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Presidential contenders take symbolic stand against corporate PACs

Spurning donations from corporate political action committees is one of the few items of early agreement for virtually every announced Democratic presidential candidate. But the impact of this move on the candidates' campaign finances is far more symbolic than substantive.

That's because corporate PACs "aren't big players in the campaign finance world for presidential elections, so most candidates aren't really giving up that much money," Mother Jones notes in a story about the vow taken so far by four of the senators in the race – Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirstin Gillibrand of New York – along with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro.


Less than 1 percent of all contributions to the major party nominees came from PACs in the last four presidential elections, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The organizations can give just $10,000 to a 2020 candidate, a tiny sum in the age of super PACs that get to spend without limit on messaging and advertisements. "And corporate PACs tend to not be especially ideological, mainly supporting incumbents from both parties or donating to both candidates in the same races to benefit themselves regardless of who wins," Mother Jones notes.

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When Good Intentions Kill Cures: A Warning on AI Regulation

Kevin Frazier warns that one-size-fits-all AI laws risk stifling innovation. Learn the 7 “sins” policymakers must avoid to protect progress.

Getty Images, Aitor Diago

When Good Intentions Kill Cures: A Warning on AI Regulation

Imagine it is 2028. A start-up in St. Louis trains an AI model that can spot pancreatic cancer six months earlier than the best radiologists, buying patients precious time that medicine has never been able to give them. But the model never leaves the lab. Why? Because a well-intentioned, technology-neutral state statute drafted in 2025 forces every “automated decision system” to undergo a one-size-fits-all bias audit, to be repeated annually, and to be performed only by outside experts who—three years in—still do not exist in sufficient numbers. While regulators scramble, the company’s venture funding dries up, the founders decamp to Singapore, and thousands of Americans are deprived of an innovation that would have saved their lives.

That grim vignette is fictional—so far. But it is the predictable destination of the seven “deadly sins” that already haunt our AI policy debates. Reactive politicians are at risk of passing laws that fly in the face of what qualifies as good policy for emerging technologies.

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President Donald Trump standing next to a chart in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Donald Trump discusses economic data with Stephen Moore (L), Senior Visiting Fellow in Economics at The Heritage Foundation, in the Oval Office on August 07, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Win McNamee

Investor-in-Chief: Trump’s Business Deals, Loyalty Scorecards, and the Rise of Neo-Socialist Capitalism

For over 100 years, the Republican Party has stood for free-market capitalism and keeping the government’s heavy hand out of the economy. Government intervention in the economy, well, that’s what leaders did in the Soviet Union and communist China, not in the land of Uncle Sam.

And then Donald Trump seized the reins of the Republican Party. Trump has dispensed with numerous federal customs and rules, so it’s not too surprising that he is now turning his administration into the most business-interventionist government ever in American history. Contrary to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” in the economy, suddenly, the signs of the White House’s “visible hand” are everywhere.

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Cuando El Idioma Se Convierte En Blanco, La Democracia Pierde Su Voz

Hands holding bars over "Se Habla Español" sign

AI generated

Cuando El Idioma Se Convierte En Blanco, La Democracia Pierde Su Voz

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision from its “shadow docket” that reversed a lower-court injunction and gave federal immigration agents in Los Angeles the green light to resume stops based on four deeply troubling criteria:

  • Apparent race or ethnicity
  • Speaking Spanish or accented English
  • Presence in a particular location
  • Type of work

The case, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, is still working its way through the courts. But the message from this emergency ruling is unmistakable: the constitutional protections that once shielded immigrant communities from racial profiling are now conditional—and increasingly fragile.

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