Pantsuit Politics

We're picking back up on artificial intelligence — Mustafa Suleyman's warning about conscious AI, the difference between chatbots and frontier models, recursive self-improvement, kill switches, and what policy response should actually look like at every level of government. Outside of Politics: the foods from our childhoods that still hold up.
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Sports, race, gender, religion, cancel culture, and Donald Trump — this week they're all the same conversation. We cover Caitlin Clark's fouls and the House Republicans weighing in, Sophie Cunningham and the trans-athletes-in-sports debate, the Sydney Sweeney ad everyone's arguing about, SF Giants pitchers under DOJ scrutiny for Bible verses on Pride caps, the golf ad that ended a sponsorship, and LIV Golf's bankruptcy. Outside of Politics: which area of law would we actually want to practice?

Sports and the culture war, generally

Sports' grip on America sparks summer of political warfare – Axios

Caitlin Clark / House Republicans

RSC Chairman Pfluger Leads Letter to WNBA Demanding Accountability Over Unfair Treatment of Caitlin Clark

House Republicans absurdly ask WNBA to investigate fouls against Caitlin Clark – Yahoo Sports

Sophie Cunningham / trans athletes / Title IX

Inside the disunited United States that shadows the WNBA – ESPN

WNBA star Sophie Cunningham defends her views on transgender athletes – The Hill

Destroying Women's Sports In Order To Save Them – Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring

Sydney Sweeney ad

Sydney Sweeney under fire from athletes over nude sports-prediction ad – CNN

Sydney Sweeney Faces Backlash for Sexualized Sports Trading Ad – Hollywood Reporter

SF Giants Pride caps / DOJ-EEOC

Giants 'Pride Night' cap controversy prompts investigation into MLB for religious discrimination – Yahoo Sports

DOJ opens probe into MLB after Pride Night controversy – The Hill

Good Good Golf ad / Callaway

Golf ad showing man shove woman to ground taken down after backlash – CNN

Callaway Golf ends partnership with Good Good Golf after controversial ad – ABC News

LIV Golf bankruptcy

LIV Golf files for bankruptcy protection; Rahm, Bryson owed millions – ESPN

LIV Golf files for bankruptcy protection as it seeks to restart in 2027 – NBC News

Trump and the World Cup

2026 Trump–FIFA red card controversy – Wikipedia

Trump's FIFA Intervention Draws Global Backlash – Time

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After a weekend when an Anthropic researcher quit and warned AI could wipe out humanity within a decade, Sarah and Beth take on the questions listeners sent them about artificial intelligence, starting with what is actually being made and what it costs. They argue that the flyers-and-water critique is stuck in 2022 while frontier models and agents race ahead, and they take the Doomer scenarios seriously without buying that the doom is just sales copy. Beth explains why "can't we just unplug it" would mean unplugging the internet; Sarah argues nobody trained these models on a soul, and that's where we need to put our chips. They disagree on whether building superintelligence was ever the right call, and agree that fear isn't enough to bring to the table with our kids, our employers, or Congress. Then, Outside of Politics, a conversation about quitting: Jessica Strawser's The Quitters Club, Lindsay Crouse's case for opting out, and the biggest things each of them has walked away from.

If you missed our live show in Minneapolis, the full recording is available in our shop for $15: https://pantsuitpolitics.myshopify.com/

Support the show and get access to News Briefs, Spicy Live bonus episodes, and community: https://pantsuitpolitics.substack.com
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Twenty-five years ago today, and Sarah and Beth close out the re-share of their 2018 series on September 11 with the two hardest parts. First, the road from 9/11 to Iraq, from "we will wipe terrorism off the face of the earth" to an occupation that hired loyalists over experts, and a real disagreement between the two of them about whether George W. Bush was a bad man or just a bad president. They end at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, where each of them chose one life to be grateful for, Kathy Mazza and CeeCee Lyles, and where the museum asks you to look up at the photos in exactly the way people on the ground had to that day. Parts one through three came out Wednesday.

If you missed our live show in Minneapolis, the full recording is available in our shop for $15: https://pantsuitpolitics.myshopify.com/

Support the show and get access to News Briefs, Spicy Live bonus episodes, and community: https://pantsuitpolitics.substack.com
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This week marks twenty-five years since the September 11 attacks, and Sarah and Beth are re-sharing the five-part series they made in 2018 to do what they felt the country never quite did: process it. Today's episode holds parts one, two, and three. First, a careful, flight-by-flight walk through the morning of September 11, 2001, with attention to the people who improvised when no plan existed for what was happening, from flight attendants Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney to Rick Rescorla to the passengers of Flight 93. Then they travel back eighty years, to the borders drawn after World War I, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and the conditions that produced al Qaeda, with help from Middle East expert Kerry Anderson. Then they ask how we missed it, and find the answer in an FBI and CIA built to distrust each other, an overcorrection after Watergate that stopped agents from sharing what they knew, and two future hijackers living in the United States that the CIA never told the FBI about. It is a hard listen in places, made with care for everyone who carries the day with them. Parts four and five, the road to Iraq and the Memorial, follow on Friday.

If you missed our live show in Minneapolis, the full recording is available in our shop for $15: https://pantsuitpolitics.myshopify.com/

Support the show and get access to News Briefs, Spicy Live bonus episodes, and community: https://pantsuitpolitics.substack.com
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