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TREASON is a newsletter about the threats facing America — from the outside and from within.

Written by Miles Taylor, the newsletter provides raw dispatches from inside the fight to protect democracy’s guardrails. Miles previously served in the first Trump Administration and blew the whistle on presidential misconduct. TREASON provides ongoing updates on his case to block one of the Administration’s “revenge” orders, efforts to defend free speech, and over-the-horizon warnings about what’s to come. Autocrats think dissent is “treason.” But here, truth & reason cannot be silenced.Upgrade to paid

About the Author

Miles Taylor is a national security expert, New York Times best-selling author, and former government official. He went into government after 9/11 and later served as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he helped oversee the government’s third-largest department, managing a $60 billion budget and a quarter-million employees. He also served in the George W. Bush White House, at the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill.

In 2018, Miles authored the anonymous New York Times essay from inside the Trump Administration warning of presidential misconduct — and subsequently revealed himself to be the author. He has written two national best-sellers about threats to democracy, A Warning and Blowback. Miles a former CNN contributor, the host of the iHeartRadio podcast The Whistleblowers, and a contributor to Americast by BBC News.

In the private sector, he has advised leading U.S. tech startups working in AI, robotics, defense, and space systems. He has also co-founded a tech-centric high school, Washington Leadership Academy (recognized as one of 10 “Super Schools” in America), and the primary tech accelerator in the nation’s capital. Miles was previously Head of Advanced Technology and Security Strategy at Google.

A Marshall Scholar and Truman Scholar, Miles earned an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford and a BA from Indiana University. He has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, The Economist, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and more.

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Nat’l security expert. ex-DHS chief of staff. NYT best-selling author. Was “Anonymous” — now urging folks to take their masks off. Founder @ DEFIANCE.org

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Jesse Welles Aug 7, 2025

CNN reportedly got word to downplay the East Wing demolition; the Washington Post excuses it

This On-Target video by Steven Beschloss and me examines how some media seem to be pleasing Donald Trump with their reaction to his destruction of the White House’s East Wing to make way for a ballroom. The Status newsletter reported that CNN boss Mark Thompson had a White House meeting and then urged his staff to ease up on the story. (CNN denied that.) The Washington Post, meanwhile, praised Trump’s sneaky, unilateral action because “the traditional review process” would take too long. (Post owner Jeff Bezos is helping pay for the ballroom.)

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By Stephen Council,Tech Reporter Oct 28, 2025 (SFGate.com)

Two San Francisco startups focused on very different aspects of artificial intelligence have caught Bernie Sanders’ eye — and he made his worries known this week.

The Vermont senator, who’s drawn large crowds this year on his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has in recent weeks ramped up his focus on the impacts of AI. First came a report, in early October, with Sanders’ policy suggestions for helping workers. This week, he brought his concerns more directly to the public.

In an interview with Axios that published on Friday, Sanders talked through his concerns that AI’s leaders don’t care about working-class people and that AI could cause “massive job dislocation.” Asked whether he thinks OpenAI should be broken up, he said, “I do,” and added that AI’s advent is like “a meteor coming to this planet.”

Then, he pivoted to the social side. He didn’t name the San Francisco startup Friend but pointed to it directly — the AI pendant-maker has grown notorious this year for vast numbers of billboards in Los Angeles and New York that imply its device can become a friend.

“There are products now being sold as, ‘You don’t need to relate to a human being anymore! You’ll have somebody hanging around your neck as your AI buddy,’” Sanders said. “And in a country where there’s a lot of emotional distress, I really worry about that.”

Friend CEO Avi Schiffmann shared the interview clip on X. He told SFGATE in a text on Tuesday that he’s glad to be working on something politicians “realize they need have an opinion on” and thinks his campaign has helped solidify the pendant as “the ai companion device form factor.”

“I don’t view the concept as dystopian nor replacing human connection, it is simply a new kind of relationship that I believe will only deepen our understanding of ourselves and everyone else,” Schiffmann wrote. “I guess we’ll see what happens.”

Friend is far from the only company working on AI companions, and it’s unclear whether Meta’s AI glasses, OpenAI and Jony Ive’s secrecy-shrouded collaboration, or some other startup will push the new technology further into our everyday lives. Sanders isn’t the only politician concerned about the safety and implications of AI; on Tuesday, Sanders’ Senate colleagues Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal announced a bipartisan bill that would ban chatbot companions for minors.

Sanders threw another salvo at San Francisco’s tech scene on Monday, posting a fuzzy image to Instagram of a billboard for Artisan that blared: “Stop Hiring Humans” and “The Era of AI Employees Is Here.” Artisan sells tools that automate various sales tasks.

The senator wrote: “Billboards across the country are promoting the replacement of millions of jobs with AI and robotics. Great idea. One simple question: How will those displaced workers survive when there are no jobs or income for them?”

Artisan’s inflammatory billboard campaign — the startup has the same message on a wall at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in Moscone West this week — has, like Friend’s, succeeded in spreading name recognition. “Luckily, the people who were mad aren’t our target audience,” CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack wrote in a June blog post praising the campaign’s results. “We target tech companies, and the vast majority of people who work at and run tech companies loved the campaign.”

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When SFGATE wrote about the company’s billboards in December, the CEO said in a text: “They are somewhat dystopian, but so is AI. The way the world works is changing.” He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

Sanders’ post about Artisan, as of Tuesday afternoon, had amassed almost 188,000 likes. His office did not respond to SFGATE’s requests for comment. 

Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.

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History | Why a wealthy banker blasted a huge hole in a Bay Area cliff
Local | There’s a mansion hidden directly under the Bay Bridge
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Local | The world’s last lost tourist thought Maine was San Francisco

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Stephen Council

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Stephen Council is the tech reporter at SFGATE. He has covered technology and business for The Information, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CalMatters, where his reporting won a San Francisco Press Club award.

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Jennifer Welch of the podcast “I’ve Had It” speaks onstage on June 26, 2025 in Brooklyn, New York.

 (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for GLAAD)

The Democratic leaders, said the outspoken I’ve Had It podcast co-host, have refused to show up for the NYC mayoral candidate because they are “beholden to the same corporations that helped Donald Trump get elected.”

Julia Conley

Oct 29, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

With less than a week to go until Election Day in New York City, the top Democratic leader in the US Senate has yet to endorse his party’s candidate for mayor of the city he calls home—and a podcaster who’s become increasingly known for catching establishment politicians off guard with her pointed questions was clear about her view on the matter this week.

“Listen up, Democratic establishment,” said Jennifer Welch, the co-host of the podcast I’ve Had It. “You can either jump on board with this shit or we’re coming after you in the same way we come after MAGA. Period… Stop missing out on these big rallies.”

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Podcast Interviews With Booker, Newsom Reveal How Urgently Democrats Must ‘Break From Israel’

Jeffries Gives Last-Minute ‘Passive-Aggressive’ Endorsement of Mamdani

Welch spoke on I’ve Had It the day after 13,000 New Yorkers packed Forest Hills Stadium in Queens to hear progressive Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speak alongside some of his biggest allies: US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Despite the enthusiasm around Mamdani’s campaign, in which he’s focused relentlessly on making the city more affordable for working people and ensuring corporations and the rich pay fair taxes, New York Democrats Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of whom live in New York City, were no-shows—a fact that Welch proclaimed “an embarrassment.”

“Hakeem and Chuck should have been front and center, introducing the next mayor of New York City,” said Welch. “But no, they wouldn’t show up—because they’re pussies. They’re pussies that are beholden to the same corporations that helped [President] Donald Trump get elected.”

Jeffries offered a tepid, last-minute endorsement of Mamdani late last week, but both leaders have refused to give their full-throated support to the popular state assemblyman as he faces disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani by 12 points in June. Schumer ignored a question about the mayoral race at a press briefing on Tuesday.

Progressives have condemned the two leaders for not backing the party’s nominee, a move that could be seen by some voters as a tacit endorsement of Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace after being accused by numerous women of sexual harassment, has employed racist stereotypes in his attack ads on Mamdani, and has reportedly spoken with Trump about the White House potentially intervening in the mayoral race on Cuomo’s behalf.

Welch warned Schumer, Jeffries, and other establishment Democrats that with candidates and leaders like Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez, the party “is moving on.”

“These Democrats, they continue to play patty cake with corporations and lobbyists,” she said. “Nobody wants that. Nobody wants you. We want politicians to speak freely, and look at what the benefit is. Look at what’s happening in New York. And you dipshits are sitting on the sidelines, running your social media like complete dorks. It’s embarrassing. Get your shit together, Hakeem. Chuck, seriously, get your shit together.”

Welch has taken numerous politicians to task in recent months for accepting campaign donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel interest groups—from which Schumer and Jeffries have each taken more than $1.7 million.

She advised the leaders to “stop taking AIPAC money” and “go on an ‘I’m sorry, I took AIPAC money atonement’ tour, if you want to stay in power.”

She added that Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez—often known by her initials, AOC—and Mamdani “are all doing something” that corporate Democrats can’t: getting working-class Trump supporters to “cross over and vote for them.”

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez spoke to large crowds in both red and blue areas of the country earlier this year, focusing on government corruption and inequality, on Sanders’ Fighting Oligarchy Tour. This week, a photo of a man wearing a “MAGA for Mamdani” T-shirt went viral, with the man telling a reporter: “This’ll be the first time I’m voting for a Democrat. I like his policies.”

According to Welch, “Why Democratic leadership and why the Democratic National Committee is not hopping on those coattails and fucking riding the wave, tells you everything you need to know.”

“That the Democratic establishment is MAGA lite,” she said. “They have the same corporate donors. That’s why when you ask them a blunt question you get a word-salad answer. And this is why Zohran Mamdani is rising. This is why AOC is rising.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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