Dear Angry GOP Donors


In Politico today:

With the GOP’s agenda at a virtual standstill on Capitol Hill, the party is contending with a hard reality. Some of the party’s most elite and influential donors, who spent the past eight years plowing cash into the party’s coffers in hopes of accomplishing a sweeping conservative agenda and undoing Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments, are closing their wallets.

Here’s some Real Talk: you spent the last decade-plus funding candidates who treat conservative ideology more like a religion than a governing philosophy. When there is no room for compromise, even within our own party, and those who are willing to make deals which might otherwise conflict with their ideology are labeled “RINOs” in primary ads, then this is the disfunction you get.

Some exasperated givers are turning to Steve Bannon, Trump’s hard-charging former chief strategist and a McConnell nemesis, to vent. Bannon met with several contributors who were in Washington this week for an RNC gala and has eagerly stepped into the role of donor-whisperer. He is looking to establish his own finance network to fund an effort to unseat Senate Republican incumbents in 2018.

Hahahahahahaha. Yeah, Bannon is the answer to building a functioning majority. Sure. Don’t forget, Bannon backed this guy.

Tim Cook Gets It


From his recent commencement address to the MIT Class of 2017:

Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn’t want to do great things. It doesn’t want anything. That part takes all of us. It takes our values and our commitment to our families and our neighbors and our communities. Our love of beauty and belief that all of our faiths are interconnected. Our decency. Our kindness.

I’m not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans. I’m more concerned about people thinking like computers without values or compassion, without concern for consequences. That is what we need you to help us guard against. Because if science is a search in the darkness, then the humanities are a candle that shows us where we’ve been and the danger that lies ahead.