Of Course We Knew, or Should Have Known, This Was Coming

Posted on Thursday 27 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Frank Bruni on the fiasco of Trump’s cabinet;
  • The Guardian’s Emma Brockes calls them “a bunch of pathetic sleazebags”;
  • And the stunning hypocrisy of this scandal compared to Hillary Clinton’s emails;
  • Short items on the new Lavender Scare, how a GOP rep thinks NPR and PBS “hate our Lord” (dadgum!); and how scientists mull leaving the US.
    – – –

    Frank Bruni nails it.

    NY Times, Frank Bruni, 27 Mar 2025: Trump’s Crackerjack Cabinet Is a Fiasco Foretold [gift link]

    It’s been pointed out time and again that Trump’s choices for his cabinet were among the least qualified people to hold those positions, ever.

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Fewer and Fewer Are Mincing Words

Posted on Wednesday 26 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Tom Nichols on the recent crisis;
  • Paul Krugman concludes Trump’s people are both incompetent and evil;
  • Even Fox News blames incompetence;
  • Europe reacts to insults;
  • Children with measles are getting sick from overdoses of Vitamin D, per JFK Jr.’s advice;
  • The Trump administration is cancelling medical research;
  • And MTG identifies migrants with rapists.
– – –

On the major story this week, let’s look at Tom Nichols’ take.

The Atlantic, Tom Nichols, 26 Mar 2025: The Trump Team’s Denials Are Laughable, subtitled “The president’s officials must know that what they did in the Signal group chat was wrong—and dangerous.”

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OK For Me But Not For Thee

Posted on Tuesday 25 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Reactions to yesterday’s story;
  • A comment about how perhaps Americans are actually not very good people;
  • Robert Reich recalls the four pillars of civil society: universities, science, the media, and the law; all the ones the current administration is trying to tear down.
– – –

Following up on yesterday’s story. They’re minimizing or even denying that the incident happened, and it’s triggered Trump’s reflex to insult anyone who impugns him or his administration in any way. (Yet again, he’s always concerned about ratings and accuses publications he doesn’t like of “failing.”)

AlterNet, Alex Henderson, 25 Mar 2025: ‘Hire clowns, expect a circus’: Leaked chat exposes ‘stupidity and recklessness’

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Security Breach; Socialism vs. Capitalism

Posted on Monday 24 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Today’s big news is about the security breach by Pete Hegseth, and whether he or anyone else will face consequences;
  • Heather Cox Richardson on the 15th anniversary of Obamacare;
  • And my reflections on the motivations behind the debates between capitalism and socialism, and why some conservatives think government workers are useless scum;
  • And how in the 21st century there’s a White House Faith Advisor scamming people for $1000.

Can you imagine what Republicans would have said if Biden or one of his officials had done this?

The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, 24 Mar 2025: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans, subtitled “U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.”

Continue reading →

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Today’s Doom Watch

Posted on Sunday 23 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

A beautiful weekend here in the Bay Area.

We’re witnessing the downfall of the United States as an idealistic nation that for many decades has led the world on enlightenment principles and scientific achievements. At the same time, most people won’t notice this downfall. And it’s happened before.

  • Why doesn’t MAGA care that Musk donated hundreds of millions and is getting government contracts worth billions?
  • Another explanation of why conservatives do not prevail in academia;
  • Why not pray to God for everything? (Because prayer doesn’t work, and God is an illusion);
  • And how a dual state is arising in the US, as it did in Nazi Germany.
– – –

NY Times, Eric Lipton, 23 Mar 2025: Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts

Subtitled: “The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Elon Musk’s allies and employees who hold government positions. Supporters say he has the best technology.”

Continue reading →

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Tribalistic Politics

Posted on Saturday 22 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Frank Bruni on why Trump keeps attacking Biden;
  • Paul Krugman, via Adam Tooze, on how Trump has prejudices rather than ideas;
  • Heather Cox Richardson recalls how Republicans have tried to create their own reality;
  • Why MAGA voters want their opponents to suffer, and why Trump voters love him despite everything.
– – –

It’s not enough for Trump to win; his enemies must be excoriated as well. The attitudes of a zero-sum tribalist.

NY Times, Frank Bruni, 20 Mar 2025: Why Trump Can’t Quit Biden [gift link]

For President Trump and many of his closest aides and allies, every day is a great day to beat up on Joe Biden. They treat bashing the previous occupant of the White House as proper political hygiene, best repeated and ritualized, the autocrat’s equivalent of flossing your teeth.

Continue reading →

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“The Wholesale Destruction of the United States Government”

Posted on Friday 21 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Heather Cox Richardson on the dismantling of the US government, on libraries and museums, and on the rule of law;
  • WaPo’s Dana Milbank on Musk’s ignorance of the government he’s dismembering, on what judges do, and on the administration’s bows to white nationalism;
  • Robert Reich on the attacks on education, and on the American mind;
  • Headlines about DEI and white supremacy, the cruelty of closing a library to Canadians, how Trump voters don’t regret that he’s ruining their lives, and burying the names of non-whites at Arlington.
– – –

Heather Cox Richardson, 21 Mar 2025: March 20, 2025

It seems as if the Trump administration is rushing to tear apart as much as it can as opponents of its wholesale destruction of the United States government organize to stop them.

Continue reading →

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The Devolution of the United States

Posted on Thursday 20 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • America is 24th in a ranking of the happiest countries in the world. Don’t Americans wonder why so many other countries are happier? I suspect they do not. [Update: this is a fairly superficial measure. Even so.]
  • Trump and his administration take tactics to cripple the left, without actually debating issues;
  • Elon Musk, even as he wants to expand the human population, disdains retirees;
  • Short items reflecting the tribal mindset: demons, straws, measles, autism, will of God, the Holocaust, anti-White bias, Hitler-curious, appetite for revenge, fighting free speech, long-term thinking, anti-constitutional thinking.

Admittedly, many Americans, especially the MAGA crowd, don’t care what’s going on in the rest of the world. But don’t any of them wonder *why* people in so many other countries are happier than Americans?

AP News, 20 Mar 2025: Finland is again ranked the happiest country in the world. The US falls to its lowest-ever position

I’ll acknowledge that a primary reason might be that these Nordic nations are monocultural, unlike the US. (But many African nations are monocultural, and they’re unhappy, mainly because they’re poor.)
Continue reading →

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Is Science Partisan? How Could It Not Be?

Posted on Wednesday 19 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The astronauts have returned, and Trump and Musk lie about what actually happened;
  • The idea of blaming Mexico for the overdose epidemic is wrong, and will not work;
  • Short items about eating less, globalism, cutting aid to the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich;
  • White supremacy: Jackie Robinson, a repeal on rules prohibiting segregation, and dismissing human rights;
  • RFK Jr spews childish libertarian nonsense;
  • And Trump’s war on education, to fuel autocratic populism.
– – –

Well, when one side consistently, repeatedly distorts and denies facts, then how can it, as we already know, be on the side of science, which is about identification of truth and reality?

Ars Technica, Eric Berger, 18 Mar 2025: Can NASA remain nonpartisan when basic spaceflight truths are shredded?, subtitled “Let’s bring them home NOW, Sir!”

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How MAGA folks don’t actually believe in traditional American values

Posted on Tuesday 18 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Rather, they embody the essence of primitive tribalism.

  • A Ben Shapiro host renounces the Statue of Liberty and its “stupid” poem;
  • The disappearance of Navajo Code Talkers on government websites suggests again that MAGA is a white supremacy movement;
  • Shameless lies about Canada and fentanyl;
  • DOGE cancels weather tracking, the EPA’s scientific research arm, and positions at NASA — all about short-term thinking, with recollections about conservative resistance to the space program in the 1960s;
  • The reality of how Trump’s plans are sinking the global economy, and the fantasy by his supporters who think that the bad is actually good.
  • And another example of how conservatives try to deny reality by passing bill, in this case about trans people.
– – –

Anecdotal, but significant. In case it hasn’t become obvious, MAGA, or at least a portion of it, has never accepted the ideals of the nation they supposedly revere.

JMG, 18 Mar 2025: Shapiro Host: I Don’t Love The “Pagan, Liberal” Statue Of Liberty, Remove That “Stupid Poem Off The Bottom”

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Human Nature, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on How MAGA folks don’t actually believe in traditional American values