- Trump closes the Kennedy Center to deflect from all the artists cancelling there;
- A great SNL sketch about a woman who changes her mind about Donald Trump;
- Steven Novella asks, which parts of science do skeptics actually disagree with;
- Andy Borowitz satire: Trump assures Fox News that he doesn’t consider them journalists, and so don’t need to worry;
- Yuval Noah Harari on how monkeys are smarter than humans, in a way;
- Why Christian apologists who claim morality comes from Christianity are wrong;
- Robert Reich provides axioms on interpreting Trump’s “increasingly incoherent bloviation”;
- A Trump fan arrives at the Pearly Gates;
- And Penn Jillette suggests reading the Bible.
Just one news item for today.
CNN, 1 Feb 2026: Trump says Kennedy Center will close in July for two-year renovation
The Kennedy Center was doing just fine until Trump slapped his name on it, and more and more performers cancelled their engagements to avoid any association with him. Trump pretends something else is the problem — it’s a “tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years” — in order to deflect from the obvious circumstances.
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And one entertainment item, from last night’s Saturday Night Live.
Do people ever change their minds? Research suggest most people don’t. Will people come to their senses about Donald Trump?
The Atlantic, Paula Mejía, 1 Feb 2026: A Surprisingly Humane SNL Sketch About Changing Your Mind, subtitled “The standout performance last night was about a mom reconsidering her political views.”
You don’t have to read the article to watch the video of the sketch. But I’ll quote the last paragraph of the article.
The sketch exposed why politics can be such tense territory for family members: Few people are willing to admit to a change of heart out of fear of judgment. For those who’ve sat through political arguments with family members of opposing beliefs, it might be hard to imagine outspoken voters being vulnerable with one another in this way. But seeing Padilla pout her way through her confession, while pleading for grace, was its own sort of fantasy. Skarsgård’s aloof dad supported her through the whole thing, and by the end, her kids apologized for making it so hard for her to talk to them about the topic. In a way, the sketch considered a scenario where families could at least begin talking about politics, rather than stomping away.
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Some Facebook saves.
My comment: it’s not that they disagree, exactly. It’s that when science contradicts their religious myths, or their intuitive sense of contamination, or their sense that the world is one big conspiracy theory, they reject science out of hand.
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Satire.
Andy Borowitz, 30 Jan 2026: Trump Reassures Fox News That He Does Not Consider Them Journalists
Hoping to calm nerves after his government arrested reporters Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, on Friday Donald J. Trump reassured the staff at Fox News Channel that he does not consider them journalists.
“It’s true that I’m engaging in a systematic attack on the First Amendment rights of journalists,” he told the Fox employees.
“But obviously none of that applies to you.”
There’s more.
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Group editor AMV comments: “Our capacity to understand abstract concepts and entertain thoughts of stuff that doesn’t exist make us vulnerable to tricks a monkey may never even consider.”
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Lots of Christian apologists claim that morality would not exist except for Christianity.
AMV replies:
Ah yes, because first-century religious texts are famous for their APA citations and footnotes. “Love your neighbor, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII.”
The New Testament was written in Greek, by authors steeped in Hellenistic culture, using concepts already common for centuries:
Like the Golden Rule: found in Confucius, Buddha, and Greek moral philosophy long before Jesus.
Virtue ethics (humility, temperance, self-control): straight out of Aristotle and the Stoics.
Logos (John 1): explicitly a Greek philosophical concept, not a Hebrew one.
And so on.
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Robert Reich, 23 Jan 2026
As Trump’s dementia worsens, several axioms are useful for interpreting his increasingly incoherent bloviation.
Axiom #1: Whatever he asserts to be a fact is either a wild exaggeration or a bald-faced lie. Always disregard.
Axiom #2: Whatever he blames on anyone else is something he’s done. He projects like mad, so his accusations are always windows onto what he’s worrying that others will discover about himself.
Axiom #3: Whatever he criticizes as being fake news is a fact he doesn’t want you to know. So pay special attention to it.
Axiom #4: Whenever he attacks some source of information — a survey, poll, or report — it’s come up with some truth he fears. So look at it and share it.
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As I’ve been saying. MAGA Christians are hypocrites.
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One more for this evening. I have more for later.
Penn Jillette, quoted 13 Jan 2026:
The comments to the post are fun too.
