May 14, 2026

BREAKING THE BANTUSTANS IS DEMOCRATIC:

May 14, 2026

Poll: Democrats would give up Black voting power to beat the GOP (Erin Doherty, Andrew Howard and Riley Rogerson, 05/14/2026, Politico)

It’s a stunning admission from a Black lawmaker who represents a majority-Hispanic Los Angeles district: Defeating Republicans might be more important than protecting districts like hers.

And it’s a real possibility the party would have to deploy the tactic if it hopes to stand a chance against the most aggressive Republican gerrymandering possible. To draw House seats with the best margins for the party — especially in states like Illinois and New York — district lines would likely need to be altered in a way that packs large numbers of Black voters into red-leaning areas in order to make them bluer.

It’s not just a few Democrats switching their minds. Consider the Harris voters who initially say they would protect majority-minority districts: When asked about countering the GOP, they split roughly evenly, with 46 percent saying it’s more important to draw more blue seats and 41 percent saying the majority-minority districts should be kept together.

Latin America

…SO MUCH YET TO DO:

May 14, 2026

How Venezuela has – and hasn’t – changed since Maduro’s capture (Julia Buxton, May 8, 2026, The Conversation)

On the economic front, Rodríguez has implemented reforms at a greater pace. New laws and regulations reversing Chávez’s nationalisation drive are reopening key sectors of the economy to private investment. This includes hydrocarbons and mining.

A recently unveiled Commission for the Evaluation of Public Assets will audit state ownership in other economic areas such as agriculture, manufacturing and infrastructure. A fire sale to the private sector is expected.

The discipline and political dominance of the PSUV machine have been put to good use here, waving through favourable terms and other confidence-building measures for investors. These include providing legal guarantees in what has long been a notoriously unpredictable economic environment, as well as access to international arbitration. Whether these measures encourage investment will become clear in the months ahead.

Rodríguez has also steered Venezuela back into the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ending a suspension that began in 2019 when the organisation ceased recognising Maduro’s government. Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, reports having “productive” conversations with Rodríguez.

The US president, Donald Trump, has praised Rodríguez for doing a “great job”. He has said she is working well with US representatives. But there are many disruptive challenges on the horizon for Rodríguez. In the short-term, there is a very real risk of protests. Venezuela remains in a political limbo with hopes of justice and democracy currently frustrated.

The absence of demonstrations to date owes much to a lack of leadership on the ground. This is likely to change when opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who the Maduro government barred from competing in the July 2024 presidential election, returns to the country. Machado has said she expects to be back in Venezuela before the end of 2026.

Energy

YOUR NEXT PLANE WILL BE A VOLT:

May 14, 2026

First hydrogen helicopter just proved it can fly a real mission (Omar Kardoudi, May 11, 2026, New Atlas)

Last month, a modified Robinson R44 lifted off from Roland-Désourdy Airport in Bromont, Quebec, and completed what may be the most consequential short flight in rotorcraft history. It was the first hydrogen-powered helicopter to complete a full operational circuit – takeoff, climb, pattern flight, approach, and landing – under real-world conditions.

Identitarianism Islam

MIGA:

May 14, 2026

Political Islam Is Rank Populism That Perverts a Fundamentally Liberal Faith (Mohammed Nosseir, May 13, 2026, Unpopulist)

A critical distinction is therefore needed: Islam, the faith tradition, is categorically different than “Political Islam” or “Islamism,” which is fundamentally a political project. But opposing one does not mean opposing the other. In fact, we Muslims should be leading the charge against attempts to flatten our faith into a political agenda.

Political Islam, whose violent factions bear no true relation to the religion or to the vast majority of its adherents, rejects the core liberal principle that governments ought to promote the welfare of all citizens equally. In this respect, it shares much with populism and various strands of ethnonationalism. These movements determine a “true people”—defined by ethnicity, or adherence to a specific ideology or dogma—and treat those who fall outside that definition as second-class citizens at best and targets of active repression at worst.

Islamicists are their Integralists.

One Economy to Rule Them All

ACHIEVING ABEL:

May 14, 2026

The Politics of Jobless Prosperity (Andy Hall, May 13, 2026, Free Systems)

In the scenario the labs are sketching, the politics of AGI will be the politics of jobless prosperity. And this makes it hard to forecast well. The economy will be growing rapidly even as jobs disappear, more like the Industrial Revolution or the China Shock than a normal recession, with mass disruption alongside the explosive enrichment of a small class of elites at the top. Voters in this world will not be anxious about a shrinking economy but furious about being shut out of a booming one, and they may well stop the boom from arriving at all. Jasmine Sun has documented how this anxiety is already curdling into nascent political anger, observing that “the anti-elite and nihilistic attitudes that have dominated US political culture in the last few years are transmuting into anger at AI billionaires.” Alex Imas, in “What will be scarce?“, has made the most careful economic case for taking the underlying disruption seriously, even while laying out why both the short and long-term doomers may be wrong about mass unemployment.

The labs see all of this coming, which is why their policy memos have grown so ambitious. It would be easy to read this as good news, since the parties who would have to pay for redistribution are pre-emptively volunteering to do it.

But it cannot work. First, social contracts tend to get extracted from the powerful by the affected, not handed down from above to a public that has not yet decided what it wants.

An economy exists to create wealth, which becomes ever easier as we remove labor and energy costs. Distribution of that wealth is a political question, which the many will determine.

Sovereignty

EXCEPT NORTHERN CALIFORNIA IS A SEPARATE COUNTRY:

May 14, 2026

Can California Be the Most Successful Country on Earth?: The State Should Lean Into Independence and Serve as America’s Western Firewall (Joe Mathews, May 12, 2026, Zocalo)

Look at the history of our independence. For decades, California has effectively operated with a level of economic, regulatory, and moral autonomy that rivals most sovereign nations. That autonomy is perhaps most visible on environmental matters.

California has established protections for endangered species and the coast (check out this terrific documentary) that go far beyond what the rest of the country provides. California has capitalized on waivers from the federal Clean Air Act—which allowed it to set tougher emissions standards to fight smog—to build its own highly skilled regulatory agencies.

The results are stunning. While the U.S. doubles down on coal and oil and gas, California’s power grid is increasingly powered by wind, solar, and battery storage, sometimes hitting 100% renewable usage. Electric cars have proliferated, tailpipe emissions have been controlled, and greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020 met. In 2024, California completed the largest removal of ecosystem-destroying dams in U.S. history on the Klamath River.

California’s independence also raises global standards. California has forged its own foreign policy, clinching treaties to boost trade and investment with China, Canada, Mexico, and various European countries. The state’s groundbreaking climate rules, now two decades old, have touched off similar planning in subnational and local governments worldwide.

Our commitment to independence benefits Californians in other areas, too. California has set its own, far-reaching labor regulation standards that treat gig workers and fast-food employees as citizens of a modern social democracy rather than economic cogs. California’s California Consumer Privacy Act effectively governs how Silicon Valley treats data worldwide. And when the federal government repealed “net neutrality” rules, California imposed its own law to prevent internet service providers from favoring specific content.

California is an essential independent force for human rights in an America that is abandoning those rights.

California is too large for optimal nation size.

Family

IF YOU’RE KEEPING SCORE, YOU LOST:

May 14, 2026

The Marital Coffee War (Jeannette Cooperman, May 13, 2026, Common Reader)

In his New York Times column, Judge John Hodgman fielded an intensely controversial question a few weeks ago, and 587 comments (at last count) poured forth, scorching the internet.

The question came from Alli: “I make a morning pour-over coffee for myself while my husband, Keegan, uses the bathroom. He’s upset that I never make him one, but he’s usually in there for an hour. He wants coffee when he gets out, even if it’s cold. Please order Keegan to make a pre-bathroom coffee for both of us for one week and then stop bothering me about it.”

Hodgman set up a quiz for his readers, offering three possible replies. But they already had their own ideas. I braced myself: the down side of women’s rights has been the sense that even small everyday kindnesses are exploitation. I have had friends snap, “Can’t he do that much himself?” when I happened to refer, without complaint, to some chore I have taken on because my husband now has a chronic illness. We are all militant for one another, in well-intended solidarity. But the outrage has been building up for so long that it spills over regardless of context.

Sure enough, when one woman wrote in that she makes her husband’s coffee just as he likes it, because “it’s a little way that I show I care,” another replied, “Let me guess: and your partner’s way of showing that he cares involves a task that he has to do once a month at best while yours involves daily labor. Not surprising as women are put on this earth to labor for and serve men.”

“Why should the earlier riser be punished and have to make coffee for both?” wrote Brooklyn. “Instead of hiding in the bathroom for an hour, her husband could start the coffee first.” Kate was outraged too: “So he hogs the bathroom for an hour, then wants her to make him coffee?”

But there were other responses, too—and as I scrolled, I saw a composite portrait of marriage. Why it is endangered, what makes it work, how it has gone wrong, why we desperately need more common sense and kindness. Practical advice overflowed, along with tender sharings. I still have not gotten over the man who wrote, “My late spouse was a tea drinker. I made her tea and would love to do so again.”

BREAKING THE BANTUSTANS IS DEMOCRATIC:

…SO MUCH YET TO DO:

YOUR NEXT PLANE WILL BE A VOLT:

MIGA:

ACHIEVING ABEL:

EXCEPT NORTHERN CALIFORNIA IS A SEPARATE COUNTRY:

IF YOU’RE KEEPING SCORE, YOU LOST:

You Missed

DONALD WHO?:

ALL SCIENCE LEADS BACK TO FAITH:

THE WAGES OF iDENTITARIANISM:

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE: