Ah, Riyadh at last. Here, I’m finally free of Russiagate.

The medal’s nice, but can we touch a glowing ball with some other men?

Sally, we’ll get to state business as soon as I’m done opening a golf course.

This is great. What could possibly go wrong?

Hi Don. Remember to remove sanctions on Russia or pee tape, recorded phone calls, treason-related hanging, et cetera.

Who are those men handcuffing your husband?

• Trump undermining democracy and the GOP tearing the social safety net are dual threats to peace in America.

• In the wake of the Washington Post Trump scoop, read Garry Willis’ 1974 review of All the President’s Men.

• Tax reform is a ridiculous reason for the GOP to protect Trump.

• Matt Taibbi penned an appropriately punishing postmortem of Roger Ailes.

• Julian Assange, perhaps a Kremlin stooge, spoke to Spiegel.

• Peter Diamandis believes humans will soon be massively connected.

• MADCOMS could make machines the “driving force in our culture.”

• In 1979, David Levy, chess hustler, knew machines would soon dominate.

• Technology giants, not the government, may build the AI Future.

• Nicholas Carr argues the robot apocalypse is being oversold.

• A brief note from 1888 about elephant executioners.

• A brief note from 1936 about Man Ray’s near-decapitation.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches: Alec Baldwin, Julius Evola, etc.