Latest news with #BobWoodward
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Granderson: Voters who don't vote? This is one way democracy can die, by 20 million cuts
During China's imperial age, those deemed guilty of the worst offenses were sometimes sentenced to death in a public square by a brutal form of execution known as lingchi. Soldiers — using sharp blades — would slice away pieces of flesh from the accused until they died. Translated, lingchi means 'death by a thousand cuts.' Maybe democracy does die in darkness, as journalist Bob Woodward often suggests. Or maybe democracy's demise comes in the light of day, in a public forum, where everyone can bear witness. Sometimes those holding the knives are the oligarchs or elected officials drenched in corruption. And sometimes there's blood on the hands of the people. On Saturday, voters in San Antonio — the seventh-largest city in the country — are headed to the polls to decide the first open mayoral race since President Obama's first term. Or at least some voters will be. In November 2024, nearly 60% of the 1.3 million registered voters in the county cast a ballot in the general election. However, in the local election held last month, barely 10% showed up to the polls. Before anyone starts throwing shade at San Antonio, in Dallas the turnout was even lower. Lackluster participation in an 'off year' election is not new. However, the mayoral race in San Antonio has increased national interest because the outcome is being viewed as a litmus test for both the strength of the Democrats' resistance and the public's appetite for the White House's policies. Like other big blue cities nestled in legislatively red states, San Antonio's progressive policies have been under constant assault from the governor's mansion. And with neither the progressive candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, or her MAGA-leaning opponent, Rolando Pablos, eclipsing 50% of the vote in May, the runoff has drawn more than $1 million in campaign spending from outside conservative groups looking to flip the traditionally blue stronghold. The outcome could provide a possible glimpse into the 2026 mayoral race in Los Angeles, should the formerly Republican Rick Caruso decide to run against Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat. When the two faced off in 2022, around 44% of the city's registered voters went to the polls. Caruso lost by less than 90,000 votes in a city with 2.1 million registered voters — most of whom didn't submit a ballot. It is rather astonishing how little we actually participate in democracy, given the amount of tax dollars we have spent trying to convince other nations that our government system is the best on the planet. Capitulating to President Trump's unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud, many local conservative elected officials have tried to ram through a litany of 'voter integrity' policies under the guise of protecting democracy. However, democracy is not a delicate flower in need of protection. It's a muscle in need of exercise. 'Some people find voting to be a chore,' Michele Carew, the elections administrator for Bexar County — which includes San Antonio — told me. 'We need to make voting easier and quite frankly, fun. And we need to get those who don't feel like their vote counts to see that it does. That means getting out and talking to people in our neighborhood, in our churches, in our grocery stores … about when elections are coming up and what's at stake locally.' Carew said that the added outside interest in the city's election has driven up early voting a tick and that she expects to see roughly a 15% turnout, which is an increase over previous years. It could be worse. The city once elected a mayor with 7% turnout back in 2013. Carew also expressed concern about outside influence on local governing. 'One of the first times I saw these nonpartisan races become more political was in 2020, and so as time goes by it's gotten even more so. I would like to think once the candidate is elected mayor they remain nonpartisan and do what's best for the city and not their party.' In 2024, a presidential election year when you'd expect the highest turnout, 1 in 3 registered voters across this country — roughly 20 million people — took a look around and said, 'Nah, I'm good.' Or something like that. The highest turnout was in Washington, D.C., where nearly 80% showed up. Too bad it's not a state. Among the lowest turnout rates? Texas — which has the second-greatest number of voters, behind only California. And therein lies the problem with trying to extrapolate national trends from local elections. Maybe Ortiz Jones will win in San Antonio this weekend. Maybe Caruso will win in L.A. next year. None of this tells us how the vast majority of Americans are really feeling. Sure, it's good fodder to debate around the table or on cable news shows, but ultimately the sample size of a mayoral election belies any claims about a result's meaning. Turnout during an off year is just too low. One thing we know for certain is most voters in America exercise their right to vote only once every four years. Oligarchs and corrupt officials are not great, but it's hard for democracy to stay healthy and strong if that's all the exercise it's getting. @LZGranderson If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Voters who don't vote? This is one way democracy can die, by 20 million cuts
During China's imperial age, those deemed guilty of the worst offenses were sometimes sentenced to death in a public square by a brutal form of execution known as lingchi. Soldiers — using sharp blades — would slice away pieces of flesh from the accused until they died. Translated, lingchi means 'death by a thousand cuts.' Maybe democracy does die in darkness, as journalist Bob Woodward often suggests. Or maybe democracy's demise comes in the light of day, in a public forum, where everyone can bear witness. Sometimes those holding the knives are the oligarchs or elected officials drenched in corruption. And sometimes there's blood on the hands of the people. On Saturday, voters in San Antonio — the seventh-largest city in the country — are headed to the polls to decide the first open mayoral race since President Obama's first term. Or at least some voters will be. In November 2024, nearly 60% of the 1.3 million registered voters in the county cast a ballot in the general election. However, in the local election held last month, barely 10% showed up to the polls. Before anyone starts throwing shade at San Antonio, in Dallas the turnout was even lower. Lackluster participation in an 'off year' election is not new. However, the mayoral race in San Antonio has increased national interest because the outcome is being viewed as a litmus test for both the strength of the Democrats' resistance and the public's appetite for the White House's policies. Like other big blue cities nestled in legislatively red states, San Antonio's progressive policies have been under constant assault from the governor's mansion. And with neither the progressive candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, or her MAGA-leaning opponent, Rolando Pablos, eclipsing 50% of the vote in May, the runoff has drawn more than $1 million in campaign spending from outside conservative groups looking to flip the traditionally blue stronghold. The outcome could provide a possible glimpse into the 2026 mayoral race in Los Angeles, should the formerly Republican Rick Caruso decide to run against Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat. When the two faced off in 2022, around 44% of the city's registered voters went to the polls. Caruso lost by less than 90,000 votes in a city with 2.1 million registered voters — most of whom didn't submit a ballot. It is rather astonishing how little we actually participate in democracy, given the amount of tax dollars we have spent trying to convince other nations that our government system is the best on the planet. Capitulating to President Trump's unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud, many local conservative elected officials have tried to ram through a litany of 'voter integrity' policies under the guise of protecting democracy. However, democracy is not a delicate flower in need of protection. It's a muscle in need of exercise. 'Some people find voting to be a chore,' Michele Carew, the elections administrator for Bexar County — which includes San Antonio — told me. 'We need to make voting easier and quite frankly, fun. And we need to get those who don't feel like their vote counts to see that it does. That means getting out and talking to people in our neighborhood, in our churches, in our grocery stores … about when elections are coming up and what's at stake locally.' Carew said that the added outside interest in the city's election has driven up early voting a tick and that she expects to see roughly a 15% turnout, which is an increase over previous years. It could be worse. The city once elected a mayor with 7% turnout back in 2013. Carew also expressed concern about outside influence on local governing. 'One of the first times I saw these nonpartisan races become more political was in 2020, and so as time goes by it's gotten even more so. I would like to think once the candidate is elected mayor they remain nonpartisan and do what's best for the city and not their party.' In 2024, a presidential election year when you'd expect the highest turnout, 1 in 3 registered voters across this country — roughly 20 million people — took a look around and said, 'Nah, I'm good.' Or something like that. The highest turnout was in Washington, D.C., where nearly 80% showed up. Too bad it's not a state. Among the lowest turnout rates? Texas — which has the second-greatest number of voters, behind only California. And therein lies the problem with trying to extrapolate national trends from local elections. Maybe Ortiz Jones will win in San Antonio this weekend. Maybe Caruso will win in L.A. next year. None of this tells us how the vast majority of Americans are really feeling. Sure, it's good fodder to debate around the table or on cable news shows, but ultimately the sample size of a mayoral election belies any claims about a result's meaning. Turnout during an off year is just too low. One thing we know for certain is most voters in America exercise their right to vote only once every four years. Oligarchs and corrupt officials are not great, but it's hard for democracy to stay healthy and strong if that's all the exercise it's getting. @LZGranderson
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Washington Post Is Secretly Planning to Start Publishing Articles Created Using AI
As the news media continues its often-disastrous pivot towards generative artificial intelligence, the most prominent publication yet has jumped on board: the Washington Post, it turns out, has quietly been building an AI tool designed to let underqualified writers publish content in its storied pages. According to multiple sources familiar with the plan who spoke to the New York Times, since April the newspaper has been secretly building a program known as "Ripple" that appears to be part syndication, part talent network akin to contributor schemes at HuffPost and Forbes. The biggest difference from those prior contributor networks and this one, though, is the way the sausage will be made. Along with partnerships with established writers, the new program will employ an "AI writing coach" called "Ember" designed to guide "nonprofessionals" through the article-writing process. That tool will, per early prototypes described to the NYT, hand-hold aspiring columnists through every aspect of the writing process from start to finish. Its sidebar will instruct writers to devise an "early thesis," list out "supporting points," and provide a "memorable ending" — all while a live AI chatbot weighs in and a "story strength" tracker evaluates their progress. At the end of it all, a human editor is said to review the columns before they go to publication — though in practice, similar promises have often ended in disaster, like at CNET, which promised that editors were reviewing the scores of AI-generated articles it ran before it turned out they were riddled with errors and plagiarism. Though the outputs from WaPo's program wouldn't be entirely generated by AI, it sounds like everything but. And in practice, as we've seen time and again, the temptation with AI is to use it not as a thoughtful creative partner but as a speedrunning tool to churn out large quantities of low-quality material, or to cook up something that sounds confident but is shaky on the undergirding facts and logic. In other words, it sounds like the program could be poised to take everything that's currently broken and controversial about newspaper opinion sections and amplify it using generative AI. WaPo declined to provide comment for the NYT's exposé. It's worth noting that the NYT has been putting significant resources of its own into exploring how AI can be responsibly used in journalism — but while it's using certain machine learning tools for tasks like finding patterns in large datasets, it's pledged not to use generative AI to write any articles. The revelation also comes during a period of broader crisis at WaPo, with significant layoffs coming as its owner Jeff Bezos has increasingly exerted control over the content and ideological leaning of the paper's journalism. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, eat your heart out. More on AI writing: Business Insider Did Something So Stupid With AI That We're Reeling
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden admits keeping classified Afghanistan document 'for posterity's sake' in leaked audio
Former President Joe Biden, in newly leaked audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur, admitted he likely kept a classified document related to Afghanistan after he left the vice presidency for "posterity's sake." Biden first said he didn't recall why he had the document when asked about it by Hur, who told him it was found in the library of his lake house. "I don't know that I knew," that he had the document, Biden answered, "but it wasn't something I would have stopped to think about." Hur noted that Bob Woodward and Jules Witcover both wrote about the document in their books about him, asking if he wanted to hang onto it because it might be the subject of reporting or "history." Biden Struggles With Words, Key Memories In Leaked Audio From Special Counsel Hur Interview "I guess I wanted to hang on to it for posterity's sake. I mean, this was my position on Afghanistan. I've been of the view from a historical standpoint that there are certain points in history, world history, where fundamental things change using technology," he said. Read On The Fox News App "So, there are a lot of things that I think are fundamentally changing how international societies function, and they relate a lot to technology." After the 80-year-old continued on that subject for a while, Hur interrupted him to get back to the topic of the document. "No, I'm sorry, that's why I wanted it," Biden answered. "It had nothing to with Afghanistan." One of the former president's lawyers then interrupted Hur to say, "For the purposes of a clean record," he wanted to avoid "getting into speculative areas," mentioning that Biden at first answered the question about the document by saying he didn't recall why he had it. At that point, Hur answered, "I think we should take a break." In other sections of the audio, Biden seems confused, asking what year his son, Beau Biden, died, and what year he left the vice presidency. House Judiciary Sues Garland For Biden Audio That Hur Says Shows Him As 'Elderly Man With A Poor Memory' The audio, related to an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents while vice president, came out after more than a year of congressional lawmakers demanding its release amid questions about the former president's memory lapses and mental acuity. The House Judiciary Committee sued Attorney General Merrick Garland in July for the audio recordings, stressing the importance of the "verbal and nonverbal context" of Biden's answers that could be provided by the audio recordings, especially considering Hur opted against charging Biden after the interview, partly because Biden was viewed as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." The committee argued at the time that the audio recordings, not merely the transcripts of them, are "the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview." That lawsuit was filed before Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in July after he struggled in a June debate with Trump. Biden had exerted executive privilege over the audio recordings while president. Hur, who released his report to the public in February 2024 after months of investigation, did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents, and he said he would not bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy that Hur said implicated "sensitive intelligence sources and methods." Fox News Digital has reached out to Biden for article source: Biden admits keeping classified Afghanistan document 'for posterity's sake' in leaked audio
Fox News
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden admits keeping classified Afghanistan document 'for posterity's sake' in leaked audio
Former President Joe Biden, in newly leaked audio of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur, admitted he likely kept a classified document related to Afghanistan after he left the vice presidency for "posterity's sake." Biden first said he didn't recall why he had the document when asked about it by Hur, who told him it was found in the library of his lake house. "I don't know that I knew," that he had the document, Biden answered, "but it wasn't something I would have stopped to think about." Hur noted that Bob Woodward and Jules Witcover both wrote about the document in their books about him, asking if he wanted to hang onto it because it might be the subject of reporting or "history." "I guess I wanted to hang on to it for posterity's sake. I mean, this was my position on Afghanistan. I've been of the view from a historical standpoint that there are certain points in history, world history, where fundamental things change using technology," he said. "So, there are a lot of things that I think are fundamentally changing how international societies function, and they relate a lot to technology." After the 80-year-old continued on that subject for a while, Hur interrupted him to get back to the topic of the document. "No, I'm sorry, that's why I wanted it," Biden answered. "It had nothing to with Afghanistan." One of the former president's lawyers then interrupted Hur to say, "For the purposes of a clean record," he wanted to avoid "getting into speculative areas," mentioning that Biden at first answered the question about the document by saying he didn't recall why he had it. At that point, Hur answered, "I think we should take a break." In other sections of the audio, Biden seems confused, asking what year his son, Beau Biden, died, and what year he left the vice presidency. The audio, related to an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents while vice president, came out after more than a year of congressional lawmakers demanding its release amid questions about the former president's memory lapses and mental acuity. The House Judiciary Committee sued Attorney General Merrick Garland in July for the audio recordings, stressing the importance of the "verbal and nonverbal context" of Biden's answers that could be provided by the audio recordings, especially considering Hur opted against charging Biden after the interview, partly because Biden was viewed as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." The committee argued at the time that the audio recordings, not merely the transcripts of them, are "the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview." That lawsuit was filed before Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in July after he struggled in a June debate with Trump. Biden had exerted executive privilege over the audio recordings while president. Hur, who released his report to the public in February 2024 after months of investigation, did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents, and he said he would not bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office. Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy that Hur said implicated "sensitive intelligence sources and methods." Fox News Digital has reached out to Biden for comment.
