Religious freedom struggle intensifies

From Peoria, Ill., to Peoria Ariz., Washington, D.C., to Washington, Ill., the fight to freely worship is accelerating.

Stark differences continue between government authorities advocating for Christian nationalism on the one hand and on the other following the law, the U.S. Constitution, and officials’ oaths of office.

People have the right to practice whatever faith they choose – or no religion.

The issue was covered last month in my Community Word commentary about a lawsuit filed against the Trump White House’s Religious Liberty Commission. A coalition of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others sued the Trump administration, challenging the commission’s secrecy and makeup, but mostly that panel’s betraying its purpose – defending religious liberty for all since it’s slanted toward evangelical Christians. Plus, it violates a 1972 law mandating such commissions to reflect competing ideas and different viewpoints, the suit says.

Now, a second suit has been filed about government proselytizing (this time focusing on USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins) by a labor union and USDA employees – including a Peorian.

The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), seven USDA workers, and other plaintiffs in federal court accuse Rollins of repeatedly violating the Constitution’s First Amendment, which forbids the “establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Defying religious freedom by forcefully endorsing one version of one faith may be common government-wide, NFFE President Randy Erwin says, but Rollins’ “bully pulpit” actions stand out.

“We’re seeing this blurring of the separation of church and state in many different places,” he said. “But for our members, USDA was an outlier. It was so explicit and so obviously illegal. In 25 years, I don’t ever remember this becoming an issue.”

The plaintiffs include 35-year-old physical science technician Ethan Roberts, who said, “We work for the federal government, not a church.

“I just want to go to work and make my country better,” said Roberts, who works at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (the “Ag Lab”). I shouldn’t have to suffer through sermons and other religious messages forced upon me by the head of a federal agency.

“When the Secretary sends an email, I have to read it,” he added. “And when those emails are telling me what to believe, they make me feel unwelcome in an agency I’ve dedicated 10 years to.”

Rollins has advocated her interpretation of Christianity to all USDA employees. For example, last December, she e-mailed a video to them preaching, “The spirit of generosity flows from the very first Christmas when God gave us the greatest gift possible, the gift of his Son and our Savior Jesus Christ, who came to free us from our sins and open the door to eternal life.” She followed that in April with what the lawsuit calls her “Easter Sermon,” a lengthy message stating, “So like the very first disciples to encounter our risen Lord in the Upper Room almost 2,000 years ago, this Easter let us too be alive with hope, full of Paschal joy, and confident in the mission each of us has been called for.”

One imagines the response to Buddhist bureaucrats emailing their worldview or an elected official endorsing Scientology or atheism.

All this is happening in the wake of other Trump events in Washington, such as the government-sponsored Christian nationalist rally May 17 and this summer’s Great American State Fair, cancelled after its announced acts withdrew when they discovered it was a Trump propaganda stunt. Trump reacted by suggesting a rally with him as headliner, commenting, “I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, … DONALD J TRUMP, to … give a major speech.”

That’s entertainment!

On May 17, speakers were mostly evangelical hardliners who’ve mistakenly claimed the Founders established the country as a Christian nation. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who’s supported laws and policies based on conservative interpretations of select Bible passages, Also appearing was Jonathan Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, who started the Moral Majority, and Pentagon boss Pete Hegseth, who referred to a painting of George Washington praying at Valley Forge and said, “Let us pray for our nation on bended knee, and let us ask our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as Washington did on that momentous day: 'So help us God’.”

NFFE and its supporters say all that is coercion for its 19,000 USDA workers, some of whom are not Christians.

“People have a right to their religious views, but this crossed into someone’s official capacity,” Erwin said of Rollins’ sending Christian advocacy messages. “When the Secretary of Agriculture does that, it’s a violation of religious freedom.”

In Idaho, the Rev. Benjamin Cremer, a pastor at a United Methodist Church, warned, “Beware of any Christian movement that demands the government be an instrument of God's wrath but never a source of God's mercy, generosity, or compassion. Beware of any political movement that demands Christianity be an instrument of religious justification for its authoritarianism, bigotry, and greed, and never speak truth to its power." 

Artificial Intelligence: promises and problems -- Controlling AI before it’s too late

There’s consensus about Artificial Intelligence and the need for it to be regulated – agreement exists from conservative Steve Bannon and liberal Bernie Sanders to a leading AI developer and the Vatican, plus almost all Americans. So one would think rules would happen. But Big Tech and the billionaires it created and the politicians they fund generally oppose regulations.

Pope Leo sees the threat, and in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), he urges “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence” and warns about the imbalance of power behind it.

In Illinois and dozens of states, lawmakers are trying to address AI.

“The Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act requires big AI companies to implement thorough transparency and harm reduction frameworks, strengthening safety regulations, requirements, and civil protections,” Illinois state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth (D-92^nd) told the Community Word.

Gordon-Booth was a co-sponsor of the measure, which would implement an AI framework for companies such as Google and OpenAI to address risk assessment, governance, cybersecurity, and independent evaluations. It passed the state Senate May 21, 52-5, with support from area Sens. Li Arellano (R-37^th) and David Koehler (D-46^th). The state House of Representatives on May 27 approved it unanimously, backed by area House members Gordon-Booth and fellow Democrat Sharon Chung (91^st) plus Republicans Norine Hammond (94^th – also a co-sponsor), Dennis Tipsword (105^th) and Travis Weaver (93^rd). Ryan Spain (R-73^rd) did not vote. Gov. Pritzker said he’d sign the bill, which would take effect Jan. 1

However, President Trump, the U.S. House and MAGA-cozy elected officials seem to resist meaningful controls on the new technology.

Why? Maybe money and power.

IBM defines AI: “Artificial intelligence is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and autonomy.”

It includes “traditional” AI (performing defined functions such as traffic routing via Google Maps, etc., based on set rules); “generative” AI (creating new content—text, images, code—derived from existing material, responding to user prompts), and developing “superintelligence” AI (which could have self-awareness, the capacity to self-improve and outperform humans on cognitive tasks).

For Pope Leo’s 42,000-word encyclical, he was helped by theologians, scholars, consultations with Amazon and Meta, and even AI developer Chris Olah, the 33-year-old cofounder of AI giant Anthropic (which recently proposed that top AI companies pause development of advanced AI systems, warning, “It would be good for the world to have the option to slow development if advanced systems increase the risks of humans losing control over AI.”)

Leo warns about AI’s potential to worsen inequality, erode workers’ dignity and automate war.

“So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know … what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean,” Leo writes. “Nor do they have a moral conscience … they do not judge good and evil, … or bear responsibility for consequences.

“Technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity,” he continues. Nevertheless, “artificial intelligence now demands to be ‘disarmed,’ freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion or death,” Leo says, adding, “To disarm does not mean rejecting technology but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion.” 

Control should not be confined to the few when so many could be affected, he says.

“AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data,” he writes. “This raises serious concerns, since small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage.

“We cannot allow a handful of actors to dictate these processes on their own,” Leo continues. “A culture of power is taking hold, in which the availability of resources and the ability to dominate tend to dictate the agenda. The common good of humanity is relegated to the background.

“Entrusting an algorithm … with the power to select who is worthy or not is to hand over the task of redefining the boundaries of human possibilities,” he writes. “Faced with this concentration of power in the digital world, the criteria for judgment and discernment in this new situation are the noble principles of … the inalienable dignity of the human person, the common good, … solidarity and social justice.” 

Margaret O’Mara, a University of Washington historian of technology told the Washington Post, “We’re in this weird uncharted territory in which politics, business and now religion are so bound up in one another. That’s not something for which we have historic precedent.”

The public wants AI controls. Gallup Polls shows that 97% of Americans believe AI safety and security should be governed by regulations, and civic groups ranging from Americans for Responsible Innovation, the ACLU and the AFL-CIO are weighing in. Labor federation President Liz Shuler said, “Pope Leo’s first encyclical is a testament to the urgency of this issue. Workers are being surveilled, fired, hurt and have even died in workplaces that recklessly use AI without guardrails and worker input. If we don’t harness it properly, AI is the single biggest threat to working people of our lifetime.”

Political figures demanding controls include Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Sanders (I-Vt.).

Sanders says he will introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act to give the public an ownership stake in the largest AI companies in our country through a one-time 50% tax — paid not on profits of OpenAI, xAI and other companies, but paid with stock.

“It would give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology,” he said, and “would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us.

“Given the fact it is the people … whose work is the foundation of AI, they should have some say in the future of AI,” he told CQ-Roll Call.

(Trump has engineered such deals, with government owning percentages of Intel, U.S. Steel and other companies.)

“Four AI companies are spending $670 billion this year building data centers,” Sanders added. “That’s 10 times greater, in GDP, than what we spent on the moon landing. Who will own and control that future? Who will benefit from it, and who will be hurt by it?”

Elsewhere, Bannon and fellow conservative Glenn Beck are two of more than 137,000 people who’ve signed an open letter from the Future of Life Institute calling for a “prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in.” Signers include Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, five Nobel laureates, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, rapper will.i.am, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, business magnate Richard Branson, Prince Harry and Meghan (the Duke and Duchess of Windsor), and Mike Mullen (ex-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama).

In Peoria, Gordon-Booth added, “AI can be a tremendous tool, but like all emerging technologies, we need to develop regulations and guardrails to protect people in our community and across the state from exploitative practices.”

Even with roadblocks from Trump’s MAGA base and the billionaires who contribute to their campaigns, the advocacy by Anthropic’s Olah and the pontiff could change that.

“The Catholic Church is more enduring than MAGA,” O’Mara said.

Artificial Intelligence: promises and problems -- Labor demands a seat at the AI table

No one really knows the short- or long-term effects of Artificial Intelligence, but to some degree it will affect workers, consumers, taxpayers and utility rate-payers.

"We do not have a good track record of predicting how technological change will play out in the labor market,” said Martha Gimbel, Executive Director of Yale’s Budget Lab.

Comparisons have been made on the consequences of railroads and radio, the telegraph and television.

Anton Korinek, faculty director at the Economics of Transformative AI Initiative the University of Virginia told The Atlantic’s Josh Tyrangiel, “We can’t quite conceptualize having very smart machines. Machines have always been dumb, and that’s why we don’t trust them and it’s always taken time to roll them out. But if they’re smarter than us, in many ways they can roll themselves out.”

The AFL-CIO’s “Workers First Initiative on AI” states, “Working people need an AI future that makes our jobs safer and more efficient, helps us level up our skills, and protects our rights. But Big Tech corporations are rolling out AI-powered technologies without guardrails in place to protect workers from harm.

“The future of AI is our future, and it’s too important to leave solely in the hands of Big Tech CEOs and billionaires.”

For now, according to Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International economic, “All the important questions about AI’s effects on the labor market are still unanswered.”

Claude Cummings Jr., President pf the Communications Workers of America, said, “New AI technology has the potential to create economic benefits and improve lives. However, it also presents profound challenges to the rights and livelihoods of workers. Out-of-touch C-suite executives promise starry-eyed investors that AI tools will replace skilled workers. More often, our members correct AI errors while new AI tools are used to cut jobs, intensify surveillance, and automate management.

“As artificial intelligence reshapes our jobs faster than lawmakers can respond, union contracts are the most effective way workers can set enforceable rules for the future of work,” Cummings added. “We know that only union contracts can move at the speed of technological change, and we are working to give workers a voice in creating guardrails.”

The consequences of AI’s arrival is not just about jobs, of course. But that’s a huge concern for U.S. workers.

Many unions know this and are stepping up actions, from the National Union of Healthcare (NUHW), the Transport Workers Union and CWA’s NewsGuild to the United Food & Commercial Workers, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and the AFL-CIO itself. The labor federation last month held a summit on the issue with its Commission on the Future of Work and Unions and its comprehensive report “Artificial Intelligence: Principles to Protect Workers,” issued in October.

“Harmful AI is not inevitable—the choices we make today will determine the future of cutting edge technology and work,” the AFL-CIO says. “And doing nothing, as Big Tech special interests would recommend, is a choice—the wrong choice.”

 

WONDERS AND WORRIES

“Neither AI nor robotics are good nor bad,” said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “Who benefits is the debate we have to undertake.

“Four AI companies are spending $670 billion this year building data centers,” said Sanders. “That’s ten times greater, in GDP, than what we spent on the moon landing. The question we should be asking day after day is ‘Who is pushing this revolution? Who benefits from it? And who gets hurt?’ ”

Advocates point to positive promises. The United Nations wants to guide governments, organizations and everyday people to use AI in disaster management; scientists at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2024 said integrating AI with HVAC systems could decrease carbon emissions and overall energy consumption by 8% to 19%; and CalTech researcher Anima Anandkumar says it’s very possible for AI to help people make engineering and scientific progress, from designing new medical devices to improving high-resolution weather forecasting.

Others see problems.

* Although a proposed data center was rejected in Pekin, several local governments in Illinois have approved sitings of the noisy facilities that require tons of water for cooling, and considerable power: Aurora, Joliet, McLean County and Yorkville.

Also, at a time of war and global competition, it’s not unreasonable to concede that Data Centers are vulnerable to attacks, too, whether military or espionage.

(Meanwhile, the North American Building Trades Unions seems concerned about getting overlooked with new jobs if the boom in AI data centers, so the organization is spending $1.5 million with OpenAI for training for data center construction.)

* In law enforcement, the Constitution’s 4^th Amendment prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure could be effectively abolished by AI’s nearly instantaneous identification and even transcription of faces and even conversations from cameras recording public spaces.

* In commerce, some businesses have started using AI “dynamic pricing” to swiftly – even individually – adjust prices for products or services based on current market demands.

* AI chatpots are programmed to mislead or flatter users, according to a study in the journal Science last month.

* in government, the Trump administration is proposing using AI to determine eligibility for veterans benefits, challenging in cases of disability applications, and some businesses are promoting the use of AI in determining income-tax forms.

* Military applications of AI range from AI errors in targeting, blamed for bombing an Iranian girls school in Minab and a sports arena and grade school in Lamerd, to phony footage of combat or of the Pentagon’s deepfake soldier “Jessica Foster” (a nonexistent blonde used as propaganda). Such AI-generated, lifelike deepfakes are evolving and growing fast, from 18,000 pieces of such content tracked in 2019 to more than 2 trillion last year, according to Dan Neely of Chicago’s AI licensing and production company Vermillion.

* Politics are increasingly influenced by not just false deepfakes of candidates, but enormous campaign contributions from AI super PACs, which made millions of dollars of donations in Illinois’ recent primary race for the nomination to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.

* AI interference reaches culture, too, with songs, books or films created by AI. For example, the Hachette Book Group cancelled a horror novel, “Shy Girl,” when it was discovered it was “written” with help from AI, and a forthcoming film, “As Deep as the Grave” has sparked outrage because it features new footage of Val Kilmer, who died last year.

 

     JOB SECURITY?

The International Monetary Fund predicted that AI will cost the world almost 40% of global jobs, and maybe 60% in advanced economies.

Economist Paul Krugman said, “It’s still difficult to predict what AI will actually do.”

He said his questions are ‘1. Technology and jobs: Should we worry about technology causing mass unemployment? 2. Technology and wages: Can workers lose ground even as their productivity rises?

3. Technology, monopoly and oligarchies: How technologies can create monopolies — or destroy them — and how this affects the concentration of wealth at the top.”

Korinek, the University of Virginia economist, told The Atlantic he’s “super worried” and thinks that America will see major job losses—“a very noticeable labor-market effect”—maybe this year.

Jody Calemine, AFL-CIO’s Director of Advocacy said the main concern is not whether technology will be used,  but whether workers and the public will have enforceable protections for how AI affects hiring, scheduling, discipline, privacy and job displacement.

“We reject the false choice between American competitiveness on the world stage and respecting workers’ rights and dignity,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler.

The federation’s interim director of its Technology Institute, Ed Wytkind, said that collective bargaining is “one of the best tools available to manage this transition” to a future with AI and cited the UAW working with automakers to automate the sector starting in the 1950s.

“You cannot point to a single sector of the economy or public services that will not be affected by AI, if not moderately, if  not overwhelmingly,” he continued.

 

REGULATIONS?

The situation is not if AI will have impacts, but how.

A government-commissioned report issued in 2024 interviewed hundreds of experts including employees at AI companies including Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta and OpenAI and concluded that AI could cause an “extinction-level threat to the human species.”

State labor groups are calling for their states to regulate AI in California, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina, as well as Illinois, where HB4980 last month was placed on the calendar for consideration.

Introduced in February and passed by the House Labor & Commerce Committee, it requires human review for any purchase of a service or system using or relying on any automated decision. Rep. Johan Gordon-Booth  (D-Peoria) is one of 23 co-sponsors.

Illinois has laws related to AI – in employment-related decisions, protections against AI-created images without artists’ permission, banning the use of AI in providing mental-health and therapeutic decisions, and clarifying that existing child-pornography laws apply to AI generated images.

Such legal controls are supported by the public. Gallup shows that 97% of Americans agree that AI safety and security should be subject to rules and regulations. Gallup also shows that 81% of likely voters agree that Congress should not ban states from enacting or enforcing laws protecting children’s safety and people’s privacy.

Nevertheless, President Trump rescinded a Biden order requiring companies to notify the federal government when they develop AI models posing risks to health, the economy or national security, and Trump since issued two Executive Orders to refrain from “hindering” AI development and to preempt any state laws that disagree with the administration’s “AI Action Plan” that reduces regulations.

That could affect existing AI statutes is 38 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

However, the rise of AI has created strange-bedfellow critics, In addition to progressive Bernie Sanders, conservative Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon signed an open letter calling for a ban on developing superintelligent AI, and Bannon went farther. Worried about AI seizing weapons systems, cresting viruses or devastating the U.S. labor force, the firebrand advocated for the government to take an ownership stake in AI and legal controls.

“You do have to have a regulatory apparatus,” he told The Atlantic.

But he’s not optimistic, saying the AI trend has “the worst elements of our system—greed and avarice, coupled with people that just want to grasp raw power—all converging.”

 

     ***

President Biden’s Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is alarmed, but said, “A lot of people say, ‘Oh, Gina, you’re naive. Never going to happen.’ Okay. But I’m telling you it’s the end of America as we know it if we don’t use this moment to do things differently.”

For all of the possible difficulties, AI has limits. Currently, it relies on records, images and expressions created by human beings, so its output is essentially collating and originating. Further, Ai cannot be consumers in a U.S. economy structured to serve buyers and sellers.

“AI has the potential to build prosperity and unleash human creativity, but only if it works for working people,” said CWA leader Cummings . “Together, we can ensure that AI serves as a tool for progress, not exploitation. We can build a future where technology enhances human potential, supports good jobs, and strengthens our communities. As a union, we will continue to fight tooth and nail for our jobs, for our futures, and for the dignity of our work.”

5 questions for Police Chief Brad Dixon: ‘We’re real people, just like everyone’

When sworn in on May 15 to lead some 250 employees of the Peoria Police Department, Brad Dixon expressed gratitude for the opportunity in general,  but particularly for community support.

“I am committed to strengthening that partnership every single day,” he said.

Along with community relations, Dixon will focus on reducing violence, especially by young Peorians, and staffing.

Born and raised in Peoria, a graduate of Richwoods High School, Dixon grew up playing stickball and working at Sheridan Nursery, which his family operated, plus getting up at 5:30 in the morning to help with his brother’s paper route. “I always worked,” he says.

After attending Illinois Central College, Dixon earned a B.A. and an M.B.A. at Western Illinois University, where he became the first in his family who graduated college.

Hired on March 26, 2001, Dixon progressed through the ranks, from officer and Sergeant to Captain and, for more than four years, Assistant Chief. Following the retirement of Police Chief Eric Echevarri, Dixon inherits good momentum in the department’s goals, with crime down and homicides halved since 2024.

Challenges remain, of course. Technology is a double-edged sword, for example. The department has dealt not only with ShotSpotter and drones, but body cameras, realizing they needed better batteries, and Narcan, which police found can expire after a while.

“Tech is weird,” he says. “More’s coming out, but it gets more expensive. It doesn’t make sense.”

As far as staffing, “diversity” may be a shunned term, but Dixon sees opportunities created with officers who look like the community they serve, “whether Hispanic or African American or women or Muslims…”

 

Donuts or bagels?

Bagels. I can’t get caught in uniform with a donut.

 

Is there anything in your police career you needed to learn  -- or unlearn?
How to talk to people, listening and not confronting, which doesn’t get you anywhere. Treating people with respect and dignity gets you so much further.

 

Do you have a go-to ‘escape’ from what must be a stressful job?

It’s an intense job. I lean on family, faith and fishing. But you never get away all the way. We’re exposed to a lot. Over the years there are things you never forget, not good: accidents, homicides.

We shouldn’t be put on pedestals, either. We’re real people with real problems, just like everyone.

 

How about a favorite TV show about police?

I can’t watch them. Well, there’s one, “Dateline,” that I see sometimes. Forensics interests me.

 

Do you have a little known talent, like wiggling your ears or dancing…?

I play hockey – at a decent level. Or, I did until an injury. And I don’t now; I’m too busy.