“I Love the Poorly Educated”

Posted on Friday 30 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Now the administration is arresting journalists for covering news it doesn’t like;
  • A right-wing response, anxious for public executions;
  • Every accusation is a confession;
  • How the withdrawn Philip Glass symphony is in a way about Trump;
  • How Trump is making America stupider, because he loves the uneducated!
– – –

Now they’re arresting journalists for simply covering the news. News they don’t like. Another box to check on your authoritarian bingo card.

NY Times, 30 Jan 2026: Federal Agents Arrest Don Lemon Over Minnesota Church Protest, subtitle “Three others were also arrested on charges that they had violated federal law during the demonstration this month, reviving a case that was rejected last week by a magistrate judge.” Continue reading →

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“Let the Country’s Weak and Vulnerable Suffer and Die.”

Posted on Thursday 29 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • David Wallace-Wells on the real reason MAGA hates vaccines;
  • How ICE is about retribution against those who didn’t vote for Trump;
  • How the title of a recent book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” applies to the current situation;
  • Conservative lunatics on “gay beam” airport scanners, and demons;
  • Conservatives obsessed with overturning marriage equality, because intuitions;
  • George Packer on the need for a mass movement for basic decency.
– – –

NY Times, opinion by David Wallace-Wells, 28 Jan 2026: The Real Reason MAHA Hates Vaccines

Stated right up front.

What is the war on vaccines really about? Just after the New Year, like someone racing to fulfill a resolution, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA alliance at the Department of Health and Human Services released a radically revised federal vaccine schedule, bypassing the usual procedures and abruptly cutting the number of diseases for which shots are recommended from 17 to 11.

The new guidelines certainly look like the frontal assault on vaccine science many Americans have been fearing for a year. But a different way to think about it is this: as another attack on the country’s threadbare social safety net by health libertarians whose strategy for making America healthy again appears straightforwardly to mean letting more of the country’s weak and vulnerable suffer and die.

Continue reading →

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Streets of Minneapolis

Posted on Wednesday 28 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A new song by Bruce Springsteen about Minneapolis;
  • Why GOP voters love ICE — because their support for the Bible and the Constitution is only totemic, which is to say, hypocritical;
  • Ruben Bolling on the MAGAs: Trump is always right, and it’s all about getting “those filthy brown people out of our country”;
  • With the example of Matt Walsh;
  • And more…
– – –

Continue reading →

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The Conservative Resistance to Changing One’s Mind

Posted on Tuesday 27 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why can conservatives not admit they might have been wrong? Trump never admits to being wrong; he never apologizes;
  • And yet the administration is softening its accusations against the people killed by ICE in Minneapolis;
  • Trump contradicts the 2nd amendment;
  • The MAGA mindset, immune to argument;
  • Philip Glass and Renée Fleming cancel their appearances at the renamed Kennedy Center.
– – –

Good question from a Fox (!) Host:

JMG, 27 Jan 2026: Fox Host: Why Can’t Noem Just Say “I Got It Wrong”?

“I mean, people will trust you more if you say, ‘you know what? I did not get that one right.’ The moral of the story is wait until the investigation is over, as hard as it is, no matter where you are in law enforcement, let the facts lead your talking.

“Do not talk and then hope the facts match up later on. It’s OK to say ‘I don’t have an answer to that question right now,’ in fact, it’s preferable.” – GOP rep turned Fox host Trey Gowdy.

But the pattern is that conservatives are eager to jump to conclusions, because they just know that anyone who opposes their regime must be evil, left-wing agitators. Trump, in particular, never admits to being wrong, and never apologizes.

Continue reading →

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Pulling Bolts Out of the Ferris Wheel

Posted on Monday 26 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Train Dreams
  • Republicans on the need to carry guns;
  • How the truth in Minneapolis is whatever Trump says it is;
  • And how the administration altered images and made false posts;
  • Heather Cox Richardson on KQED Forum this morning;
  • Brief items about the Minnesota COC, a pro-ICE church, and the Mississippi governor.
– – –

We watched a lovely movie last night called Train Dreams; it’s one of the Best Picture nominees for the Oscar this year. It’s dramatic and meditative, and resembles the films of Terrence Malick, as I noticed and the link here confirms, with its narration and lingering shots and occasional flashes of what may be hallucinations or memories or something supernatural. The early part of the film concerns the main character working as a logger clearing hillsides for railway construction in the Pacific Northwest. And one character says:

This world is intricately stitched together, boys.

Every thread we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things.

We’re but children on this earth, pulling bolts out of the Ferris wheel, thinking ourselves to be gods.

This is enlightened thinking, likely due to Denis Johnson, who wrote the 2011 novella the movie is based on. (The entire script, or transcript, is online.)

Continue reading →

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The Latest ICE Killing

Posted on Sunday 25 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Captured on cellphone video, a man on the ground shot in the back ten times, like an execution; his crime: helping a woman who’d been pushed down by ICE thugs;
  • Takes by Heather Cox Richardson, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, John Pavlovitz, Zack Beauchamp;
  • Jonathan Rauch decides “fascism” is the suitable term, after all, with a list;
  • Several items about how conservatives blame the victim;
  • And now Trump says only criminals carry guns.
– – –

Continue reading →

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Disintegration

Posted on Saturday 24 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Another killing by ICE in Minneapolis;
  • Trump cedes leadership of the global economy to China;
  • Now they want to make the polio vaccine optional;
  • Trump’s EPA now places the value of a human life at zero dollars;
  • Trump’s National Park Service remove an exhibit about slavery;
  • A comparison of Trump to Xi, Putin, and Li Peng.
– – –

Another day, another killing by the trigger-happy hooligans of ICE.

NY Times: Minneapolis Live Updates: Videos Appear to Contradict Federal Account of Killing

Subtitled: “An I.C.U. nurse shot by federal agents was an American citizen with no criminal record, the city police chief said. A New York Times video analysis shows he was holding a phone, not a gun.”

The official narrative is calling the victim a “domestic terrorist,” because he was carrying a gun — which is perfectly legal, as Republicans have made sure for decades — which somehow justified the killing, despite the video evidence showing the contrary. You can’t believe anything the administration says.

Continue reading →

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Is There a Coming Crackup? Can We Recover?

Posted on Friday 23 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Maybe. And maybe.

  • Jonathan Chait wonders why conservatives defend ICE;
  • How the administration lies and alters evidence;
  • Anne Applebaum on the administration’s attacks on science, medicine, culture, and education;
  • Adam Lee offers some perspective on recovering from autocracy;
  • David Brooks sees a coming Trump crackup;
  • And other items noted without quoting or commenting.
– – –

How do we understand this?

The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait, 22 Jan 2026: Why Conservatives Defend ICE, subtitled “Republicans deplore the mayhem in Minnesota—but blame protesters and Democrats for it.”
Continue reading →

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A New World Order

Posted on Thursday 22 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How Canada and Europe, in response to Trump and MAGA, are bringing about a new world order that sidelines the US;
  • And how the US is sinking into totalitarianism;
  • How Trump thinks he made a deal about Greenland while actually accomplishing nothing;
  • Listening to Sibelius.
– – –

The significant speech at Davos wasn’t Trump’s, it was Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s. Again, we’re living in history.

Vox, Caitlin Dewey, 21 Jan 2026: Canada’s prime minister just declared the end of the world as we know it, subtitled “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s historic speech, explained.”
Continue reading →

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Trump’s Lunacy and Conservative Regression

Posted on Wednesday 21 January 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The Greenland obsession is a new level of madness for Trump;
  • Time to impeach?
  • Trump’s embarrassing Davos speech;
  • MAGA Jesus is not the real Jesus, but evangelicals will never break with Trump;
  • Tony Perkins says ICE protestors are God-haters;
  • The would-be surgeon general thinks improving health is a spiritual project;
  • RFK Jr. is misogynistic, too;
  • A new group for MAGA to hate: AWFUL;
  • The Heritage Foundation want to send woman back half a century;
  • TN wants to legalize anti-gay discrimination;
  • NYT details how Trump has pocketed $1.4B;
  • And a James Baldwin quote.
– – –

What will it take for Republicans, or anyone, to stop him?

Slate, Fred Kapan, 20 Jan 2026: Yes, the Greenland Obsession Is a New Level of Madness for Trump, subtitled “The Mad King era is upon us. Will the people with the power to do something about it do anything at all?”
Continue reading →

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