DL Open Thread: Friday, July 21, 2023

BREAKING: Trump Judge Sets Classified Docs Trial For May Of 2024.   Don’t think Trump will like this…even though it’s depleting his war chest:

Any distinction between the former president’s White House bid and his criminal defense is vanishing as the charges against him mount. Fighting those prosecutions is increasingly dominating his time, resources and messaging, making the centerpiece of his candidacy an appeal to stay out of prison. As he forges ahead, much of the Republican base appears to be cheering him at each turn.

What is likely to come is a campaign like the country has never seen before: A candidate juggling multiple criminal indictments while slashing the Department of Justice and his opponents, shuttling between early primary states for rallies and courtrooms for hearings, and spending his supporters’ money on both millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads and burgeoning legal bills.

The ‘Saudi Arabia Of Lithium’.  Betcha didn’t know (I didn’t) that it’s Afghanistan:

A decade earlier, the U.S. Defense Department, guided by the surveys of American government geologists, concluded that the vast wealth of lithium and other minerals buried in Afghanistan might be worth $1 trillion, more than enough to prop up the country’s fragile government. In a 2010 memo, the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, which examined Afghanistan’s development potential, dubbed the country the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” A year later, the U.S. Geological Survey published a map showing the location of major deposits and highlighted the magnitude of the underground wealth, saying Afghanistan “could be considered as the world’s recognized future principal source of lithium.”

But now, in a great twist of modern Afghan history, it is the Taliban — which overthrew the U.S.-backed government two years ago — that is finally looking to exploit those vast lithium reserves, at a time when the soaring global popularity of electric vehicles is spurring an urgent need for the mineral, a vital ingredient in their batteries. By 2040, demand for lithium could rise 40-fold from 2020 levels, according to the International Energy Agency.

Afghanistan remains under intense international pressure — isolated politically and saddled with U.S. and multilateral sanctions because of human rights concerns, in particular the repression of women, and Taliban links to terrorism. The tremendous promise of lithium, however, could frustrate Western efforts to squeeze the Taliban into changing its extremist ways. And with the United Statesabsent from Afghanistan, it is Chinese companies that are now aggressively positioning themselves to reap a windfall from lithium here — and, in doing so, further tighten China’s grasp on much of the global supply chain for EV minerals.

Companies Agree To Safeguards On AI.  Raising the inevitable question, who will violate the agreement first?:

The seven companies — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI — will formally announce their commitment to the new standards at a meeting with President Biden at the White House on Friday afternoon.

The announcement comes as the companies are racing to outdo each other with versions of A.I. that offer powerful new tools to create text, photos, music and video without human input. But the technological leaps have prompted fears that the tools will facilitate the spread of disinformation and dire warnings of a “risk of extinction” as self-aware computers evolve.

Ohio Rethugs Face Pushback On Abortion Restrictions.  Efforts to require super-majority to protect abortion failing badly.  Against all odds, Rethugs could make Ohio safe for Democrats again.

Wilmington Officials Still Being Assholes On Parking Tickets.  There’s slow-walking, and then there’s this:

Wilmington will mark one year Friday since it sent any parking ticket appeals to court, but city officials say that’s because Delaware’s largest city is on the cusp of change.

Wilmington parking appeals were last heard in Delaware Justice of the Peace Court on July 15, 2022, court administration confirmed Wednesday, and nothing has been sent to JP Court 20 to warrant holding hearings on Friday.

Cases are usually scheduled on the third Friday of each month, but Wilmington must send cases to JP Court for hearings to be scheduled.

The city’s appeals process has been riddled with issues for years from miscommunication to no communication to tacking on late fees when a ticket has been appealed. Promises of reforms have often followed, but problems persist.

Parking advocate Ken Grant held a news conference – complete with balloons and cupcakes – at Wilmington City Hall Wednesday to draw attention to the lack of scheduled court hearings on appeals, but was kicked out of the building by the mayor.

Wilmington: Permanently ‘on the cusp of change’.

RIP: Tony Bennett.  I think he was better than Sinatra, and definitely less of an asshole:

A lifelong liberal Democrat, Mr. Bennett participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in 1965, and, along with Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr. and others, performed at the Stars for Freedom rally on the City of St. Jude campus on the outskirts of Montgomery on March 24, the night before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the address that came to be known as the “How Long? Not Long” speech. At the conclusion of the march, Viola Liuzzo, a volunteer from Michigan, drove Mr. Bennett to the airport; she was murdered later that day by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

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