Drinking Charcoal
Somewhat unexpectedly
Good Afternoon:
I confess that when I ordered a “charcoal latte” at a San Francisco coffee shot yesterday, I did not expect it actually to contain charcoal—much less to contain little of anything else. True, the thing was clearly and accurately labeled. I cannot complain about being misled.
That said, I assumed we were talking about the color of the coffee. And besides, I ordered it impulse because I was momentarily flustered when the barista informed me that he couldn’t serve me my original order—a mocha—because the coffee shop was “out of chocolate.” In that case, I said glancing up at the menu on the wall and choosing the first thing my eyes fell on, give me a charcoal latte.
He did.
When I picked it up, I was a bit taken aback by just how much it looked like charcoal suspended in milk. I mean, it was obvious why the drink was called a charcoal latte. And yet, it still didn’t occur to me that it actually was just charcoal suspended in milk with a bit of sugar so one didn’t simply experience sipping it as drinking a BBQ grill.
How was it? It tasted like a sweetened BBQ grill, of course—with milk.
And no, I have no idea why anyone would want to drink one—much less pay nine dollars (with tip) for the pleasure.
Monday on #DogShirtTV, idolatry. Evangelical Trumpists seem to be into it these days:
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Holly Berkley Fletcher and I talked midterms:
Recently On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Marissa Wang
New Trove of Fulton County Case Materials Published
Anna Bower shares a collection of audio and video recordings heard by the Fulton County special purpose grand jury in 2022 to investigate whether President Trump and his allies had illegally interfered in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The recordings include interviews of Georgia officials, witnesses, fraudulent Trump electors, and more.
Lawfare obtained a large tranche of materials from the investigative file and is publishing them. Last week, that began with the publication of 61 special purpose grand jury transcripts.
Today, Lawfare is publishing a collection of audio and video recordings from the case file—the vast majority of which have not been previously published.
Will AI Produce the Next Great Divergence?
Sarosh Nagar and David Eaves examines how artificial intelligence (AI) could create the next major global divide, arguing that the countries and institutions best able to adapt to rapid AI transformation may pull dramatically ahead while others risk being left behind.
In the 1300s, the Black Death swept across Europe, killing 30 to 50 percent of the continent’s population. The loss of nearly one-third of the continent’s labor supply caused wages to rise across Europe, but Western and Eastern Europe differed in their response. In Eastern Europe, Eastern lords used their power to cap workers’ rising pay, while Western lords did not. As a consequence, in Western Europe the growing power of workers weakened feudalism and opened the door to the modern economy, while serfdom grew stronger in the East.
This example, taken from Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s book “Why Nations Fail,” is a textbook case of how a so-called critical juncture—a shock like the plague—magnified a small difference in institutions in a way that profoundly altered societies. Today, Acemoglu and Robinson’s lesson has relevance beyond the plague—it can be applied to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence—and the subsequent technologies it may underpin, including biological research, robotics, and more—present a shock that may be akin to the next Industrial Revolution. If models improve at the rate they have for the past three years, they could accelerate scientific research, reshape the economy, and more. In this view, AI will certainly present another critical juncture.
How Nuclear Deterrence Can Inform Europe’s AI Strategy
Guy Ward-Jackson and Keegan McBride explain why Europe should pursue AI latency by developing the industrial capacity and infrastructure to rapidly build and deploy sufficient AI systems during crises, rather than attempting to compete directly with the U.S. and China at the AI frontier.
Europe is therefore caught between a rock and a hard place: the economic reality of being unable to credibly compete at the AI frontier, alongside the geopolitical reality that AI is a fundamental component of future military, economic, and state capabilities. The combination of these elements renders Europe strategically vulnerable.
To thread this needle, a possible solution is the concept of “AI latency,” inspired by nuclear deterrence theory. The core point is that Europe doesn’t need to develop its own frontier AI system from scratch, but it does need the capacity to rapidly build a “good enough” version in a crisis scenario. This requires having the industrial, institutional, and talent resources necessary to quickly create a sufficiently capable alternative if access to top-tier AI is suddenly disrupted. Practically, AI latency involves using or training open-weight models, investing in shared computing resources and datasets, ensuring access to the right talent, and establishing clear thresholds for coercion or disruption to enable rapid replacement. In essence, it is using the traditional military-industrial idea of “surge capacity” for AI.
The Future of the Gulf’s Security Order
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Abdullah Alhenaki argues that the Iran War is fundamentally reshaping the Gulf states’ approach to regional security by pushing Gulf Cooperation Council members toward stronger defense integration, infrastructure diversification, and new strategic partnerships.
When the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, the Gulf states found themselves entangled in a war they had not sought and actively tried to prevent. In the weeks before the attack, Oman had been mediating back-channel talks between Washington and Tehran, and Gulf capitals were cautiously optimistic about a diplomatic outcome. It did not matter. Within hours of the first strikes, Iran unleashed an unprecedented barrage across the region—the first time in history it had struck all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members simultaneously. With shaky ceasefire talks ongoing, the Gulf states are already planning for a postwar strategic posture while trying to push for favorable outcomes from the negotiations.
DHS’s Misleading Press Release Smears a U.S. Judge in Rhode Island
Roger Parloff examines the context surrounding a misleading press release from the Department of Homeland Security, which maligns U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose for allowing the release an immigrant accused of homicide in the Dominican Republic. Parloff explains how the press release omits key details of the case, including how ICE told a government lawyer not to inform Judge DuBose of the pending warrant.
The press release’s target, U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose, of the District of Rhode Island, said at a hearing on May 4 that its misleading rhetoric “puts people at risk,” is “dangerous,” and “is a threat to judicial security.”
It is true that the Dominican Republic issued an international warrant to arrest Bryan Rafael Gomez on Jan. 24, 2023, for a “homicide.” It is also true that DuBose ordered Gomez’s release on April 28.
What is missing from the release, however, is any acknowledgment that DuBose never knew of the warrant’s existence. Also missing is the reason the judge did not know: because Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Bolan, who argued against Gomez’s petition for release, never brought that crucial information to her attention. The press release also neglects to mention that the reason Bolan never told her, as he has subsequently explained, is that the DHS’s own Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency instructed him not to.
A New Low? Presidential Records and the Role of OLC
Jonathan Shaub analyzes a sweeping new opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, which claims the Presidential Records Act is entirely unconstitutional. Shaub argues that the decision ignores decades of legal precedent and threatens government transparency.
Whatever one thinks about OLC or executive branch lawyering more generally, this opinion stands out for its absurdity. It is, in short, embarrassing. And now that the Justice Department has decided to defend the opinion in federal court, the embarrassment is not OLC’s alone. Indeed, comparing the Justice Department’s filings in the litigation to the OLC opinion helps illustrate and expose the failings of the opinion.
Podcasts
Lawfare Daily: What the War Powers Resolution Means for Iran: Natalie K. Orpett sits down with Scott R. Anderson to discuss the War Powers Resolution and how it has yet to effectively constrain the president’s actions in the Iran War.
Lawfare Daily: Russian PMCs Update with Candace Rondeaux: Candace Rondeaux joins Justin Sherman to discuss the latest activities of Russian private military companies, including their roles in recruiting people to fight for Russia against Ukraine, touchpoints with Iranian actors, and impacts in geopolitics.
Scaling Laws: Forecasting AI’s Impact on the Economy with Deger Turan, CEO of Metaculus: Kevin Frazier sits down with Deger Turan to unpack new forecasts on how artificial intelligence (AI) could reshape the labor market over the next decade. The duo addressed fundamental questions about whether existing economic models can keep pace with rapid technological change, second-order effects of AI in the labor market, and why AI forecasting may become a core component of effective governance.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the bearded dragon, seen here managing to flop and slither at the same time:
In honor of today’s Beast, consider the Ministry of Silly Walks:
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