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News for the public, not the powerful.
Sam Altman Tells America to Swallow the Damage So AI Billionaires Can Cash In
OpenAI’s CEO just said the quiet part out loud. In an interview for Politico’s new Decoded newsletter and podcast, Sam Altman drew a line between his company and what he called the stricter AI safety people. His words? “The world should accept some bad things happening” for the benefits of this technology. He went further. He said his push for lighter-touch regulation comes with accepting that bad things are going to happen while society figures out how to cope. The backlash was instant. Patrick Gaspard of the Center for American Progress called the remark freaking insane and said elected leaders need to get past the safe fights over data centers and do the real work of regulating this industry. Commentator Wajahat Ali said the country needs a political movement to crush these sociopaths. Think about what Altman’s really asking. He and his investors collect the profits. You get the bad things. That’s the oldest con in American business. Privatize the gains and dump the costs on everybody else. We regulated the railroads, the drug makers and the automakers. We can regulate this, too.
Did Trump Just Drag America Into Another Saudi War in Yemen?
Yemen’s sliding back into all-out war, and Washington’s fingerprints are all over it. On Sunday, Yemen’s Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive against the Iran-backed Houthis. Rashad al-Alimi, who heads the presidential council, vowed to retake all Houthi territory. That’s home to about 70% of Yemen’s people, including the capital, Sanaa. The government could mobilize as many as 100,000 troops. The Houthis say Saudi forces hit them with 50 air and missile attacks in 12 hours. They answered with ballistic missiles and drones aimed at Saudi Aramco oil sites, and one near Riyadh went up in flames. Trump reportedly turned down the Saudi crown prince’s request for American airstrikes. But US officials told Axios our military is giving the Saudis “everything short of direct combat,” mostly intelligence and targeting data. The human cost is already brutal. More than 149,000 people have been driven from their homes. The World Food Program says 18.3 million Yemenis are at risk of acute food insecurity. The last round of this war caused about 377,000 deaths, and some 259,000 of them were children under five. The Constitution hands the war power to Congress, not to a president doing favors for a crown prince. Where’s the vote?
Will Eight Justices Hand Big Oil a Free Pass on Climate Damage?
The Supreme Court opened its new term today with a case that could decide whether oil companies ever pay for the wreckage they’ve caused. Back in 2018, the city and county of Boulder, Colorado sued Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil in state court. They want the companies to cover a share of what climate change is costing local taxpayers, and they say the companies hid the dangers of their products. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled five to two last year that the case can go forward. Now Exxon and Canada-based Suncor want the justices to rule that federal law blocks state courts from hearing it at all. The Trump administration’s taking Big Oil’s side. Dozens of states, cities and counties have filed similar suits, with billions of dollars riding on the answer. Only 8 justices are hearing this one. Samuel Alito, who owns stock in other oil companies, stepped aside last week after months of pressure. Boulder’s climate director says the case is “fundamentally, about fairness.” He’s right. If you break it, you pay for it. That’s the rule for every working family in America. If this court says it doesn’t apply to the richest industry in history, what could go wrong? Pretty much everything.
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Trump Promised His Tariffs Would End the Rip-Off, So Why Is the Trade Deficit Exploding?
It’s been almost a year and a half since Trump’s so-called Liberation Day, when he slapped tariffs on our trading partners and promised to wipe out the trade deficit. How’s that going? Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research ran the numbers. The advance figure for August came in at $132.6 billion. That’s the second-highest monthly deficit on record. The only month that beats it is March of last year, at $158.7 billion, when businesses and families rushed to stock up before the tariffs hit. Here’s the trail. The deficit ran about $90 billion a month through 2023. It was around $110 billion by the election. It dipped after the tariffs, climbed back to $100 billion by December, and it’s surged this year, driven largely by imported computer chips for the AI boom. Baker’s verdict on Trump’s promise? “It hasn’t worked out that way.” Meanwhile, America runs a surplus of roughly $30 billion a month in services. So you’re paying the tariffs at the checkout counter, and the thing they were supposed to fix got worse. A tax on working people that doesn’t even do what it promised isn’t trade policy. It’s a shakedown.
Oklahoma Lawmakers Find a Republican Colleague Harassed Women, Then Let Him Keep His Seat
In Oklahoma, a House committee spent two days behind closed doors last month hearing from witnesses and victims. Its finding? Republican state Representative Danny Williams of Seminole, who’s 77, sexually harassed multiple women. It also found he urinated in a cup that was left on his assistant’s desk. Yes, you heard that right. So did they move to expel him? No. They recommended a reprimand. They’d strip his committee seats and leadership posts, take away his assistant, and bar him from one-on-one contact with House staff. They asked him to take harassment training, resign and not run again. All of that’s optional, and he hasn’t done any of it. Williams denies everything and calls the process unfair. House Speaker Kyle Hilbert says Williams was one of only two people working late that night who could’ve done it. Democrat Andy Fugate said the punishment was all the House had available, “but it was not enough.” The House can expel a member with a two-thirds vote. It just won’t. Columnist Janelle Stecklein of Oklahoma Voice points out that anybody in the private sector would’ve been fired. When the powerful protect their own, the women who came forward learn the lesson. So does every woman thinking about it.
Is America Ready if a Deadly Lab Accident in Siberia Turns Out to Be Plague?
A 28-year-old lab technician is dead in Siberia, and Washington’s watching closely. Darya Shipilova worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute. An independent Siberian outlet, People of Baikal, reports she accidentally broke a test tube holding pneumonic plague bacteria on September 25. She went into the hospital on the 29th and died October 2. Russian health officials won’t confirm that. They call it pneumonia of unknown cause and say no accident was recorded. But look at what they’re doing. About 200 people are under medical observation. More than 60 institute workers have reportedly been locked inside since Friday, sleeping on floors and chairs. Hospitals in the area are under quarantine. A nearby aluminum plant ordered masks. The governor of a neighboring region said she died “possibly from plague.” The State Department says it’s monitoring with the CDC and wants Russia to share accurate information fast. Now, there’s no confirmed spread, and plague can be treated with common antibiotics if you catch it early. So this isn’t a reason to panic. It’s a reason to ask a question. After the deep cuts this administration’s made to our public health agencies, are we ready for the next one? Let’s hope so. Germs don’t care about politics.
And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, October 5, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
