Regressing to Might Makes Right

Posted on Friday 13 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How Trump is reviving pagan values in which might makes right, while historian Tom Holland gives Christianity all the credit for ideas of inherent morality (ideas the administration is ignoring), which I dispute;
  • Author Rod Dreher think the Enlightenment was a mistake, and would prefer the certitudes of Middle Age religion;
  • Germany understands that Trump has destroyed the world’s rules-based order;
  • Charts showing the increasing isolation of the US on the world stage;
  • Brief items on Trump’s racism, a white nationalist up for Senate confirmation, and how trust in American healt care has plummeted since RFK Jr. took over;
  • Philip Glass’s “Hymn to the Sun,” from Akhnaten.
– – –

As I’ve been saying. They’re all hypocrites — they’re primitive, racist tribalists who openly flout the ideals they claim to venerate, the ideals that people better than them have established in recent centuries.

NY Times, guest essay by Leighton Woodhouse, 11 Feb 2026: Donald Trump, Pagan King [gift link]

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada recently described the world that President Trump is dragging us into with this aphorism: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

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Renouncing Reality, Yet Again, to Make Money

Posted on Thursday 12 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The Trump administration denies climate change, in favor of big business;
  • Trump is best on cashing in;
  • Paul Krugman explains why deportation don’t create jobs and will lead to more deaths of native-born Americans;
  • Brief items about conservatives and small government; the end of CBS News; theocracy; how women need to be imprisoned; and how evangelicals need to outbreed the left;
  • An NFL writer finds San Francisco to be a delightful place; “they lied to you” about the city.
– – –

The big story, once again:

NY Times, 12 Feb 2026: Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change, subtitled “The Environmental Protection Agency rejected the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being. It means the agency can no longer regulate them.”
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Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, reality, Science | Comments Off on Renouncing Reality, Yet Again, to Make Money

How Crises Disappear

Posted on Wednesday 11 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How Trump has quietly withdrawn National Guard troops from various cities;
  • Adam-Troy Castro predicts that the ballroom, the Kennedy Center overhaul, and the arch, will never happen;
  • John Pavlovitz on how Bad Bunny reminds MAGA that they’re losing;
  • Amanda Marcotte on why evangelicals will never dump Trump;
  • Paul Krugman on the banality of MAGA evil: Howard Lutnick.
– – –

Let’s note this first.

Washington Post, today: National Guard troops were quietly withdrawn from some U.S. cities, subtitled “The deployments encountered repeated legal setbacks that stymied President Donald Trump’s desire for a show of force in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon.”
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Wrecking Ball Politics. Wentithy.

Posted on Tuesday 10 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The most beautiful news of 2025, from Information is Beautiful, due mostly to science and technology;
  • Items from JMG about MAGA and conservative outrage;
  • Items about Trump administration’s wrecking ball politics: destroying climate regulations, the global international order, the government’s alliances with Harvard and educational resources in general;
  • Short items about anti-abortion and measles, outrage over hearing about other faiths, and a racist tired of being called a racist;
  • Another section of Einstein on the Beach.
– – –

Consider some good news — where progress is being made.

Click through to the site, where text boxes appear as you hover over each colored block, offering links to background information.

Information Is Beautiful: Most Beautiful News of the Year 2025.

Perhaps needless to say: these are all accomplishments of science, technology, and even politics.

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Politics, progress | Comments Off on Wrecking Ball Politics. Wentithy.

These Are the Days, My Friend

Posted on Monday 9 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Alternate takes on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance;
  • The Bulwark ranks Trump 2.0’s most racist moments;
  • JD Vance was booed at the Olympics, but NBC edited the boos out;
  • About that “He Gets Us” ad campaign;
  • Pete Hegseth is taking the US military backward;
  • A GOP rep thanks Jesus for Trump;
  • How Fox News has completely ignored that racist Trump video about the Obamas, while smearing ICE victim Alex Pretti dozens of times;
  • Bits from Facebook; John Pavlovitz on Epstein victims; the decline of burglary and robbery; Trump’s monuments to himself; America’s credibility; about the movement against processed foods;
  • And Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach.
– – –

Mostly headlines today, to catch up.

Slate, Nadira Goffe, 9 Feb 2026: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Performance Was Pure Joy, subtitled “The Puerto Rican superstar’s halftime show wasn’t what conservatives feared. It was something else entirely.”

Slate, Heather Schwedel, 9 Feb 2026: I Watched the “All-American” Super Bowl Halftime Show. It Was Even More Embarrassing Than You Imagined.

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music | Comments Off on These Are the Days, My Friend

How the War on Woke Reflects the Basics of Human Nature

Posted on Sunday 8 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Just one piece today, a longish piece I’m going to go through fairly carefully, since it puts current issues about MAGA and conservative regression into a broad context, broader I’d say than the 400 years stated in the title.

Salon, Andrew O’Hehir, 8 Feb 2026: MAGA’s war on “woke” has a long history — like 400 years, subtitled “Trump and Stephen Miller don’t just want to erase the 20th century. Their dream is much bigger than that”

Beginning:

One explicit goal of the second Trump administration, if not its defining mission, is to undo the recent past and rewrite history to fit its own master narrative. Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Human Nature | Comments Off on How the War on Woke Reflects the Basics of Human Nature

The Core Motivation of Trump, and MAGA

Posted on Saturday 7 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • More about the Obama video: how Trump has Obama Derangement Syndrome; how what motivates Trump, and MAGA, is racism;
  • So why does Trump think he’s going to heaven?
  • Short takes on ignoring the second amendment, MAGA cultists tricking voters, taking credit for things Biden did or that they voted again, Trump wants more stuff named after him, and how Todd Starnes thinks gays are ruining Wendy’s.
– – –

More on yesterday’s news. Which, as some have pointed out, might have been deliberately intended as a diversion away from… everything else. But especially ICE and Epstein.

NY Times, opinion by Maureen Dowd, 7 Feb 2026: Trump’s Obama Derangement Syndrome

Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Politics, Racism | Comments Off on The Core Motivation of Trump, and MAGA

A New Low

Posted on Friday 6 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump posts a racist video about the Obamas;
  • Reactions from John Pavlovitz, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman.
– – –

Trump has hit a new low. His fans don’t mind, which says a lot. About him, and about them.

(Of course I’m not doing to display that racist video.)

CNN, today: Trump shares racist video depicting Obamas as apes on Truth Social, then removes it amid bipartisan outrage
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Illegal voting, ulterior motives, resentment, racism

Posted on Thursday 5 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why is MAGA obsessed with voter fraud and illegal immigrants voting? A NYT essay suggests as a rationalization for Trump losing in 2020, despite lack of evidence, or rationale;
  • While Heather Cox Richardson sees it as a reaction to the losing appeal of white nationalism and ICE, a ploy to define those who vote for the other party as illegitimate;
  • An essay about the “edgelords” of the GOP, trying to rationalize the destruction of progressive ideas;
  • JMG on Trump’s Columbus statue and obsession with watching out for missiles;
  • And the opening movement of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha.
– – –

Two items today about why MAGA are obsessed with the idea of illegal voting. Despite the lack of evidence.

NY Times, guest essay by Stephen Richer, 5 Feb 2026: What’s Really Driving These Bogus Claims of Voter Fraud
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The War on Truth; and Religion

Posted on Wednesday 4 February 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Minneapolis and the war on truth;
  • Jerry Coyne on prayer, triggering off Savannah Guthrie news;
  • How Jeff Bezos is destroying The Washington Post just as Trump has done with America;
  • Short takes.
– – –

It’s only getting worse. We’re succumbing to our worst instincts. Our idealistic institutions to overcome those worst instincts are being torn apart by the current administration.

NY Times, 3 Feb 2026: Chaos in Minneapolis Exposes an Internet at War With Truth, subtitled “Technological advances and an erosion of trust have transformed the way news unfolds online, distorting shared reality.” [Gift link via File 770]
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Posted in authoritarianism, Human Nature, Religion | Comments Off on The War on Truth; and Religion