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When Alexander Hamilton wrote his classic analysis of the presidency in The Federalist Papers (No. 70), he minced no words: “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” The executive branch has to act and act decisively. The legislative process is not designed for speed, nor is adjudication in the courts. The presidency is—and needs to be. As commander in chief, the president has to be ready to address whatever crisis the nation faces.
The alternative to an energetic executive, Hamilton explained, is a “feeble” executive. A feeble executive will act feebly. And “feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution: And a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government.”
The designers of the Constitution could not, of course, know who would occupy the office in the future. What they could do was design the Constitution so as to give future presidents the ability to act decisively and energetically.
That is why, Hamilton explained, there is one president, not two and not a council. When multiple people have to agree on any particular action, there’s always the possibility for delay or even gridlock. Checks and balances are, indeed, important in the right context. But checks and balances on military strategy when the battle is underway can be fatal. So “[t]he executive power”—not some, but the entirety—is “vested” in the president by Article II of the Constitution.
As Hamilton explained, decisiveness and promptness “will generally characterise the proceedings of one man, in a much more eminent degree, than the proceedings of any greater number.” So having a single, unitary executive who has the final decision-making power is a key feature of the Constitution’s design for the presidency. President Harry Truman captured the point succinctly with the sign he placed on his desk: “The buck stops here.”
-- Lael Weinberger
Terrorist groups have a new tool in their social media toolbox – Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is being used by a rising generation of members of Hizbullah, Hamas, and Yemen's Ansar Allah Movement (Houthis) to win new supporters and followers. Pro-ISIS and pro-Al-Qaeda figures involved with these groups' online activity frequently discuss, on their closed encrypted platforms, how to best use AI. As one ISIS supporter recently exhorted, "In order to move forward in the future, we need to learn how to use the new technology."
https://www.memri.org/reports/jihadi-groups-look-ai-recruiting-next-generation
Here we must talk about the secret of greatness. What is the secret of greatness? The secret of greatness is to be able to serve something greater than yourself. To do this, you first have to acknowledge that in the world there is something or some things that are greater than you, and then you must dedicate yourself to serving those greater things.
There are not many of these. You have your God, your country and your family. But if you do not do that, but instead you focus on your own greatness, thinking that you are smarter, more beautiful, more talented than most people, if you expend your energy on that, on communicating all that to others, then what you get is not greatness, but grandiosity.
Viktor Orban
We have a new A.I. danger. We are not used to meeting believable impostors online. A.I. can now mimic specific human voices, and compose text which mimics specific human thinking and writing styles. This threatens individual economic security; also national security.
An individual posing as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly used an AI-generated voice to call high-level officials in what appears to be an attempt to manipulate government officials to obtain access to information or accounts.
The unknown Rubio impostor has so far reportedly contacted at least five government officials: three foreign ministers, one U.S. governor, and one member of Congress, according to a State Department cable obtained by the Washington Post.
Authorities believe the imposter is likely trying to manipulate the high-end officials “with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts,” the July 3 cable sent by Rubio’s office to State Department employees said.
