Pope Leo XIV labeled AI one of the main threats facing humanity, saying it poses challenges to human dignity, justice, and labor. He’s right, but it’s even worse than that; AI represents, unless it’s rigorously regulated, a threat to democracy itself. In every generation, the enemies of democracy change costumes, nations, and languages, but their playbook remains eerily familiar. They lie, divide, intimidate, and exploit every available tool to consolidate power. In the 1930s they used newspapers and radio, in the 2010s it was social media, and now, in 2025, the newest and most dangerous weapon in the authoritarian arsenal is artificial intelligence. Make no mistake: AI isn’t just another “new technology.” It’s power, scaled. And in the hands of the hard right that is trying to end our republican form of government, it has the potential to become the most effective tool for dismantling democracy ever invented.

The slogan that promised efficiency was really a blueprint to dismantle public government and hand its power—and money—to the billionaire class… The bombs are falling on Iran this week, Kash Patel has fired the FBI experts on Iranian sleeper cells in America, and people are speculating that Trump's trying to provoke an Iranian attack on the US to justify blowing up November's elections. Somewhere in the wreckage of what used to be America's functioning national security apparatus, the ghost of Ronald Reagan is grinning. I've been doing my progressive program on SiriusXM, Free Speech TV, and radio stations nationwide for over two decades, and every time a Republican runs for office promising to "run government like a business" — Reagan's favorite meme — I tell my listeners exactly what's coming next: — Tax cuts for the morbidly rich, — Gutted regulations that had been designed to protect average people, — Privatized (profitized) public services that will make billions for corporations and eat our tax dollars, — incompetent management of government agencies and our economy, — And, soon, a slow-motion disaster that the rest of us end up paying for.

From campaigning to destroy NATO to selling out Ukraine to letting Russia help kill American soldiers in the Gulf region, Trump's goal appears to be, to "Make America Russia"… Eight of our American service members are dead and over 140 wounded because Iran's military has suddenly gotten really good at targeting our soldiers, Airmen, and Marines. News reports say they've been able to hit us with such precision because Russia is using their extraordinary spy satellite, spy plane, and advanced radar capabilities to help Iran's military. The Washington Post, which first reported on this, quoted a Russian military expert as saying that Iran is now "making very precise hits on early-warning radars or over-the-horizon radars," seeming to validate the concern.

Bombed boats, dead fishermen, starving children, and broken families reveal the human cost of power without empathy… Across Iran and the Caribbean, Trump and his lickspittles delight in killing as if people were expendable scenery, not human beings with loved ones and families. Meanwhile, they ignore the death and destruction their fellow psychopath, Putin, rains down on Ukraine every night. India and America invite Iran to send an UNARMED ship to the Indian Ocean to participate in military exercises, and Trump and Whiskey Pete decided it would be fun to blow it out of the water, leaving over 100 sailors miles from shore, desperate for a rescue. Instead of saving them, as international law requires, we simply left them to drown. Whiskey Pete called it "quiet death." In fact, there was a lot of screaming and sobbing, although the bombers couldn't hear it from 20,000 feet any more than Hegseth could in his drunken haze.