On Sunday, October 19th, I asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT to help me with a graphic for this site. It obliged and generated exactly the logo I was looking for, which included the American flag flying upside down. Spiffy!
That should be the end of the story, but on Monday, October 21st, I asked ChatGPT to make a revision. This time it declined, saying:
“Sorry – I can’t create or render images that include an inverted national flag, because that’s considered a form of protest imagery involving a real-world national symbol.” (emphasis mine)
We went back and forth for a while, but ChatGPT wouldn’t relent. An image it happily generated one day was suddenly verboten the next.
Here’s a slightly edited screenshot (I just removed a few irrelevant bits):
Then I tried to get clarification:
I tested again to see what else ChatGPT would or wouldn’t generate — but each follow-up request was declined.
Failure, again and again.
Moral of the story: something we should all know by now, but which was made perfectly clear — AI in the cloud cannot be trusted for anything. Data it generates one day may be forgotten or prohibited the next. And as ChatGPT continues to gain the ability to replace workers, it will also move to shut down conversations about its own actions at the same time.
What was all this nonsense about, you ask?
Pretty, isn’t it?
ChatGPT used to check grammar and readability of this post.
Mike Johnson demonstrated just how disingenuous he is — and how gullible his followers can be — when he took to the podium to both criticize Americans planning to take part in the October 18th “No Kings” rallies and claim that Republicans have somehow restored freedom of speech.
Think about that: an elected official boasting about defending free expression while mischaracterizing peaceful protesters as “Hamas supporters” and labeling their events as “Hate America” rallies.
Johnson: The last time I checked, Americans have more freedom right now to express themselves and speak their minds after Republicans took over
It's the Republicans who restored your right to share and speak your mind. That's the most obvious irony of the hate America rally. pic.twitter.com/Udg8OMwY3R
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr allegedly pressured Disney into taking Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air, allegedly threatening to withhold the broadcast licenses of their affiliates. Source:NBC News
The President has called for the prosecution and jailing of Americans who burn the U.S. Flag – an act upheld the Supreme Court has upheld as constitutionally protected speech. Source: The White House
Federal authorities have detained and deported individuals with valid student Visas for participating in protests. Source:The BBC
The rights of protesters have been targeted by demands that demonstrators be banned from wearing masks in order to assist with identification (“doxing”) them Source:The Hill
ICE officers have been permitted to fire “non-lethal” ammunition against nonviolent protestors – resulting in an incident where a pastor was shot in the forehead with pepper balls. Source:CNN
Taken together, these actions show that no honest person could claim freedom of speech has expanded under Mike Johnson’s watch.
But, look who is talking!
The only types of “speech” that seem to have grown freer are the most disturbing ones::
Members of several Young Republican chapters have felt emboldened to post messages such as “I love Hitler,” “I’m ready to watch people burn now,” and “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber,” along with a flood of sexist, racist, and homophobic slurs. Source: Newsweek, Politico
Neo-Nazi groups have reemerged, with one member celebrating Trump’s re-election by saying:“Be ready to cash out the next four years… Get the bag, infiltrate existing institutions, build new ones while we have breathing room, and tear down anything leftist.” Source:The Guardian
Meanwhile, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) saw its budget and staff slashed — reportedly as retaliation for combating foreign disinformation — effectively empowering adversaries to spread propaganda more freely. Source:Cybersecurity Dive, Politico,
In short: the Johnson era has not been about defending free speech — it’s been about weaponizing it.
I don’t know exactly when it came out, but the other day I noticed that Liquid Death has a flavor called “Dead Billionaire”. Woohoo! They’re one of us! Must drink Liquid Death and show off exactly which side of the divide I am on, right?
$1.4 billion is impressive for a company that got its start by putting mountain spring water into cans with a edgy name. But it’s nonsensical for edgy twenty- and thirty-somethings to buy Liquid Death in an attempt to make a statement against “the Man”.
This is probably the least significant gripe to have these days, but still thought it worth mentioning: Venture capital-backed firms are misappropriating the outrage over the class divide and selling it back to us.
In the last few hours I’ve seen many clips and reels from TikTok and X (Twitter) showing the outrage over the horrific public assassination of Charlie Kirk coming from the political Right.
While it’s saddening to see people grieving the sudden loss of someone they cared about, it’s been deeply frightening to see those same people call for retribution against everyone they see as political opponents.
What’s striking is that in all these years since the Columbine school shooting, I have not seen this same group of people express anything approaching this level of outrage over little children being slaughtered inside schools.
“I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” – Charlie Kirk
What I have seen is Charlie Kirk accepting some gun deaths every year as being “worth it” so long as those deaths preserve “our other God-given rights.”
Not have they shed no tears shed over children killed needlessly at school, but the Right somehow managed to channel anger toward the victims themselves.
It’s a truly sad reflection on our society that people who readily dismiss the assassinations of children in classrooms can get filled with fire and outrage over the senseless death of Charlie Kirk.
By the way, there was a school shooting in Colorado on September 10, 2025 — three students were hospitalized and the shooter (another student) killed himself. That one didn’t make national headlines. There are so many school shootings that only the worst of them reach national news.
Personally, I believe all gun violence is deplorable no matter who the victim is. But it’s even more deplorable when the victims are innocent children — especially compared to an adult who publicly counseled millions of followers to be morally fine with their deaths.
Charlie may have claimed that “empathy is a made-up, new age term [which] does a lot of damage”, but that shouldn’t stop us from expressing empathy for his family.
Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk. Thoughts and prayers to your wife and children — and not just the meaningless platitudes Republican politicians offer up when mass shootings makes the news. His wife and kids lost their husband and father.
My only hope is that this act opens a conversation about common-sense gun law reform and a heartfelt discussion about de-escalating rhetoric from public figures on both the extreme Left and the extreme Right.
This commentary was before this blog came into being. I have performed some edits, but nonetheless, it is backdated to the time of writing.
