Washington politics

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    The AI Revolving Door Has Entered Its ‘Let Them Cook’ Era

    ByPhil McCracken

    Phil McCracken here, checking the kitchen pass in Washington, where the national AI strategy is being prepared by people whose professional networks already know the technology industry’s preferred recipe. A recent Revolving Door Project report focuses on Sriram Krishnan, describing his technology and venture-capital background, his role as a White House AI adviser, and his continued advisory connection to the administration. That is not proof of misconduct. It is, however, a reminder that the revolving door now spins fast enough to generate its own electricity.

    The administration’s AI Action Plan calls for faster deployment, expanded data-center construction, permitting reform, government procurement, and reduced regulation. Each item can be defended as a national priority. Each can also produce very agreeable weather for technology companies, investors, contractors, and the lobbyists who help translate public urgency into private opportunity. When the same policy menu serves the public mission and the industry ecosystem, the public deserves more than a chef’s hat and a promise that nothing is burning.

    Then comes the invoice-shaped detail. A 2024 lobbying disclosure reports $100,000 in lobbying income for Cornerstone Government Affairs work on behalf of Andreessen Horowitz, covering technology, blockchain, cryptocurrency, energy, and related issues. That filing does not prove a particular policy was purchased, and nobody should turn alignment into an ethics verdict by vibes alone. But it does establish the kind of money trail voters are entitled to inspect when public officials are shaping rules that can affect private investment.

    This is the practical problem with calling every acceleration “necessity.” Data centers require land, power, water, roads, permits, workers, and eventually somebody else’s utility bill. Procurement decisions determine whose systems enter public agencies. Deregulation determines who bears the risk when the promised miracle arrives with a maintenance contract. The country may need serious AI policy, but seriousness includes disclosing the relationships around the recipe, not merely announcing that dinner is patriotic.

    “Let them cook” is the only slogan honest enough for this arrangement. Fine—but let taxpayers see who supplied the ingredients, who wrote the menu, and who receives the catering bill. Public service should not be disqualified by an industry résumé, yet industry influence should never be hidden behind national urgency. Follow the invoice, and the kitchen gets less mysterious.

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    Congress Announces an Inquiry, Then Adds the Disclaimer

    ByPhil McCracken

    Phil McCracken looks at Capitol Hill’s latest ethics announcement the way a diner waitress looks at a fake coupon: polite, tired, and already searching for the fine print. On August 17, the House Ethics Committee announced that it was reviewing allegations involving Rep. Jimmy Gomez, including alleged inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer. Then came the institutional safety helmet: opening and disclosing the inquiry does not itself indicate that a violation occurred.

    That distinction matters. The committee is describing allegations under review, not announcing a finding, and Gomez has denied that his conduct violated the law or House ethics rules. He has also said he intends to cooperate. Those are important facts, because an inquiry is not a verdict and a press release is not a courtroom. But Congress has discovered a remarkable administrative trick: make the matter public enough to generate headlines while officially inconclusive enough to prevent anyone from treating the announcement as meaningful evidence.

    Follow the invoice and you find the public getting the announcement, the committee getting procedural insulation, and the underlying facts remaining somewhere in the back room with a numbered ticket. Axios and CBS News both reported the active investigation and the committee’s warning that the process does not establish a violation. In ordinary life, when a business tells you it is investigating a problem, you reasonably assume there is a problem worth investigating. On Capitol Hill, the same sentence arrives with a laminated note saying the sentence should not affect your opinion of the sentence.

    This is transparency theater in its most carefully tailored suit. The institution can point to disclosure as proof that oversight is functioning, while the disclaimer reminds everybody that no conclusion is available yet. That may be procedurally responsible—and it is—but it also leaves the public holding the only receipt Congress has issued: something was important enough to announce, but not meaningful enough to interpret.

    The facts will have to come from the committee’s review, not from rumor, outrage, or premature certainty. Until then, congressional accountability is operating like customer service: the case is open, the details are pending, and please do not mistake our alert for evidence that anything happened. Public service, private invoices—and this one is billed to the voter’s patience.

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    When the Last Name Becomes the Business Plan

    ByPhil McCracken

    In Washington, some people earn a living by knowing things. Others earn a living by being related to the sign above the door. That’s the Don Jr. hustle: the last name does half the work, and the rest gets billed as “access,” which is the polite word for influence wearing a blazer.

    The funny part is how loudly the merit talk arrives right next to the money trail. Board seats, advisory roles, company proximity — all the usual donor-perfume markers of a family franchise. Follow the invoice long enough and nepotism stops looking like a scandal and starts looking like a business model with a nicer logo. Ordinary people call that favoritism. The donor class calls it networking. Same racket, better lighting.

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    Trump’s 1.5-Page Victory Lap

    ByPhil McCracken

    Trump has a gift for declaring the ceremony finished before the substance has been dragged across the finish line. In Washington, that’s called a “deal” if you say it loudly enough and hand somebody a pen. In the real world, it’s a framework with better lighting — a short-term ceasefire now, the hard nuclear terms kicked down the road, and the public asked to applaud a folder that still needs actual pages.

    That’s the old Capitol Hill move with a new flag on the table: announce victory, sprint past the hard part, and leave the invoice for later. The money trail may wear cologne, but the bill still arrives. If the peace is only halfway negotiated, then the win is also halfway real. Phil McCracken rule of thumb: when the photo op is complete and the fine print is missing, somebody just sold you procurement jazz hands.

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    America’s Worst Sequel

    ByAmanda Lynn

    Washington has turned into the kind of sequel nobody asked for: louder trailer, worse plot, same cast, and somehow a bigger bill at the door. The whole production keeps promising order, toughness, and control, then rolls out leaks, stunt politics, donor-class nonsense, and enough humiliation to make a press junket look like group therapy.

    Amanda Lynn Music would call it VIP sadness with pyrotechnics. If power wants to be treated like an action franchise, it should stop acting surprised when the audience notices the script is garbage and the studio keeps charging for parking. The country is still stuck buying tickets for a movie where the heroes are petty, the villains are funded, and the cleanup happens in real life.

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    Epstein Files: Still a Fog Machine

    ByPhil McCracken

    Phil McCracken here, and the first rule of Washington is simple: when powerful people promise “full disclosure,” reach for your wallet and your reading glasses. The Epstein-files circus has become a master class in managed opacity — a patriotic ribbon-cutting for a room full of shredded paper, redactions, and everybody swearing the missing context is somehow a public service.

    That’s the trick. Trump gets pulled into the middle like a magnet on a filing cabinet, the officials keep talking about answers, and ordinary people keep getting the civic equivalent of a receipt with half the ink scraped off. They sell it as transparency, but the product is confusion with a government seal on it. Follow the invoice: secrecy has a billing department, and taxpayers are always the ones stuck paying for the fog machine.

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    Reform Got a Billing Department

    ByPhil McCracken

    The anti-waste crusade arrived in Washington wearing a reform hat, then immediately asked where accounts payable sits. That is the funny little odor around Trump/GOP-style anti-bureaucracy branding: government is supposedly a monster until the right lawyer, vendor, ally, or political convenience can route public power through a friendlier hallway. Public service, private invoices — the oldest magic trick in the marble building.

    Follow the invoice and the sermon changes fast. Watchdogs get dimmed, chaos gets renamed efficiency, and every line item comes stamped “accountability” while the remittance address looks like somebody’s cousin formed an LLC during lunch. Reform without oversight is not a cleanup. It is self-dealing with better stationery and a patriotic font.

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    The Bribe Had a Purchase Order

    ByPhil McCracken

    The old bribe wore a trench coat; the modern one arrives as a procurement file with clean margins and a little tab marked “compliance.” Washington can denounce corruption at 10 a.m., praise clean government at lunch, and by 3 p.m. route a favor through consulting, access, subcontracting, or some invoice-shaped miracle that smells faintly of donor perfume.

    That is the trick: once the favor gets a statement of work, a vendor number, and three signatures from people who say “best practices” without blinking, the room relaxes. Follow the invoice long enough and you learn the capital’s favorite magic spell: if the bribe has a purchase order, Washington calls it workflow.

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