Promise not to dwell on this war news. There are always wars, apparently, even in Trump’s administration in which he promised to end them. But here are a couple items.
Slate, Fred Kaplan, 4 Mar 2026: As He Tries to Rationalize His War in Iran, Trump Cannot Stop Telling On Himself, subtitled “His explanations for why he went to war keep getting worse. His plans for the future aren’t looking any better.”
I could quote, but it’s the same as yesterday, and the day before. No plans.
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The right-wing Christian zealots are thrilled. Maybe their prophecies will *finally* come true!
Media Matters, Payton Armstrong, 4 Mar 2026: Christian media figures have claimed that the Iran war could signal “the second coming” or the “End Times” and said “we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass”
Remember that Abraham Lincoln quote? You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. These are the people you can fool all of the time. They never learn.
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And this.
Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 4 Mar 2026: Right-wing pundits want Trump to heal the MAGA rift over the Iran war via the mass deportation of American Muslims
You’d think this war was theologically driven, or something. Just another religious war in a long history of them.
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Adjacent.
Salon, Nicholas Liu, 4 Mar 2026: ICE said their property was “lost.” Then it magically resurfaced, subtitled “Detainees were told their clothing, phones, documents and money were gone — and then their lawyers went to work”
Many immigrants detained and then released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol have found that release was not the end of their problems. Across the country, government agents have been losing government documents, personal effects, medical devices, and other belongings after confiscating them, effectively turning released immigrants into legal non-persons.
According to lawyers and formerly detained immigrants who spoke to Salon, ICE and Border Patrol officers never admit to trashing or keeping these items, but that they have not been found anywhere. Only a call from a persistent lawyer might motivate officers to actually find those items and return them by mail. Even if an immigrant reunites with some or all of the belongings confiscated, the intervening time often takes its toll and leaves them in a vulnerable state.
Because immigrants, legal or not, are unpeople to ICE, and need to be encouraged to disappear. Example:
“I gave them my social security card, work permit, and driver’s license, and they never returned it to me. They also took all my clothes out of the car and threw it away in front of me. When I was released, they said, no, we don’t have anything of yours. My sponsor — my cousin — had to find a lawyer for me, and only after he called, they sent me my documents,” he said.
ICE is/are morally bankrupt. And conservatives support them.
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JMG: Interior Dept Furious Over Leaked Database Showing Plan To Rewrite History On Black And LGBTQ Rights (from Reuters)
This is what authoritarian governments do, and this is exactly what Winston Smith did in Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four. His job was to rewrite history according to current government policy. It’s telling that Trump’s government doesn’t want to reveal that database.
Trump has targeted cultural and historical institutions – from museums to monuments to national parks – to remove what he calls “anti-American” ideology. His declarations and executive orders have led to the dismantling of exhibits on slavery, the restoration of Confederate statues and other moves that civil rights advocates say could reverse decades of progress.
Fortunately our modern world is saturated with information everywhere, and everything in the past is retrievable. They can’t wipe it all out. (Harari’s latest book, NEXUS, is about this in a way, how information is controlled, or not, by different kinds of government. I’ll write it up here soon.)
Comment: I think conservatives, especially the religious ones, think “progress” is a falling away from eternal truths. Never mind evidence of actual progress in terms of health and longevity and rights, as described in that book I posted about a couple days ago. Mother Teresa: suffering is good. I think hers was a perverted theology. Humans, all by themselves, have made the world a better place to live in. Despite religion, despite Jesus, despite Mother Teresa. Why didn’t God set it up all this way in the first place?
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There have been stories about how congregations, hearing the words of Jesus in a sermon, reject them as being “woke.” And many times I’ve noted how Christians are hypocritical, given their animosity toward the poor and immigrants. No doubt they would say I’m misreading the Bible. Actually, I think, the religious more often express tribal mentality, including fear of the other, and so align with the OT, not the New. That’s why they want the OT 10 Commandments posted in classrooms, and not anything Jesus said. Again, no doubt modern Christians could rationalize this somehow. But their actions betray their true beliefs.
OnlySky, Adam Lee, 2 Mar 2026: The Bible is too woke for Christians, subtitled “Anti-immigrant theology is a perfect catch-22.”
You always knew this was coming. Evangelical Christians have swung so hard to the right, the Bible is now too liberal for them.
This isn’t satire or the punchline to a joke. It’s gotten to the point that quoting the Bible is enough to get a Christian attacked, denounced as a heretic, and ostracized by his one-time allies.
With examples. John Piper; how even the OT is too liberal; the MAGA cult of while nationalism.
