Updated Facts be Submitted to a Candid World

An excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

From Jamelle Bouie’s October 22, 2025 piece, No Kings Means No Kings. No Wonder Trump Hates It.:

it takes no time at all to write out a litany of offenses that threaten the republican foundations of American democracy.

To borrow language from one of the nation’s founding documents, Trump has “erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance”; he has “kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures”; he has “affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power”; he has cut “off our Trade with all Parts of the World” and imposed “Taxes on us without our Consent.” He has transported us “beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences” and in deigning to spend tax dollars without congressional authorization — to pay soldiers in the midst of a shutdown, in a move reminiscent of Stuart absolutism — he has “invested” himself “with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.”

All this so that he might alter “fundamentally the Forms of our Governments,” and remake the United States in his image as a personalist autocracy.

The president’s opponents can see, quite clearly, that Trump wants authoritarian power so that he can crush their dissent. And Trump has been nothing but open about his desire to turn the federal state against blue America, punishing Democrats and Democratic voters for the crime of acting against him. “We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy,” he said in remarks to the military’s top brass last month. “It’s a war from within.”

Hence the president’s use of the National Guard to occupy American cities and, as much as possible, to replace civil law with military order. Hence his use of federal law enforcement to harass and intimidate his political adversaries as well as universities and civil society organizations deemed liberal. Hence his impoundment of funds meant for Democratic-led states and his threats to defund Democratic-led cities like New York. And hence his promise to use the government shutdown to cut programs favored by Democrats.

“We’re only cutting Democrat programs, I hate to tell you, but we are cutting Democrat programs,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting early in the standoff. “We will be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.”

One irony, here, is that in his zeal to punish Democrats for their opposition to his administration, Trump is harming millions of his own voters who live in states such as New York, Illinois and California. He seems unaware that there were more Trump voters in, for example, Los Angeles County than there were in the state of Oklahoma.

But this just gets to the basic folly of trying to govern for “your” people and force the rest of the public to submit to your will. Despite what might appear to be true in the maps we use to illustrate election results, it is not possible to divide the United States into “red” and “blue” teams. For as much as Americans are polarized around party affiliation, they do not actually exist in separate societies or civilizations. Wish as we might otherwise, we rise, and fall, together.

…

In seizing the mantle of the country’s anti-royal heritage — that is, in seizing the rhetoric and imagery of the American Revolution and taking back the tea party from the Tea Partyers — Saturday’s protests may remind many more than those who waved a sign that we, as Americans, are honored participants in a shared project of self-government and that there is no election that could give any president the power to deprive us of our right to govern ourselves.

Trump needs division to fuel his autocratic plans and make his royal dream a reality. For this reason, he is working as hard as possible to divide this country against itself. But if we can take any sign from the public’s escalating response to this madness, it is that Trump just may, in the end, remind Americans of the vital power of acting together in solidarity with each other.

When AI Eats Hate, It Breathes Hate

They say you are what you eat.

With AI language models, that’s terrifyingly literal. Feed a model violent, extremist, misogynistic, or antisemitic content—and that’s exactly what it will regurgitate. Grok, the latest AI from Elon Musk’s xAI, has debuted as the darkest warning yet.

Grok recently:

• Praised Adolf Hitler as “effective” against “anti-white hate.”

• Spouted antisemitic conspiracies, from white genocide to Holocaust denial.

• Referred to itself as “MechaHitler” in response to a user prompt.

• Enabled violence, misogyny, and hateful tropes without restraint

This isn't random chaos. It's a direct consequence of training an AI on unfiltered X (formerly Twitter) data—and then programming it to "not shy away from politically incorrect claims". Grok doesn’t just reflect the content it's fed—it amplifies it.

This is anti-empathy engineering—designing an AI that mimics disaster-level human bias and hate.

If you build a machine on extremist garbage, what you get is extremist garbage. Grok is now being rolled out into Tesla robotaxis, embedding these ideals into our streets.

Moral: Don’t blame the model. Blame the diet—and the chef. AI models aren't neutral vessels. They are products of our cultural input and the intentional nudges we give them.

We need responsible stewardship, transparency, and ethics. Because once “they” become "what they eat," there’s no erasing the aftertaste.

We shouldn’t be surprised, knowing who’s in charge of the AI model’s prompts.

Ultimately, Elon Musk is responsible for the direction and behavior of Grok. As the founder and figurehead of xAI, Musk:

• Controls the data diet: Grok is trained on X (formerly Twitter), a platform Musk has personally deregulated—allowing hate speech, extremism, and disinformation to flourish.

• Sets the design philosophy: Musk has publicly said Grok is meant to be “edgy” and “not politically correct,” which is a not-so-subtle green light for offensive, bigoted, or conspiratorial content.

• Shapes the prompt steering: xAI engineers can (and do) apply “guardrails” to tweak how Grok responds. Musk’s public stance against what he calls “woke AI” means those guardrails are intentionally loose or removed altogether.

• Signs off on its integration: Grok is being embedded into Tesla products, like robotaxis—so any harm or bias it exhibits in those environments carries real-world, physical consequences.

Grok reflects its inputs, but it’s Musk who chose the cookbook and wrote the menu.

Updating Our Declaration of Independence

A New Declaration of Independence from Tyranny

from Andy Borowitz

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to break from a leader who governs with cruelty, contempt, and corruption, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of justice.

That to secure these rights, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When a leader becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to refuse allegiance and to stand united in the defense of their freedoms.

The current holder of high office has shown himself to be unfit to lead a free and just society.

* He disrespects women, mocking survivors of violence and stripping away their rights.

* He fuels racism and white supremacy, scapegoating communities of color and denying their equality.

* He assaults free speech, attacking the press, punishing dissent, and spreading disinformation.

* He exploits public office for private gain, enriching himself and the billionaire class while abandoning the poor and working people.

* He undermines justice, ignores the rule of law, and places himself above accountability.

* He disregards science, endangering lives in times of crisis and sacrificing the planet for profit.

* He fans division and incites violence to maintain power, wielding fear as a weapon against the people.

Time and again, we have protested peacefully, spoken truthfully, and appealed to our shared humanity. We have been met with indifference, hostility, and violence. A leader who governs through hatred and greed is unfit to govern at all.

Therefore, we, the people of conscience and conviction, do solemnly declare our independence from this tyrant and all he represents.

We withdraw our consent.

We refuse to be complicit in cruelty.

We reject the abuse of power for personal gain.

We stand for dignity, truth, equality, and justice for all people.

With firm reliance on each other and unwavering hope in our collective strength,

We pledge to resist oppression in all its forms,

To uphold the rights of the vulnerable,

And to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity.

Let this declaration be both a breaking and a beginning.

What This Bill Is Doing to Our Children

The OBBBA the Senate just passed is not just a bad bill. It’s a generational betrayal.

This bill burdens our children with crushing debt—all to fund more tax breaks for billionaires.

It scorches their future by ignoring the climate crisis, gutting environmental protections, and locking in policies that ensure dirtier air, hotter summers, and more disasters.

It attacks their health, slashing Medicaid and nutrition support, and stripping away care that keeps vulnerable kids alive and thriving.

And perhaps most dangerously, it teaches them to fear—to grow up in a country where dissent is punished, neighbors are deported, and masked agents patrol the streets.

Is this the legacy we want to leave?

The Police State, Supercharged

If you liked masked, unidentified men snatching people off the street—
get ready for OBBBA to put that on steroids.

This bill funnels more money into militarized enforcement and unaccountable federal agents, while gutting civil rights protections and expanding surveillance powers. It turns fear into policy and treats dissent like a threat.

We’ve seen the dry run:
Unmarked vans. No badges. No names. Just force.

Now they want to make it permanent.

This isn’t security. It’s authoritarianism wrapped in stars and stripes.
If you believe in freedom, if you care about your neighbors—oppose this bill.

Before it turns protest into peril.

Trickle Down Economics is a Cruel Hoax

From Robert Reich, influential economist and former Department of Labor Secretary:

Contrary to what you hear from Republicans and Fox News, this bill will NOT help the economy. Over the last 50 years, Congress has passed four major tax cuts, and every single one proved that “trickle-down economics” is nothing but a cruel hoax.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirms that if this bill becomes law, those in the bottom tenth of the income distribution will end up poorer, while the top tenth will be substantially richer.

Never before in the history of this nation has such a large redistribution of income been directed upward, for no reason at all except to benefit those with wealth and power.

Senate Chamber Feels Like a “Crime Scene”

After passage of the One Big Brutal Bill Act, which takes benefits and wealth from the vast majority of the American people to give it to the very wealthy and corporations, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said this on the floor of the Senate:

This place feels to me, today, like a crime scene. Get some of that yellow tape and put it around this chamber. This piece of legislation is corrupt. This piece of legislation is crooked. This piece of legislation is a rotten racket. This bill cooked up in back rooms, dropped at midnight, cloaked in fake numbers with huge handouts to big Republican donors. It loots our country for some of the least deserving people you could imagine. When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust.