by Ja'han Jones | Sep 16, 2026 | Business, News Analysis, Science, White House
Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, some of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.
Thiel takes Antichrist lectures to Tennessee
MAGA-aligned tech oligarch Peter Thiel is bringing his bizarre Antichrist lecture series to Tennessee later this month after hosting similar events at the Vatican and in San Francisco.
As The Tennessean reported:
Details about the lecture series appear sparse and secretive. The event page describes the series as a “closed-door, off-the-record event” hosted by The Pamphleteer, an online news publication in Nashville that bills itself as an alternative to “corporate and progressive” media, and Meriwether Academy, a Nashville-based nonprofit that says its mission is to “grow fraternal networks and educational societies across America” with the ultimate goal of developing boys’ schools in every state offering a classical and outdoor education.
It’s a curious decision for a Big Tech leader to take such talks to Tennessee of all places, given that the state is at the heart of the backlash to artificial intelligence data centers. Vice President JD Vance, a protégé of Thiel’s, has also pushed rhetoric about an Antichrist possibly living among us, an assertion that has come as he has publicly derided liberal Christians.
Read more at The Tennessean.
Crypto bill crashes
Three Republicans joined Democrats in opposition to a bill on cryptocurrency regulation that many in the GOP — and the president, in particular — have sought to pass. Democrats have raised concern about the so-called Clarity Act’s potential to help enrich President Donald Trump, who raked in more than $1 billion from the crypto industry in 2025, and his family.
Read more at The Hill.
Regulatory oversight of AI
At a
by Joe Scarborough | Sep 15, 2026 | Morning Joe, News Analysis, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the Sept. 15, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
Hello, “Morning Joe” Family!
We love hearing from you. Here’s what was on your mind this week. As always, you can write to us any time.
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After years of waking up before most of us, what’s one story that changed the way you see the world — and what’s a story you still hope to report someday?
— Helen C., Rockville Center, N.Y.
Helen, that is a great question. Looking back over my 32 years in public life, I’ve seen government shutdowns, destructive foreign wars, the horrors of 9/11, the rise of China, the collapse of the economy in 2008, and other stories that might be viewed as era-defining in past decades. But nothing prepared me for the collapse of constitutional checks and balances that accompanied Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House.
While historians will debate the Roberts Court’s reaction to the Trump presidency, the highest court in the land has often provided important checks and balances to the president’s most dangerous attempts to steal elections and disrupt the way states run their own elections.
There are fewer mitigating factors to soften the harsh judgment that historians will pass down on this Republican Congress. The Article 1 branch has allowed Trump to strip it of its power to declare wars, enact tariffs, appropriate funds for agencies, and practice basic oversight duties.
Even when Congress passed a law requiring the Epstein files to be released in full, the White House defiantly broke the law. With this Republican Congress, no
by Maha Hilal | Sep 15, 2026 | 9/11, Drone Warfare, Forever Wars, Islamophobia, Mass Surveillance, Muslims, News Analysis, racial violence, state violence, terrorism, War On Terror
In a 2013 Congressional hearing on drone warfare, a young Pakistani boy named Zubair Rehman, aged 13 at the time, talked about the feeling of living under the threat of constant drone strikes. In his powerful testimony, Zubair stated that “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies…The drones do not fly when the skies are gray…When the sky brightens, drones return and we live in…
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by Shahad Ali | Sep 15, 2026 | Board of Peace, Ethnic Cleansing, Gaza, Genocide, Israel, News Analysis, Palestine
Nearly a year after Donald Trump announced the creation of the “Board of Peace,” which was ostensibly charged with ending Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and overseeing reconstruction, one of the figures most centrally involved in the body has warned that a complete collapse of the so-called ceasefire in Gaza could lead to a “point of no return.” Nickolay Mladenov…
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by Joe Scarborough | Aug 17, 2026 | Morning Joe, News Analysis, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the August 17, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
“I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that.”
— Attorney General Todd Blanche on being asked to pledge his independence from President Donald Trump
On Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists dragged Officer Mike Fanone down the Capitol steps. They beat him with the pole of a “thin blue line” flag and repeatedly tased him at the base of his skull until he suffered a heart attack.
Todd Blanche shamelessly stood next to the president this week and said anyone who touches a federal law enforcement officer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Where was Blanche when Donald Trump pardoned every cop beater who attacked the Capitol that day — trying to overturn what Trump’s own officials called the safest election in American history.
When asked what message pardoning cop beaters sends to police officers, Blanche bizarrely said: “We will protect you.”
Todd Blanche knows he is lying. That’s not the news here. The real takeaway from this sordid affair is the message Trump and his minions sent the bad guys that day: “Do the crime, skip the time.”
Message received.
After the thugs were pardoned, their crimes multiplied.
Child molestation. Home break-ins. Threats to kill politicians. A conspiracy to murder FBI agents. One Jan. 6 convict even threatened the life of a D.C. cop on the anniversary of that bleak date.
But for the president, even pardoning these cop beaters isn’t enough.
Now Trump wants them paid.
That’s what makes Todd Blanche’s bland pronouncements look even more
by Timothy French | Aug 15, 2026 | Gentrification, LGBTQ Rights, New York, News Analysis, Privatization
On July 4, a small group gathered at Jacob Riis Beach in Queens, New York, with handmade signs and zines. They were protesting the conversion of a public bathhouse — a 1930s architectural gem — into a private beach club, set to open on August 15. The response was warm, and beachgoers cheered as the group passed. As the protesters approached the historic bathhouse, the mood shifted.
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