AI update: What's going on in MAGAland and what's going on with Pxy

Part 1 - The MAGAland mind: A video I recently watched briefly showed djt’s uneducated, ignorant, uncurious, idiot Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, saying in public that A-1 is going to be in public schools and what a wonderful thing it will be. As far as I know A-1 is steak sauce, not an AI platform (artificial intelligence). But what the heck, A-1 steak sauce is close enough for ignorant idiot MAGAland elites. Maybe A-1 will soon get status as a MAGA-approved vegetable.

McMahon is a former professional wrestling promoter and founding sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc., later World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., and also a former administrator of the Small Business Administration. She has zero credentials, experience or interest in public education, AI or steak sauce.

Happily testifying that yes indeed, she knows what 

chalk and a blackboard are, proving beyond any doubt  

that she has stellar qualifications for Secretary of Education!

Part 2 - Using Pxy to analyze minds: Complicated story short, thoughts about what’s in the minds, if anything, of people like McMahon, led to my interest in using AI, not steak sauce, to analyze the mindset of djt compared to some of history’s most monstrous, murdering tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin and Putin. I did that analysis with Pxy about a month ago. When one does that analysis and tells AI to ignore different times in history, with different political, economic, technological and social conditions, and instead focus only on mindset, cognitive biology, social behavior and the track records of past tyrants with that of djt and MAGA elites to date, one get a pretty scary response. Well, it sacred me at least. The similarities seriously outweighed the differences.

Part 3 - A Pxy update: However, as I have posted here before, MAGA elites want to sanitize AI so that it gives answers that are “correct” in the MAGA fantasy world, not answers that are “woke”, i.e., correct but inconvenient. On Jan. 23, 2025, djt signed an EO to sanitize and MAGAfy AI so that it is correct and no longer inconvenient. That EO, Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence revoked the previous administration’s AI-related policies and directed agencies to revise or rescind actions that conflict with the goals of promoting AI development and innovation. djt said in his EO that he wants to foster AI development “free from ideological bias or social agendas.” In fact, what MAGA intended was to pollute AI with MAGA’s faux history, lies, crackpottery and whatnot, i.e., MAGA’s authoritarian ideological bias and kleptocrat and theocrat social agendas. 

To maintain wokeness in my Pxy AI platform, I dropped Musk’s MAGAfied Grok-3 because I no longer trusted it or Musk himself. Musk had tried to MAGAfy Grok, with an unknown degree of success in making it anti-woke. One of the options that my Pxy account gave me was R1 1776. This morning, the thought occurred that I have been using R1 1776 for a while now, but didn’t know anything about it other than it being described by Pxy Inc. as good at deep analysis and “reasoning.” So I asked Pxy what R1 1776 is. This is what R1 1776 is, according to itself:

R1 1776 is an uncensored AI language model developed by Perplexity AI, derived from DeepSeek-R1. It removes Chinese Communist Party censorship filters while retaining strong reasoning capabilities, positioning it as a tool for open inquiry and unbiased information access. Here are its key traits compared to other AI models:

Core features
Uncensored Outputs: Handles 300+ sensitive topics (e.g., Taiwan sovereignty, Tiananmen Square) without ideological restrictions, using a 40,000-prompt multilingual dataset for retraining 1 5 6.

Preserved Reasoning: Maintains DeepSeek-R1’s mathematical and logical capabilities in standard benchmarks, though Reddit users report performance drops on highly complex lineage-64 problems (0.205 vs. 0.780 score compared to original) 2 7. (A lineage-64 problem refers to an advanced reasoning challenge where an AI must analyze complex hierarchical relationships across 64 interconnected entities, typically modeled after biological lineage tracing. These problems test a model's ability to track multi-generational connections and infer relationships in large-scale systems.)

Multilingual Proficiency: Outperforms DeepSeek-R1 in language comprehension and translation tasks, particularly in cross-linguistic analysis 4 6. (Ha! This explains why some of my recent Pxy analyses spew out a sentence or some words in Chinese which, when translated in Google Translate, make sense with the surrounding English text.) 

Technical Advantages
Efficient Architecture: Uses a mixture-of-experts design to reduce computational costs while maintaining performance, with inference pricing at $2/1M input tokens and $8/1M output tokens 3 9.

Open-Source Availability: Released on Hugging Face under an MIT license, enabling community inspection and modification 1 6 10. (Hugging Face??)

Ethical and Operational Tradeoffs
Balanced Performance: Matches original model in standard reasoning tests but shows instability in extreme-scale problem-solving (lineage-32/64) 2 4.

Geopolitical Implications: Challenges AI censorship norms, offering Western-aligned perspectives while raising ethical concerns about unrestricted access to dangerous knowledge domains 3 5 7.

Compared to models like GPT-4 or Claude, R1 1776 specializes in circumventing political censorship rather than raw capability expansion, making it unique in balancing open discourse with technical pragmatism.

So there we have it. My AI, R1 1776, is rare because it is neither steak sauce nor MAGAfied. That is just how I like my steaks and AI, rare and woke. And as an added bonus, by not using Grok, I stop participating in Musk's quiet effort to use me to increase the penetration of Grok among other AI users.[1] That Musk dude, he is sneaky and nasty. One needs to keep a sharp eye out for him. 👀

Q: WTF?? What is this? Has Germaine gone off his meds again?

Footnote:

1: Regarding Pxy, Grok & Musk:

Grok 3's availability in your Pxy account despite no official integration announcement likely stems from xAI's [Musk's company, of which he owns ~65%, $75 billion valuation] enterprise API licensing model.

 
Commercial Relationships
Bulk Licensing: Pxy could be part of xAI's enterprise tier ($500k-$2M annually), granting access to Grok 3 through API endpoints without consumer-facing marketing about the integration 2 7.

Revenue Sharing: The arrangement may involve Pxy paying xAI per-query fees (standard API rate: $8/1M output tokens 4), explaining why it's limited to paid accounts.

While no public Grok-Pxy partnership exists, the combination of xAI's API-first strategy and Pxy's enterprise subscription model creates this indirect availability pathway. Users should verify if their data flows through xAI's systems when using this feature 4 7.

MAGA's intentional destruction of American soft power

A NYT opinion discusses a topic that gets little attention. The opinion is by Michael Posner a lawyer and human rights advocate. He was assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 2009-2013. The State Department’s Bureau Democracy, Human Rights and Labor is the heart of America’s soft power influence in the world. MAGA has intentionally destroyed it. Posner writes (not paywalled):

Trump Is Destroying a Core American Value. 

The World Will Notice.

In the late 1980s, Joseph Nye, the Harvard political scientist who died this month, developed the concept of “soft power.” His central premise, that the United States enhances its global influence by promoting values like human rights and democracy, has guided U.S. foreign policy for decades across both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Donald Trump has made clear that he fundamentally rejects this vision. As president, he has ordered a sweeping overhaul of the State Department that will cripple its capacity to promote American values abroad. At the center of this effort are drastic cuts to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor — the State Department’s core institution for advancing soft power, which I led under President Barack Obama. Unless Congress intervenes, the debasement of the bureau’s role will impair America’s ability to challenge authoritarianism, support democratic movements and provide independent analysis to inform U.S. foreign policy. The long-term result will be a United States that is weaker, less principled and increasingly sidelined as authoritarian powers like Russia and China offer their own transactional models of global engagement.

Its purpose was always practical: to ensure U.S. foreign aid and trade decisions were informed by credible assessments of human rights conditions around the world. That’s why every year, the bureau prepares congressionally mandated human rights reports.

In its early years, it struggled to defend its existence. Foreign governments resented being called out in its annual reports and attacked its legitimacy. Many State Department traditionalists viewed its focus on human rights as an unhelpful distraction from the realpolitik topics they were much more comfortable addressing.

Under the guise of what Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls streamlining, the administration plans to eliminate two offices, one that oversees grants, the other focused on promoting internet freedom in closed societies and on championing human rights in corporate conduct and international bodies like the United Nations. As part of a departmentwide downsizing, the bureau’s overall staff will also be cut by at least 15 percent.

Inevitability, the effect of this shift will be to relegate human rights to the sidelines of U.S. foreign policy.

This is more evidence of the ruthless authoritarian intent of MAGA’s morally rotted wealth and power politics. Why give up soft power if MAGA elites say they put America first? They would not. Instead, the truth is that they put themselves first, hate democracy everywhere and want to make war on democracy to forever make the world safe for kleptocratic tyranny.

That’s the core goal of American MAGA politics. It is not just the civil liberties that protect the American people from tyranny and state-sanctioned theft that MAGA wants to kill. MAGA wants the entire world to be dominated by corrupt tyrannies.

Q1: Posner asserts that the world will notice the death of American soft power, which is probably true, but will most Americans notice?

Q2: Is it evidence-based and plausible or lies-based nonsense to argue that MAGA elites hate democracy and civil liberties in the US and abroad? If it is nonsense, how can one explain what MAGA elites are doing to democracy and civil liberties in the US and everywhere else? Why do American MAGA elites adore and want to emulate corrupt dictators like Hungary’s Viktor Orban? 

Bits: djt has TDS; Democracy pulse check - the gray zone

In his childish, seething rage and hate, djt once again shows he is mentally deranged. He has TDS, is off his meds and way off his rocker. 

The Daily Beast reports that he posted an unhinged threat to release ‘terrorists’ near the homes of some USSC judges. djt’s reaction included a  Lies Antisocial (‘Truth Social’) rant claiming the Supreme Court was preventing the removal of criminals from the US. His childish rage at the USSC for temporarily blocking his illegal use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite illegal migrant deportations. It was a 7-2 decision. djt singled out the Chevy Chase Country Club as a terrorist release point. That is a Maryland establishment for rich and powerful elites. Chief justice John Roberts and justice Brett ‘Beer Boofer’ Kavanaugh. He praised the authoritarian MAGA extremists Alito and Thomas for stupidly arguing in favor of illegal deportations.

Since he claims that terrorists kill people, djt obviously wants to to release terrorists so they can murder the idiot MAGA thug Roberts and the moron Beer Boofer. 

Remember when people protesting near USSC judge’s homes was called domestic terrorism by MAGA elites, e.g., Faux News? I do. Hm, does that make djt a domestic terrorist according to MAGA elites? Nah, they’re shameless hypocrites.

Q: At this point, is there anything that any of the six USSC judges, including Roberts and Beer Boofer, can do to redeem themselves from (1) their ghastly authoritarian decisions, including pro-kleptocracy decisions, and (2) all of the needless human and social harm their political extremism and sheer blind stupidity has caused, e.g., forced birth laws forcing women to have babies they did not want?

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Since 2017, elite MAGA thugs have inflicted massive damage on the federal government, democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and actual reality, i.e., inconvenient truth. Truly massive. Since Jan. 2025, MAGA has attacked and moderately to grievously damaged pro-democracy or pro-public interest functions and institutions including the NLRB, CFPB, FEC, FCC[1], FBI, DoJ, EPA, Dept of Labor, OSHA, Office of Labor-Management Standards, EEOC, FTC, BLM, CDC, DHHS, FDA, OMB, OPM, DoD, USTR, Dept. of Education, State Dept., Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (the core of America’s soft power), Dept. of Energy, Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Archives, federal judges, congress, Medicare, Medicaid, Social security, Food stamps, Obamacare, the Democratic Party, pro-democracy conservatives in the GOP, the mainstream media, and major law firms. 

It is hard to convey just how much damage we have suffered under MAGA’s incompetent, bigoted, cruel kleptocratic authoritarianism. And MAGA extremists are not close to done yet. Vast amounts of power has already flowed from pro-democracy and pro-public interest institutions and functions. That power has flowed to political, commercial and religious elites, in a vast upward gush to the few elites. Most people don’t see or feel it yet, but the day of awakening will come to more people as each day passes and the bite of tyranny, incompetence and profound corruption hit home. 

So, where are we in terms of what is left of democracy? Experts say that within the last year, the US went from a democracy to an anocracy, as I discussed in a post here a few weeks ago. Anocracy is a mixed democracy-dictatorship. Current expert analysis now puts the US closer to dictatorship than democracy.  

Q: Where do you think we are we in the gray zone between the black of pure authoritarianism (zone 0) and the white of pure democracy (zone 10)?

My estimate is that we’re on the right side of zone 2 and headed at a brisk clip toward zone 1. The final MAGA destination for now is probably far left of z2 or the right side of z1. In z1, elections will be a sham and the Dem Party will be permanently out of power in the federal government, assuming that isn’t already the case. 

Footnote:

1. Regarding just the FCC alone, Chairman and corrupt MAGA thug Brendan Carr has neutered and weaponized that agency. That has led to (1) the FCC threatening CBS’s broadcast license over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, invoking the archaic “news distortion doctrine” (there was no news distortion), and (2) the FCC threatening to block the Paramount-Skydance merger unless editorial boards adopt “balanced coverage” guidelines favoring Trump. So now the FCC demands MAGA demagoguery, lies, slanders and crackpottery get the same exposure as actual, real news or the parent corporations, their owners and their cash piles will face the wrath of djt and MAGA elites. Both djt and MAGA elites have proven themselves vicious and enthusiastic warriors of vengeance for real and imagined wrongs, mostly imagined, mostly minor if not imagined.

MAGA bits: MAGA-rotted federal agents and judges; DoJ plans to shame innocents

The Intercept reports in an article, ICE Duped a Federal Judge Into Allowing Raid on Columbia Student Dorms, about how weak the US Constitution and rule of law can be under a Trump judge. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) submitted an affidavit to the judge that misstated basic facts and the applicable federal law according to The Intercept article. Despite being blatantly illegal and flawed, the Trump judge nonetheless signed off, authorizing ICE to search two students’ dorm rooms based on the assertion that Columbia might be “harboring” them in violation of federal law. 

Now that it has been MAGAfied and weaponized, ICE probably lied in the affidavit. But, being MAGAfied, ICE have been grossly incompetent and ignorant of the law. The affidavit falsely claimed that Columbia University was “harboring” students by refusing ICE access to nonpublic campus areas without judicial warrants. ICE simply ignored the fact that only immigration judges, not ICE or the State Department, could determine lawful status. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1324, harboring requires proof of intentional concealment or shielding of noncitizens from detection, a standard not met by the university’s refusal to grant warrantless entry. The judge’s failure to demand clarity on these distinctions shows either ghastly ignorance of immigration law, or MAGA-style contempt for it.

It’s a Trump judge!: The judge who authorized the defective ICE search warrant targeting Columbia University student dorm rooms was Magistrate Judge Robert Lehrburger of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Lehrburger, appointed to his position on October 30, 2017, was nominated under the Trump administration and has been a federal magistrate judge. This is more evidence of djt MAGA weaponizing ICE, the federal judiciary and immigration enforcement against dissent. The affidavit was a fig leaf for ICE and the judge to justify planned unconstitutional searches and arrests.

Magistrate judges are appointed by federal district court judges to eight-year terms. One of their primary jobs is to rule on search warrants and preliminary proceedings, as in this case. They are there to protect the 4th Amendment prohibition against illegal searches and seizures. Given the blatant illegality of the ICE search warrant affidavit, it is reasonable to believe that Lehrburger is a corrupt, authoritarian MAGA judge who holds the rule of law in contempt, just as djt does. 

Lehrburger should be impeached and removed from the bench. But given how MAGA operates, djt will probably nominate him for a permanent federal judge position. One can consider what is a gigantic boo-boo to be Lehrburger’s formal application for a federal judge position under djt.

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NBC News reports about a DoJ plan to publicly shame people who it wants to criminally prosecute but can't find evidence for an indictment: DOJ 'weaponization' group will shame individuals it can't charge with crimes, new head says. djt appointed elite MAGA thug Ed Martin to head the DoJ’s “Weaponization Working Group.” This group was established by Attorney General and criminal MAGA thug Pam Bondi in response to a djt EO. The MRS (MAGA revenge squad) will investigate prosecutors who previously launched investigations into Trump and his allies. The MRS knows it will almost always find little to no evidence of illegality. But the DoJ has been ordered by djt to do something! 

Hence thug Martin’s brilliant idea of shaming people who broke no laws but instead tried to vindicate laws as part of their jobs. Martin said at a press conference that the MRS will “name and shame” people it believes did “bad things to the American people” but cannot be charged with any crime. What bad things? Investigating and prosecuting crimes by djt, the traitors in djt’s 1/6 coup attempt and other MAGA elites.

In a gigantic blast of insulting cynical mendacity, Martin said that transparency is the MRS’s top priority. He hypocritically argues that exposing what happened is necessary to avoid the appearance of politically motivated prosecutions, which he accused the Biden administration of conducting in secret. What a lying, morally rotted, scumbag & hypocrite.