National park to remove photo of enslaved man’s scars; The Washington Post, September 16, 2025

Jake Spring

 and 

Hannah Natanson

, The Washington Post ; National park to remove photo of enslaved man’s scars

[Kip Currier: I will be posting commentary about this deeply troubling development by Trump 2.0.]

[Excerpt]

"The Trump administration has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks, according to four people familiar with the matter, including a historic photograph of a formerly enslaved man showing scars on his back.

The individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media, said the removals were in line with President Donald Trump’s March executive order directing the Interior Department to eliminate information that reflects a “corrosive ideology” that disparages historic Americans. National Park Service officials are broadly interpreting that directive to apply to information on racism, sexism, slavery, gay rights or persecution of Indigenous people."

Man develops rare condition after ChatGPT query over stopping eating salt; The Guardian, August 12, 2025

Dan Milmo , The Guardian; Man develops rare condition after ChatGPT query over stopping eating salt

"A US medical journal has warned against using ChatGPT for health information after a man developed a rare condition following an interaction with the chatbot about removing table salt from his diet.

An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a case in which a 60-year-old man developed bromism, also known as bromide toxicity, after consulting ChatGPT."

The Smithsonian Changes Its Description of Trump’s Role on Jan. 6; The New York Times, August 8, 2025

 Graham Bowley, The New York Times; The Smithsonian Changes Its Description of Trump’s Role on Jan. 6

"The Smithsonian put up new text on Friday that changed its description of President Trump’s impeachment following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol."

What if You Can’t Believe the Official Numbers?; The New York Times, August 8, 2025

 Jeff Sommer, The New York Times; What if You Can’t Believe the Official Numbers?

"Imagine living in a country where you can’t trust the government’s numbers."

MAGA Attorney Threatens To Sue Journalists Over ‘Unpatriotic’ Reporting; Gets The Exact Response He Deserves; Above The Law, June 27, 2025

Kathryn Rubino , Above The Law; MAGA Attorney Threatens To Sue Journalists Over ‘Unpatriotic’ Reporting; Gets The Exact Response He Deserves

[Kip Currier: The New York Times' refusal to capitulate to Trump administration bullying of reporters and defamation lawsuit threats regarding NYT reporting on the Iran bombings earlier this week is a model for other news organizations. As NYT attorney David McCraw explained in his response letter to a Trump lawyer calling for a retraction and apology:

“No retraction is needed.” He continued, “No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”"]

The paragraph right before that rebuke, though, is equally assertive but articulates the public's interest in access to truthful reporting and the ability to assess leadership decision-making in a democracy:

But let's not lose sight of the larger point to be made. The American public has a right to know whether the attack on Iran -- funded by taxpayer dollars and of enormous consequence to every citizen -- was a success. We rely on our intelligence services to provide the kind of impartial assessment that we all need in a democracy to judge our country's foreign policy and the quality of our leaders' decisions. It would be irresponsible for a news organization to suppress that information and deny the public the right to hear it. And it would be even more irresponsible for a president to use the threat of libel litigation to try to silence a publication that dared to report that the trained, professional, and patriotic intelligence experts employed by the U.S. government thought that the President may have gotten it wrong in his initial remarks to the country."] 

[Excerpt]

"President Donald Trump doesn’t like anyone asking too many questions about the Iran strikes he unilaterally authorized. In fact, when news outlets report that the bombings were not as destructive as Trump initially boasted, he (and other members of his administration

(Opens in a new window)) lashed out at members of the media. On Truth Social, he called out(Opens in a new window) journalists from CNN and the New York Times as “fake news reporters” who are “bad people with evil intentions.” 

But that wasn’t the end of Trump’s tantrum. His personal attorney Alejandro Brito sent letters to the NYT (Opens in a new window)and CNN(Opens in a new window), full of legal bluster. The missives demand they “retract and apologize” the reporting for “false,” “defamatory,” and “unpatriotic” reporting, First Amendment be damned!

The Fourth Estate is more functional than Biglaw(Opens in a new window), so in the face of these threats, the outlets responded with stinging rebukes.

David McCraw, the lawyer for the Times replied(Opens in a new window), “No retraction is needed.” He continued, “No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”"

Excruciating reason Utah lawyer presented FAKE case in court after idiotic blunder; Daily Mail, May 31, 2025

JOE HUTCHISON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM; Excruciating reason Utah lawyer presented FAKE case in court after idiotic blunder

"The case referenced, according to documents, was 'Royer v. Nelson' which did not exist in any legal database and was found to be made up by ChatGPT.

Opposing counsel said that the only way they would find any mention of the case was by using the AI. 

They even went as far as to ask the AI if the case was real, noting in a filing that it then apologized and said it was a mistake.

Bednar's attorney, Matthew Barneck, said that the research was done by a clerk and Bednar took all responsibility for failing to review the cases.

He told The Salt Lake Tribune: 'That was his mistake. He owned up to it and authorized me to say that and fell on the sword."

Historians alarmed as Trump seeks to rewrite US story for 250th anniversary; The Guardian, May 4, 2025

Robert Tait , The Guardian ; Historians alarmed as Trump seeks to rewrite US story for 250th anniversary

"Under an executive order issued in January, the president has started to churn out his own approved version of US history that professional historians fear will resort to the tried and tested authoritarian playbook of airbrushing out inconvenient and inglorious chapters that do not align with his vision of American greatness.

“He is not now and never has been a student of history, but is basically a restorationist,” said Jonathan Alter, a historian and biographer of several US presidents, including Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and Franklin Roosevelt. Alter described a “restorationist” as a “political figure who operates on the politics of nostalgia”.

“He’s ignorant of economic history, he’s ignorant of political history. And his idea for the 250 is to use it as a way to celebrate him,” Alter added. “We don’t know yet exactly how he’ll hijack that event next year, but he will certainly try to do so.”

Trump turns a COVID information website into a promotion page for the lab leak theory; THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 18, 2025

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS; Trump turns a COVID information website into a promotion page for the lab leak theory

[Kip Currier: Click on covid.gov webpage and assess for yourself the accuracy and judgment of placing "a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words “lab” and “leak” under a White House heading", adjacent to the words "The True Origins of Covid-19".

Many of the purported claims on this webpage constitute disinformation and propaganda that lack conclusive empirical scientific evidence.

The cherry-picked information about Dr. Anthony Fauci is intentionally misleading. Former Pres. Joe Biden pardoned Fauci on January 20, 2025 because of fears that the incoming Trump 2.0 administration would pursue baseless legal actions against him. The photo of Fauci used on the revamped covid.gov webpage by the current Trump administration depicts Fauci "face-palming". The face-palming picture is placed directly next to Biden's pardon of Fauci, implying that Fauci is face-palming because of shame about the pardon. In truth, Fauci famously face-palmed nearly 5 years earlier, on March 20, 2020, during a live Covid-19 briefing with Donald Trump. As The Independent reported: 

A leading expert assisting Donald Trump’s administration in its response to the coronavirus pandemic appeared to face palm during an extraordinary press briefing at the White House as the president lambasted “the Deep State Department”. 

Video of the moment showed Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, seemingly reacting to Mr Trump’s bizarre rant in real-time, standing just behind the president as he spoke about his administration’s latest efforts to slow the spread of the virus. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-trump-briefing-dr-anthony-fauci-face-palm-a9416111.html

Watch video evidence -- available on many platforms representing diverse political perspectives -- and evaluate the face-palming for yourself.]

[Excerpt]

"A federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak.

The covid.gov website shows a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words “lab” and “leak” under a White House heading. It mentions that Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus first began spreading, is home to a research lab with a history of conducting virus research with “inadequate biosafety levels.”

The web page also accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of pushing a “preferred narrative” that COVID-19 originated in nature.

The origins of COVID have never been proven. Scientists are unsure whether the virus jumped from an animal, as many other viruses have, or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis released in 2023 said there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory."

Musk Retweets ‘Hitler Didn’t Murder Millions’ Message Amid Ongoing Nazi Controversy; Forbes, March 13, 2025

Antonio Pequeño IV , Forbes; Musk Retweets ‘Hitler Didn’t Murder Millions’ Message Amid Ongoing Nazi Controversy

"Tesla chief and presidential adviser Elon Musk shared a post Thursday that said public sector workers, not Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, murdered millions of people, marking the billionaire’s latest Nazi-related post as he and his electric vehicle company face continued backlash and boycotts as critics say his embrace of right-wing politics is veering more extreme."

DOGE says it’s saved the federal government $115 billion. Experts say the figures don’t stack up.; Fortune, March 13, 2025

BEATRICE NOLAN , Fortune; DOGE says it’s saved the federal government $115 billion. Experts say the figures don’t stack up.

Trump, Zelenskyy and the war on truth; Index on Censorship, February 24, 2025

Sarah Dawood , Index on Censorship; Trump, Zelenskyy and the war on truth

"The news this week has been dominated by the growing feud between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which has culminated in possibly irreparable relations between the presidents.

What started with a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine (from which Zelenskyy was excluded) ended in a stream of disinformation coming from the leader of the world’s largest economy. Trump made several spurious claims chiming with those regularly churned out by Putin’s propaganda machine.

Among these were that Zelenskyy is a “dictator without elections”, that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion, and that Zelenskyy’s approval rating in Ukraine has plummeted to 4%, all of which closely mirror the Kremlin’s narrative. In response, Zelenskyy said that the US president is “trapped” within a Russian “disinformation bubble”.

Trump’s comments have been debunked by many world leaders, including Keir Starmer, who immediately came out in support of Zelenskyy as a democratically elected leader, and asserted that it is normal for presidential elections to be suspended during wartime (as happened in the UK during World War Two).

This exchange indicates a drastic reshaping in the geopolitical relationship between the USA and Russia, and indeed the USA and its key allies – but it also indicates a worrying affront to access to truthful information, the normalisation of false realities, and an acceptance of the suppression of free speech.

In what is often deemed Putin’s “war on truth”, the autocratic leader’s regime is notorious for crackdowns on journalism and free information. As well as blocking access to almost all social media websites and international news sites in Russia, his government has banned independent news outlets, with media now under government control. In doing so, he has been able to control the narrative of the war for his own citizens.

This is not to say that Ukraine itself has been a bastion of free expression. As reported by Amnesty International, free speech restrictions in the country have increased since 2022, with 2,000 cases of individuals being charged, prosecuted or investigated for crimes such as “justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine”, including those who class themselves as pacifists.

But what Trump’s words do signal is a terrifying new world order where intentional mistruths are prioritised over fair, free and accurate information, not only by dictators, but by leaders who are meant to be upholding the principles of democracy."

‘It’s not unusual’: RFK Jr. downplays largest measles outbreak in decades as cases spread to Kentucky; Independent, February 27, 2025

Josh Marcus, Independent; ‘It’s not unusual’: RFK Jr. downplays largest measles outbreak in decades as cases spread to Kentucky

"During a Trump administration cabinet meeting, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. downplayed the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas that has killed a child and resulted in over 120 cases of the disease since January. 

“We are following the measles epidemic every day,” Kennedy said during the meeting. “Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year. In this country last year there were 16. So, it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”

He described those hospitalized as part of the outbreak centered near Gaines County as “mainly for quarantine,” though a local official said otherwise...

It’s the first measles death in the U.S. since 2015, all the more notable because the disease was considered eliminated in the U.S. as of 2000 given widespread vaccination."

Nearly Twice as Many Americans View Trump as 'Dictator' Than Zelensky; Newsweek, February 20, 2025

Mandy Taheri, Newsweek; Nearly Twice as Many Americans View Trump as 'Dictator' Than Zelensky

"Nearly twice as many Americans view President Donald Trump as a "dictator" compared to Volodymyr Zelensky, according to a new poll. Trump recently used the word to describe the Ukrainian president...

A YouGov poll of 4,071 Americans conducted on February 19 asked participants whether they believe Zelensky, Trump and Putin are dictators.

The poll found that 41 percent of participants view Trump as a dictator, just below the 45 percent who do not. Gender played a role in participants answers, as among women, 46 percent consider Trump a dictator, compared to 35 percent of men.

The divide also falls along political lines, with 80 percent of Republicans saying Trump is not a dictator, while 68 percent of Democrats believe he is.

Fourteen percent of respondents said they were unsure if they consider him a dictator or not.

When participants were asked if they considered Zelensky a dictator, as Trump did on Wednesday, 22 percent said yes, while 45 percent said no. A larger share of participants, 33 percent, were unsure.

A majority of Democrats, 63 percent, said the Ukrainian leader is not a dictator, with only 15 percent believing he is. Republicans were fairly split among the three responses, with 36 percent unsure, 31 percent saying no and 33 percent saying yes."

Scoop: Why Trump targets AP; Axios, February 17, 2025

 

• Marc Caputo, Axios; Scoop: Why Trump targets AP

"One of the big reasons President Trump is limiting AP reporters' White House access is to protest what aides see as years of liberal word choices that the wire service's influential stylebook spread across mainstream media, according to top White House officials.

Why it matters: The trigger was the announcement by The Associated Press that it would continue using the 400-year-old "Gulf of Mexico" rather than switch to "Gulf of America," as declared by Trump in a Day 1 executive order. But it turns out that broader underlying grievances made AP a target.

The big picture: By spotlighting AP, Trump is amplifying Republican and conservative criticisms that the AP Stylebook, a first reference for most U.S. news organizations, shapes political dialogue by favoring liberal words and phrases concerning gender, immigration, raceand law enforcement.

• "This isn't just about the Gulf of America," White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich told Axios. "This is about AP weaponizing language through their stylebook to push a partisan worldview in contrast with the traditional and deeply held beliefs of many Americans and many people around the world."
• The dispute with AP is part of Trump's broader effort to discredit legacy media outlets and the public's trust in the press — already at a record low.

The other side: AP — which has long been considered the gold standard of neutrality — rejects any accusation of bias. Lauren Easton, vice president of corporate communications, told Axios that AP "is a global, fact-based, nonpartisan news organization with thousands of customers around the world who span the political spectrum."

• "If AP journalism wasn't factual and nonpartisan, this wouldn't be the case," she said.
• Easton said AP provides "guidance on issues brought to us by members and customers, and it is up to them what they choose to use. Again, this is guidance. It's not surprising that political parties, organizations or even individuals may disagree with some entries. The Stylebook doesn't align with any particular agenda.""

Mystery around top-ranked Rockefeller book grows as university publisher denies involvement; CNBC, January 28, 2025

 Robert Frank, CNBC; Mystery around top-ranked Rockefeller book grows as university publisher denies involvement

"The mystery around a top-selling Amazon book attributed to John D. Rockefeller has grown to include a university publisher, which denies any involvement in the book despite being listed as its publisher.

CNBC began raising questions last month about the authenticity of “The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to his son: Perspective, Ideology and Wisdom,” a purported collection of letters by John D. Rockefeller Sr. sold on Amazon,Barnes & Noble and other sites.

The mysterious origin of “The 38 Letters” raises a host of questions about publishing and the surge in wealth-help books...

“The authenticity of the book ‘The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to his Son’ is questionable,” the Archive center told CNBC in a statement.

Now caught in the confusion is OpenStax, the nonprofit publisher of open educational resources at Rice University, which is listed as the book’s publisher in some printings.

“We are not the publisher of this title,” a spokesperson for OpenStax told CNBC in a statement, adding that the publisher is “investigating the situation to protect our brand and ensure accurate information.”"

Our job is to be truthful not neutral’: Christiane Amanpour on Trump, tech and and fighting for the truth; The Observer, via The Guardian, January 25, 2025

Tim Adams, The Observer via The Guardian; Our job is to be truthful not neutral’: Christiane Amanpour on Trump, tech and and fighting for the truth

"Amanpour works to a trusted formula: “Our job is to be truthful, not neutral,” she says. When we speak, the news is full of the malign influence of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on the global conversation.

As someone who originally owed her lucrative journalistic career to a billionaire, the “visionary” – her word – CNN founder Ted Turner, Amanpour is fully aware that rich men have always seen news as a business opportunity. Social media oligarchs, however, want to pocket the billions with none of the attendant responsibilities. Never a doom scroller, she sees Mark Zuckerberg’s utterly shameless decision to remove all factchecking from his Meta platforms as a drastic escalation of that policy.

“Of course, not everybody’s going to agree on everything and nor should they,” she says. “But unless we can agree that the sky outside is blue and the grass is green, we have no chance. What is overtaking the public square is that every single fact is now the subject of accusations of lies or bias. Zuckerberg enabling totally permissive commentary is another arrow in the heart of truth.”"

Apple sidelines AI news summaries due to errors; Japan Today, January 17, 2025

Japan Today; Apple sidelines AI news summaries due to errors

"Apple pushed out a software update on Thursday which disabled news headlines and summaries generated using artificial intelligence that were lambasted for getting facts wrong.

The move by the tech titan comes as it enhances its latest lineup of devices with "Apple Intelligence" in a market keen for assurance that the iPhone maker is a contender in the AI race.

Apple's decision to temporarily disable the recently launched AI feature comes after the BBC and other news organizations complained that users were getting mistake-riddled or outright wrong headlines or news summary alerts."

The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’; The New York Times, January 16, 2025

Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times ; The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’

[Kip Currier: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” 

-- Juvenal, Roman satirical poet (c. 100 AD).

To think that The Washington Post was the newspaper whose investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the 1970's Watergate break-in and cover-up, resulting in the eventual resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon on August 8, 1974...

And to now see its stature intentionally diminished and its mission incrementally debased, week by week, at the hands of billionaire Jeff Bezos and hand-picked former newspaper administrators who worked for billionaire Rupert Murdoch-owned U.K. newspapers.]

[Excerpt]

"After Donald J. Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”...

The slide deck that Ms. Watford presented describes artificial intelligence as a key enabler of The Post’s success, the people said. It describes The Post as “an A.I.-fueled platform for news” that delivers “vital news, ideas and insights for all Americans where, how and when they want it.” It also lays out three pillars of The Post’s overall plan: “great journalism,” “happy customers” and “make money.” The Post lost roughly $77 million in 2023.

But many aspects of The Post’s new mission have nothing to do with emerging technology. The slide deck includes a list of seven principles first articulated by Eugene Meyer, an influential Post owner, in 1935. Among them: “the newspaper shall tell all the truth” and “the newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners.”"

Stop using generative AI as a search engine; The Verge, December 5, 2024

Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge; Stop using generative AI as a search engine

"Maybe there is a way to make generative AI useful, but in its current state, I feel tremendously sorry for anyone gullible enough to use it as a research tool.

I know people are sick of talking about glue on pizza, but I find the large-scale degradation of our information environment that has already taken place shocking. (Just search Amazon if you want to see what I mean.) This happens in small ways, like Google’s AI wrongly saying that male foxes mate for life, and big ones, like spreading false information around a major news event. What good is an answer machine that nobody can trust."

The imaginary justifications for Biden’s pardon of his son; The Washington Post, December 4, 2024

 Philip Bump, The Washington Post; The imaginary justifications for Biden’s pardon of his son

"There is robust documentation of known grants of clemency, a database created by a former college professor who built his career on being the foremost expert on presidential pardons. (He later killed his children and himself.) But that database is not accessible to the general public. You can’t just search “what presidents had relatives that they pardoned” and get a clear, detailed answer that draws from the public record.

What you can do, though, is ask an artificial intelligence trained to generate clear, detailed answers to questions — but not necessarily ones that include accurate information. That’s what Navarro-Cárdenas did, according to a follow-up post: she asked ChatGPT which presidents had pardoned relatives. And it reached into its database of phrases and snippets and pulled out the words “Roger Clinton” and “Charles Kushner” and “Hunter deButts.”