Thu: How Big Would the Trump Tax Be?

It's a Low Bar, But Not Low Enough for Eastman

A judge recommending disbarment for a Trump-aligned attorney who allegedly participated in 2020 election subversion efforts included one line in the ruling that stood out to political and legal experts.

JustSecurity reporter Adam Klasfeld highlighted the line from the disbarment recommendation filing for John Eastman. Eastman was indicted alongside former president Donald Trump for his alleged role in a scheme to overturn the results of Georgia's presidential election in 2020.

"A blistering line from John Eastman's disbarment recommendation: The Bar finds that the 'scale and egregiousness' of Eastman’s 'unethical actions far surpasses the misconduct' by Nixon henchman Donald Segretti, who coined the word 'ratf------' for political dirty tricks," Klasfeld wrote on his social media.

ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills

In a follow-up post, Klasfeld said, "Unlike Segretti, who served jail time after pleading guilty to Watergate-related misdemeanors, Eastman refuses to admit wrongdoing, the order states."

Quantum computing just got hotter: 1 degree above absolute zero

For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or –273.15°C). That’s because the quantum phenomena that grant quantum computers their unique computational abilities can only be harnessed by isolating them from the warmth of the familiar classical world we inhabit.

A single quantum bit or “qubit”, the equivalent of the binary “zero or one” bit at the heart of classical computing, requires a large refrigeration apparatus to function. However, in many areas where we expect quantum computers to deliver breakthroughs – such as in designing new materials or medicines – we will need large numbers of qubits or even whole quantum computers working in parallel.

Quantum computers that can manage errors and self-correct, essential for reliable computations, are anticipated to be gargantuan in scale. Companies like Google, IBM and PsiQuantum are preparing for a future of entire warehouses filled with cooling systems and consuming vast amounts of power to run a single quantum computer.

But if quantum computers could function at even slightly higher temperatures, they could be much easier to operate – and much more widely available. In new research published in Nature, our team has shown a certain kind of qubit – the spins of individual electrons – can operate at temperatures around 1K, far hotter than earlier examples.

This is Not a Qubit.  This is Qbert

The Fragile Supply Chain

The Baltimore incident encapsulates one thing really well: just how globalized the shipping industry is. The Dali was a Singapore-flagged ship, with an all Indian-nationality crew, operated by the Danish company Maersk and on its way to Sri Lanka. (Thankfully, there were no injuries reported among the crew of the ship.)

This degree of interconnectedness — and how fragile it all is — probably feels familiar by now. Remember the wide swath of consumer goods that were subjected to back orders and shortages in 2021 as the global supply chain fell victim to a series of interconnected problems, including (but definitely not limited to) issues with container ships and ports?

Low water levels in Panama — the result of a prolonged drought that began in early 2023 — forced canal officials late last year to cut the number of ships that pass through each day from the normal 38 to just 24. That’s left some ships stranded for more than two weeks, and others taking costly roundabout routes; major shipping companies are even switching some freight to railroad “land bridges” across parts of the country.

And in the Red Sea, the Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel group that controls much of the country’s north, have been waging an increasingly serious campaign of attacks against shipping, purportedly in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza. Ships are rerouting here, too, this time around the Horn of Africa, or facing the risk at added cost. At the start of this month, the Houthis sank a ship. And while the group is reportedly allowing safe passage to some ships — those affiliated with Russia and China — that’s not necessarily a foolproof guarantee.

Size Matters

Big ships can cause big problems. In 2021, the huge container ship Ever Given twisted sideways in the Suez Canal, blocking a crucial trade passage between Europe and Asia. For almost a week, this firmly lodged ship captivated a pandemic-weary world that responded with wild theories and wilder memes. But there was a real-world impact as well: The trade traversing the canal was worth up to $10 billion daily.

This week, a different heavy cargo ship struck a support column for the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore at around 1:30 a.m., prompting the 1.6-mile-long bridge to come crashing down into the water almost immediately. The collapse of the bridge Tuesday morning has disrupted trade from the Port of Baltimore, which handled $81 billion of foreign cargo in 2023. Rebuilding the bridge could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Six construction workers who were on the bridge are presumed dead, though officials have said a Mayday warning from the ship allowed the Maryland Transportation Authority police to close traffic across the bridge, probably preventing some casualties.

These two events, which took place almost exactly three years apart, occurred 5,000 miles from one another and in considerably different circumstances. But both involved enormous ships of the kind that have become the backbone of modern global trade. The Ever Given is what is known as an ultra-large ship, almost more than 1,300 feet long, with a gross tonnage of 220,000. The Dali ship, while still enormous on human scale, is a smaller ship with a length of around 980 feet and a gross tonnage of less than 100,000.

These large ships are a long way from the world’s first successful container ship, a converted steamship that traveled from New Jersey to Texas in 1956. Container ships slowly increased in size for decades after that, before suddenly leaping significantly in size over the past 20 years, forcing ports and canals to adapt, often at the cost of billions of dollars. But new shipping technology and the logic of economies of scale meant ships got bigger and bigger.

The Key Bridge opened in 1977 with a price tag equivalent to $316 million in modern figures. It was a mammoth piece of infrastructure engineering. Yet even it could not stand up to a modern container ship. Indeed, no bridge pier can withstand being hit by a ship the size of the Dali, Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told my colleagues this week.

“These container ships are so huge,” Schafer said.

The Rockettes Will Not Be Performing

President Joe Biden will join former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on stage for a chat at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday night, in what will be the most lucrative political fundraising event in American history.

In total, the event will raise more than $25 million, per the Biden-Harris campaign.

For context: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump raised $20 million in all of February, per his campaign finance filings.