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

– Patriotic Millionaires highlight the connection between the extreme concentration of wealth and the Epstein class’ culture of depravity and impunity. Amanda Mull is the latest to call out the absence of any meaningful pushback again the Trump regime from the corporate class. And Greg Sargent notes that the public response to Republican abuses is offering badly-needed evidence that there’s still plenty of room for people to work together – even as he recognizes the risk that Democrats will be too stuck in their habits to foster that movement, which is all the more clear based on their reliance on the median-voter theory critiqued by Henry Farrell. 

– Meanwhile, in case the risks of AI weren’t glaring enough without a fascist
government insisting that it facilitate atrocities, Dave Lawler, Maria
Curi, and Mike Allen report on Pete Hegseth’s demand that Anthropic (and presumably other AI platforms) offer itself up as a tool to target civilians or face discrimination in government treatment. And Will Bunch warns that spin about ICE “retreating” from Minnesota is no more credible than most self-serving statements from the administration. 

– Thor Benson interviews David Roberts about the Trump regime’s decree that climate science be declared null and void – and the risk that a partisan SCOTUS will declare that presidential whims take precedence over facts. And the Guardian’s editorial board notes that China’s work on renewables is positioning it to be the global leader in the energy sources of the future while the U.S. clings to outdated technology. 

– Finally, Justin Nobel reports on the toxic wastewater that’s been left behind from past extraction activity (with communities left to bear the risk of a lack of cleanup), while Joe Wilkins reports on the spraying of radioactive fracking waste on a future elementary school site as a painfully stark example of the oil industry’s disregard for public health and safety. And Daniel Price discusses the environmental justice impact of the destruction of water resources in the western U.S.