Everything Bad Is Due to Progressivism! (says Clarence Thomas)

Posted on Sunday 19 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Reactions to Clarence Thomas’s speech blaming everything he doesn’t like on progressivism — and Hitler and Stalin too! A standard conservative screed.
  • The Project Hail Mary soundtrack.
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What kind of contorted logic is going on here?

Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, 17 Apr 2026: Clarence Thomas Gave a Speech Blaming Progressivism for Hitler. It Was Mostly Just Sad.

Justice Clarence Thomas gave a rare public address on Wednesday that started as a benign celebration of the Declaration of Independence before devolving into a bitter attack on progressivism, steeped with grievance, bad history, and self-regard. In the speech, delivered at the University of Texas at Austin, Thomas blamed progressives for the worst crimes of the 20th century, insisting that “Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao” were all “intertwined with the rise of progressivism,” as was “racial segregation,” “eugenics,” and other evils. The justice also bemoaned the “unfair criticism and attacks” that he and other tellers of truths must withstand as the price for courageously “not budging” on their principles.

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Changing Minds

Posted on Saturday 18 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The World Bank thinks better of free-market absolutism;
  • For some, every thing the least bit unusual is *meaningful*.
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A couple non-political items today.

The Atlantic, Rogé Karma, 16 Apr 2026: A Pillar of the Economics Establishment Admits That It Was Wrong, subtitled “In a new report, the World Bank thinks better of its old free-market absolutism.”

For anyone or any institution to admit they were wrong, to have learned from evidence, is progress. And rare. Note “simple”:

How does a country get rich? For decades, the economics establishment generally agreed on a simple answer: Embrace free markets and avoid “industrial policy”—state-led efforts to shape what an economy produces—at all costs. No institution embodied this viewpoint, widely known as the “Washington Consensus,” quite like the World Bank. Established in 1944 to provide low-interest loans to developing countries, the bank soon became the intellectual center of development economics. In the 1990s, it took a hard stance against industrial policy, turning the concept almost into a taboo.

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Magicians and Evangelicals and Traditionalists

Posted on Friday 17 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Penn & Teller advise the Supreme Court about junk science, and the significance of how magicians are less easily fooled than lawyers, politicians, and even scientists;
  • How most Americans think Trump isn’t religious, how MAGA doesn’t care, and the idea that people being fooled by magic tricks aligns with religious devotion;
  • Long piece by David Brooks about how reactionaries are taking over the world, forever in search of roots, enchantment, moral order, and protection against change, i.e. the threats of modernity.
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It’s been said that charlatans — psychics, spoon-benders, and so on — are happy to perform in front of an audience of scientists. Scientists are easily fooled, because they expect the universe to play fair. But charlatans will never perform in front of magicians. Magicians know all the tricks.

NY Times, Andrew Liptak, 16 Apr 2026: Two Magicians Warn the Supreme Court About Junk Science, subtitled “Penn & Teller filed a Supreme Court brief questioning the use of ‘investigative hypnosis’ in a death-penalty case in Texas.”
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Christian Nationalist Theologians, and Pulp Fiction

Posted on Thursday 16 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Hegseth quotes Pulp Fiction;
  • Vance and others MAGAsplain doctrine to the Pope;
  • Christian nationalists prefer nationalism over Christianity;
  • Homan and Vance tell the Pope to stay in his lane, as if war has nothing to do with morality;
  • Christian media always resorts to the OT, not the NT of Jesus;
  • And now Tucker Carlson has weird ideas about the Antichrist;
  • John Williams’ Schindler’s List.
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This is the eye-roller story that’s been going around today, e.g. Google News: pete hegseth pulp fiction

The Hollywood Reporter, today: Pete Hegseth Reads Tarantino’s Fake Bible Quote From ‘Pulp Fiction’ at Prayer Service

Subtitled: Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic speech gets presented as a Bible verse, with the Secretary of War vowing to strike down enemies with “great vengeance and furious anger.”

How many times have I noted that conservatives have trouble telling reality from fantasy?

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An Optimistic Big View

Posted on Wednesday 15 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Peter Leyden on how the arc of human history is toward cooperation;
  • Once again, evidence shows that same-sex marriage is a “win for children and society”, and I suggest why this may be so;
  • While Stephen Miller resorts to bigotry to accuse immigrants of crime, despite the evidence;
  • Slate’s Molly Olmstead on Trump and Jesus images;
  • Short items by Amanda Marcotte and Jason Campbell;
  • And a Cri de Coeur by Adam-Troy Castro about how the Bible is an excuse for not knowing anything.
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Step out far enough, as most people, huddling fearfully together in their tribes and afraid of everyone different, do not, and this is the big picture. This is our future, if conservatives don’t dismantle everything, they way they are in the US.

Big Think, Peter Leyden, 14 Apr 2026: The arc of human history is toward cooperation, not division, subtitled “Globalization did not fail — it improved the lives of billions of people. The next phase of human development could push us to a new level of global abundance.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • In this op-ed, futurist Peter Leyden argues that humanity is fundamentally interconnected, with shared decency revealed through lived experiences across cultures.
  • He describes modern history as a shift from a divided post-WWII world to a globalized era that greatly improved living standards but also triggered backlash in the West.
  • Leyden contends that despite rising populism, the world will continue toward deeper integration and a new stage of progress driven by advanced technologies.

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MAGA is for OT, not NT

Posted on Tuesday 14 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • John Pavlovitz on how MAGA hates the Pope’s Jesus;
  • The Pope denounces the US “delusion of omnipotence”;
  • William Saletan on the GOP acting like bigots;
  • Tom Nichols on Trump’s latest meltdown;
  • Sean Hannity knows better than the Pope;
  • More about that teleporting guy;
  • And another Republican concerned about alien bases;
  • Even MAGA die-hards have rebuked Trump about his Jesus image;
  • Trump despicably posts a fake photo of Springsteen;
  • Jerry Coyne recalls the Jefferson Bible;
  • Items about how Trump took down that Jesus image;
  • NYT’s Frank Bruni about Pete Hegseth’s religious zealotry;
  • And how Trump supporters survive by cognitive dissonance.
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Items from the past three days, briefly noted.

John Pavlovitz, 10 Apr 2026: MAGA Christians Don’t Hate The Pope; They Hate His Jesus.

As I’ve said over and over, MAGA is more about OT than about NT. Which sorta undermines the meaning of being “Christian.”

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Steven Pinker, WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS…

Posted on Tuesday 14 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life
(Scribner, 2025, xv + 364pp, including 64pp of notes, references, and index.)

This latest Pinker book, which follows ENLIGHTENMENT NOW and RATIONALITY, seems at first glance a bit more abstruse or academic without quite the thematic verve that distinguishes most of his books. Yet upon review it is, rather like Harari’s NEXUS, nevertheless full of fascinating revelations and insights that make it key to Pinker’s oeuvre. In fact, it shows that Pinker’s concerns about the human mind, human nature, the nature of rationality and so on, extend into sociology and the many ways humans interact. (Rather like the way Harari’s exploration of information extends into politics.) All of his books, with only an exception or two, are of a piece.

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The Slow Motion American Train Wreck

Posted on Monday 13 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Rebecca Solnit on how the US is destroying itself;
  • The significance of Victor Orbán’s loss;
  • How Trump thinks religion is about power, not morality;
  • Trump’s grotesque AI image depicting himself as a Jesus figure.
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I’ve gradually become aware of another savvy political commentator and essayist, Rebecca Solnit, to set along with the three of four others I check out daily. (Richardson, Reich, Krugman, Pavlovitz.) David Brin posts highly about her. This piece was linked from Facebook this morning, and captures the moment. She has a Substack, Meditations in an Emergency, since Jan. 2025. She’s published a number of short books, of which I just bought a couple.

The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit, yesterday: The United States is destroying itself, subtitled “The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment”

I’ve mentioned more than once that the actions of the Trump administration are not unlike what a group of infiltrators or saboteurs would do to undermine everything that has until recently made America great. Solnit:

The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. All this is common knowledge, but because it dribbles out in news stories about this specific incident or department, the reports never adequately describe an administration sabotaging the functioning of the federal government and also trashing the global economy, international alliances and relationships, and the national and global environment in ways that will have downstream consequences for decades and perhaps, especially when it comes to climate, centuries.

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Are All Weddings the Same?

Posted on Sunday 12 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

We attended a wedding yesterday, in Alameda, between my partner’s older son’s wife’s sister, and a man from a non-Catholic family, who had converted, and gotten baptized a year ago, in order to marry into my partner’s older son’s wife’s family, a Vietnamese family, that is resolutely Catholic. Got that? The ceremony was held at the St. Joseph Basilica in the middle of Alameda, led by Catholic priests, and went an hour and 15 minutes. So many of their rituals must be rote by them, performed and recited over and over again.

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Skiffy Flix: The War of the Worlds

Posted on Friday 10 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

This is about the 1953 movie, surely one of the best known and highly-regarded SF movies of the ’50s, along with THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, FORBIDDEN PLANET, and perhaps INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

I wrote about the novel back in 2021, along with some comparison to this film. I watched the DVD of the film again last night.

(My DVD cover is similar to but not exactly like the one shown here. On mine, “The Original Invasion” appears at the top, and there’s no Korean(?) text beneath the title.)

Couched among other skiffy flix of the era, this film is an example of the Hollywood-ization of a classic novel to fit the pattern of what audiences excepted a science fiction movie to be at the time. With so many resemblances to other sf movies of the era.

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