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Bob King

@bkingdc

Deputy managing editor at POLITICO, interested in climate change, energy, transportation, technology and cybersecurity. Pennsylvania native and displaced Floridian. https://www.politico.com

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Latest posts by Bob King @bkingdc

Preview
'Bitterly ironic': Trump is wrecking his AI agenda with Anthropic spat, lobbyists and ex-officials say Tech lobbyists, investors and a former Trump adviser are all warning the White House that its deregulatory, export-driven AI agenda is on shaky ground after it hammered a top U.S. company.

Trump's decision to put one of the top American AI companies on a possibly extinction-causing blacklist is bad for the whole AI industry, tech advocates say β€” and for Trump's own ambitions to see the United States outcompete China.

www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

05.03.2026 23:29 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Trump’s lightbulb moment: America needs Europe after all The U.S. is even looking to Ukraine to help its operations against Iran β€” as Trump rages at Starmer and SΓ‘nchez for refusing to back his war.

Don't break out the freedom fries just yet:

www.politico.eu/article/dona...

05.03.2026 13:53 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Meanwhile: www.eenews.net/articles/tru...

05.03.2026 11:53 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It was just a few weeks ago that the administration was posting AI-generated videos celebrating its efforts to make cars less fuel-efficient:

www.instagram.com/reel/DUtstJB...

05.03.2026 11:39 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

... after wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in Biden's tax breaks and subsidies for electric cars, batteries, chargers and clean power.

They're not looking under THOSE rocks.

05.03.2026 11:29 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Something more frightening than Iranian drones: paying taxes?

05.03.2026 11:28 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Claude vs the US Government
Claude vs the US Government YouTube video by Alberta Tech

How did the @Anthropic negotiations with the Defense Department go down? This seems about right.

Plus an OpenAI cameo.

H/t @albertatech.bsky.social

youtube.com/shorts/Aq1Wy...

02.03.2026 07:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Avocado toast, influencers and … panic: How the party ended in Dubai Shock and confusion reign as the world’s capital of bling comes to terms with a sudden crisis in the Middle East, writes POLITICO’s reporter in the UAE.

"Dubai’s Western expats β€” an exotic mix of high-flying corporates, influencers and holiday-goers like me β€” were poorly equipped to handle a crisis.

"Few people chose to take the stairs... Several residents waited in the reception area with their chihuahuas and cats

www.politico.eu/article/post...

01.03.2026 20:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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An Army Corps project could wipe out one of Florida’s last thriving coral reefs The fate of one of the last thriving coral reefs in Florida may be imperiled by plans to widen the shipping channel leading into Port Everglades.

The fate of one of the last thriving coral reefs in Florida could soon be wiped out β€” not by hot-tub water temperatures or the mysterious plague of stony coral tissue loss disease, but by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

01.03.2026 19:30 πŸ‘ 69 πŸ” 62 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 6
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Seen near DC: When you've installed solar panels on your house but don't want your neighbors to know the electrical gear is from Tesla.

01.03.2026 19:02 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Missile and drone attacks have severely disrupted shipping in the Persian Gulf as Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz β€” a key chokepoint between Asia and Europe.

Here’s what you need to know πŸ‘‡

Follow our live blog for updates:
www.politico.eu/article/us-i...

01.03.2026 15:39 πŸ‘ 46 πŸ” 29 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 4
Backrooms | Official Teaser HD | A24
Backrooms | Official Teaser HD | A24 YouTube video by A24

"The more times it remembers something, the less it does."

Same.

youtu.be/tKGhxMi50y8?...

01.03.2026 08:04 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Will Brendan Carr warn NBC that the men's team needs to get equal time?

01.03.2026 04:53 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

"Within hours of declaring that the federal government will end its use of artificial-intelligence tools made by tech company Anthropic, President Trump launched a major air attack in Iran with the help of those very same tools."

www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

01.03.2026 04:24 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Putin’s friendship has limits β€” as Khamenei just found out Leaders in Syria, Venezuela and now Iran have all discovered that Russian support only goes so far.

The benefits of an alliance with Russia have limits, as Assad, Maduro and now Khamenei have learned: www.politico.eu/article/vlad...

But so do the benefits of the United States' friendship, U.S. allies are saying:

www.politico.eu/article/eu-l...

www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

28.02.2026 22:12 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Oh, those innocent days when the hyperloop was just an idea in a blog post and we were still describing Elon Musk as a "PayPal entrepreneur"

www.politico.com/story/2013/1...

28.02.2026 21:00 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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How Elon Musk’s Sci-Fi Hyperloop Failed Before his misadventures in government efficiency, Musk promised to revolutionize commuting with a subway that would speed passengers between DC and Baltimore in a matter of minutes. The project was a...

"There was no conspiracy, no evidence of fraud. The truth was far simpler, far dumber, and far more prescient: Musk and his lieutenants truly had no idea what they were doing."
washingtonian.com/2026/02/12/h...

28.02.2026 20:51 πŸ‘ 22 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Iran strikes threaten to deplete US weapons supplies β€” and put American troops at risk The administration already burned through significant stockpiles of air defense missiles in operations against Iran and its proxy groups.

"Interviews with 6 current and former U.S. officials and members of Congress underscored widespread worries that sustained Iranian responses could deplete waning U.S. air defenses and leave tens of thousands of American troops in the region unprotected"

www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

28.02.2026 15:27 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Everyone go see The Paranoid Style when they come to your town. Everybody gets down!

28.02.2026 05:20 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Which of these things is not like the other?

28.02.2026 04:39 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
POLITICO Pro: OpenAI announces new deal with Pentagon β€” including ethical safeguards The company said its agreement with the Defense Department includes "prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force." Both issues are major sticking points in...

Hours after Trump and Hegseth attacked @anthropic.com for insisting on restrictions for mass surveillance and killer robots, its rival OpenAI announces a deal with the Pentagon to... uh... restrict mass surveillance and killer robots.

subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026...

28.02.2026 04:39 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1

"If AI-enabled planning fails, it will not be because the technology was insufficient but because structure became cheap and easy, obscuring where tradeoffs should be made. When AI-generated coherence is allowed to stand in for decision... the hard choices of command recede."

28.02.2026 03:19 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Trump orders all federal agencies to cease using Anthropic Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in an X post also declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk and ordered military contractors to stop doing business with the startup.

The U.S. government attacks on private enterprise will continue until the struggle against Chinese Communism is won:

www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

28.02.2026 02:43 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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β€˜Attempted corporate murder’: Trump’s threats against Anthropic chill AI industry The unprecedented conflict over the military’s use of Anthropic’s AI model could transform the relationship between Washington and the tech sector.

It was inevitable the US would hit the AI firms:

"It is just not realistic that we are going to have private companies develop the Machine God and then the government is just going to sit there and say, 'Oh, that’s interesting.' We were always going to nationalize."
www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

28.02.2026 02:40 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
β€˜Attempted corporate murder’: Trump’s threats against Anthropic chill AI industry The unprecedented conflict over the military’s use of Anthropic’s AI model could transform the relationship between Washington and the tech sector.

"This is simply attempted corporate murder," former Trump AI adviser Dean Ball wrote. "I could not possibly recommend investing in American AI to any investor; I could not possibly recommend starting an AI company in the United States."

www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

28.02.2026 02:37 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
ChatGPT Officially Solved Chess. Game Over.
ChatGPT Officially Solved Chess. Game Over. YouTube video by GothamChess

It seemed inevitable that @anthropicbot.bsky.social's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT would meet in the final round of @gothamchess.bsky.social's 2nd chatbot chess championship. But you won't believe what happened next.

Or maybe you will. How would I know what you believe?

youtu.be/QboipBLHA6s?...

27.02.2026 08:14 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Station Manager Ken has the chance to do the funniest thing ever.

27.02.2026 04:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It seems weird to call a floor vote at all unless you intended for it to pass.

27.02.2026 04:00 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I still have so many questions about the House vote.

Why call a vote on an aviation safety bill written by members of your own party only to defeat it?

If the House has its own ideas about what the bill should look like, fine. But why not pass a House version and then negotiate a compromise?

27.02.2026 04:00 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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House rejects Senate air safety bill amid Republican clash The legislation’s future is now uncertain after a bipartisan push to clear it.

This is just two days after a standoff between the Defense Department and the Department of Transportation led to House Republicans VOTING DOWN AN AVIATION SAFETY BILL a little more than a year after the deadliest U.S. air crash since 2001: www.politico.com/live-updates...

27.02.2026 03:55 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0