Bernie Sanders Unveils Plan for Public Ownership of AI

Senator Bernie Sanders thinks the American people should have a stake in AI companies.

The democratic socialist from Vermont introduced a bill on Thursday where leading AI firms making at least $200 million in annual revenue would pay a one-time tax of 50 percent of stock to create a sovereign wealth fund for taxpayers, which would be worth about $7 trillion. That fund would have a 5 percent annual dividend for direct payments to Americans, which Sanders estimates would be more than $1,000.

“AI was not created out of thin air,” Sanders said in a statement. “It was not a brilliant idea that just popped into Mark Zuckerberg’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination. The foundation of AI is based on the collective knowledge of humanity and the creative work of tens of millions of people.

“The principle is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth,” Sanders added. Under the terms of the bill, companies would have to split their AI and non-AI businesses.

Sanders is proposing that the fund would be managed by a newly created, bipartisan Independent Commission for Democratic AI, made up of seven members nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The commission could also have the power to use its voting shares in the companies to block AI decisions that are bad for the country.

“Left unchecked, Artificial Intelligence and robotics threatens the jobs, privacy rights and mental health of every man, woman and child in America,” Sanders’s statement said. “As a society, we can no longer sit back and allow a handful of Big Tech oligarchs to determine the future of this revolutionary technology with no democratic input.”

The bill is not without its pitfalls. The American taxpayer would be tied to the AI companies’ success, which comes at the cost of building unpopular data centers, displacing American jobs, and consuming vast amounts of electricity, including burning a lot of fossil fuels. In effect, the American public would own a profitable, but toxic, asset.

While the bill faces a tall order to pass, it’s a good start on the question of how to reign in and regulate AI. The ideal scenario, however, would have to go a lot further.

Israel is desperately trying to sabotage the recently signed memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, continuing its bombings of Lebanon and secretly launching a right-wing media campaign to shift the narrative on the deal.

Israel killed at least three people in attacks on southern Lebanon on Thursday, just hours after the signed MOU specifically required an end to military aggression in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military released a new Lebanon occupation map, which shows a larger zone of control for the IDF in southern Lebanon.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to tell Trump ‘enough,’” the conservative Likud Party politician Moshe Saada said. “I am bound to defend Israelis, and withdrawing from Lebanon right now poses an existential threat to Israel. Duty demands that we strike Lebanon everywhere, around the clock, with maximum force and with no proportionality.”

Aside from dropping bombs, Israel is turning to the right-wing media sphere to kill the deal, with sources telling CNN that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to use pro-Israel voices like Fox News host Mark Levin and Senator Lindsey Graham. (Graham, so far, has tentatively praised the deal.) With the bombings and the media campaign, it’s clear that Israel is feeling much less secure in its relation to the administration, as Trump continues to publicly distance himself from their actions.

Kansas Senator Roger Marshall previously told Americans that freedom was more important than their pocketbooks. Now, he’s folding on the central aims of Donald Trump’s disastrous war in Iran.

During an appearance on CNN Wednesday night, host Kaitlan Collins asked Marshall if he believed Iran should be allowed to maintain its ballistic missile stockpile.

“You know, I’m hesitating,” Marshall said. “I prefer that they not. I sort of don’t want them to have long-distance missiles, I don’t want them to have nuclear armed missiles. I would prefer they didn’t, but I don’t think that’s the key issue here. I think that they have to be able to defend themselves.”

“You think Iran needs to be able to defend itself?” Collins pressed.

“I do, I think that they have to be able to defend themselves, or otherwise we turn this into a forever war,” Marshall said. “You’re never gonna get them—short of boots on the ground—surrendering everything, an unconditional agreement, if you will.”

Marshall seemed to be echoing Donald Trump’s remarks during a press conference at the G7 Summit, when the president claimed he didn’t actually mind if Iran had ballistic missiles. “If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump told reporters later.

But eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile was a key aim of “Operation Epic Fury” from the beginning.

Marshall was an enthusiastic cheerleader for Trump’s military campaign, even as it sent energy prices skyrocketing. Now, he’s trying to sell Trump’s lackluster peace deal—but clearly, his heart’s just not really in it.

After being denied funds for his ballroom by Congress, President Trump has secretly taken them from somewhere else.

Last week, the White House Office of Management and Budget moved $352 million earmarked for Secret Service resources toward “White House Security Measures,” NOTUS reports. Those Secret Service funds had originally been set up by Trump’s tax law, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed last year.

A source familiar with the Secret Service budget told The Washington Post the funds will be used to build a new White House East Wing, which includes the ballroom.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress also warned the funds are being covertly diverted to Trump’s ballroom project.

“I don’t know whether it’s the ballroom, but it sounds like the ballroom,” Democratic Senator Brian Schatz said to NOTUS.

“That’s a big problem,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis said. “That sounds like a different way to fund the East Wing project. If the East Wing needs support, we should be transparent about if that is in fact what happened. It seems strangely similar to the ask of Congress, but my God, we just had people from [the] Secret Service coming here saying they needed more money, how they needed more funding, and now we may be shifting it away from a Secret Service priority. I just need details. On its face it doesn’t sound right.”

Democratic Senator Chris Coons is also suspicious.

“I think there’s been more and more credible coverage that President Trump was just flat-out lying when he said the taxpayers will not pay a dime for his ballroom,” Coons said. “I think he is now trying to find ways to funnel public money into it.”

Trump’s ballroom is expected to cost $600 million, and half of that cost will come from taxpayers, according to a Washington Post report from earlier this week. Raiding the Secret Service’s money pot would cover that and more. This wouldn’t be the first time Trump has dipped his hand into funds appropriated by his own budget bill. His administration has previously used those funds to buy a luxury jet for former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and for “border security executive travel.”

When NOTUS asked an OMB official about the transfer of funds Wednesday, that official brought up the ballroom unprompted.

“The ballroom will be built with private donations the President has secured,” the official said in a statement to NOTUS. “The administration and the President have been very clear about the need for additional security at the White House complex and the role the Secret Service, in addition to other White House components, will play in supporting the necessary security elements associated with the East Wing Modernization project.”

This story has been updated.

It seems that Vice President JD Vance has been chosen to carry the can for Donald Trump’s nascent peace deal with Iran. What could go wrong?

As the lead negotiator with Iran—who also happens to be running a rocky press tour for his new book—Vance has become the face for the controversial deal, which critics are already calling a complete surrender.

Republicans too afraid to challenge Trump directly have been pointing the finger at Vance, while some Republicans who don’t hate the deal view this as a golden opportunity for Vance to play peacemaker.

“Without question, the biggest potential political liability Vance had was the unpopularity of the war in Iran,” one person close to the White House who supports the deal told Politico Wednesday. “So it’s fascinating to watch his biggest enemies in the GOP unwittingly inoculate him from that liability by branding him as responsible for the peace deal.”

“He now gets to do a media tour defending the president—a.k.a. the kingmaker of our party—from their idiotic criticism of the deal,” the person said. “While even his critics would acknowledge that the vice president is a smart guy, sometimes what really matters in politics is how stupid your enemies are.”

But is Vance washing away his sins or getting himself dirty?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, another likely contender for a 2028 presidential run, has remained eerily quiet throughout the process of launching the deal. As the president’s national security adviser, he reportedly opposed the deal behind closed doors.

Iran has agreed to return to its prewar position of allowing the free movement of trade through the Strait of Hormuz and pledging not to produce or acquire a nuclear weapon. In return, they’ve won a range of exciting cash prizes: a $300 billion investment fund, sanctions relief, and the potential to implement tolls in the strait after just 60 days.

Trump’s deal is at the very least an off-ramp from an expensive and unpopular war—but it’s clear that for now, the United States is walking away with nothing. Vance will bear the brunt of whatever comes from the continued negotiations, and given the administration’s proven ineptitude for striking deals, that could last well into midterm season.

Speaking at the G7 Summit Wednesday, Trump joked: “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD. You better be careful, JD!”