A Return to the Original Mission: Impossible Presumption

  • Conservatives want to see media — now CBS — that tells them what they already believe;
  • How Trump has made fools out of his populist supporters;
  • How the “Donroe Doctrine” is now in effect;
  • And how all of this reflects the theme of the original 1960s “Mission: Impossible.”
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Slate, Jill Filipovic, 5 Jan 2026: The Big Problem With Conservatives’ Favorite Criticism of the Media

Beginning:

In 2026, there’s one easy resolution we should all commit to: Be better consumers of media.

Traditional media is in crisis, thanks to a combination of Trump administration attacks, corporate takeovers, and technological innovations. Social media sites compete for our attention by offering us addictive little bites: outrage-bait tweets and short-form shock-value TikTok videos, served up according to algorithms that track how long we linger and feed us more and more of what keeps us locked in (which is often what makes us angry).

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Where We Are, 4 Jan 2026

  • Several headlines about America’s attack on Venezuela;
  • Trump’s peculiar animosity against the Kennedys;
  • And two ideas about patriotism.
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The State of the Union.

Just some headlines. American seems never to overcome its historical sins.

The Guardian, Tiago Togero, 3 Jan 2026: ‘Naked imperialism’: how Trump intervention in Venezuela is a return to form for the US, subitled “Most of the Americas have suffered from interference from their powerful northern neighbour – and are usually the worse off for it”

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Clear Thoughts About Religion

A couple items on religion today.

As I’ve said, there is someone who signs themselves AMV posting in a FB newgroup I’m following who has been tackling religious talking points with great clarity and insight. Here’s one from this morning, accompanied by the above graphic.

FB, Atheists Against Pseudoscientific Nonsense, 3 Jan 2026

Evolution is not harshly attacked by many Christians because of pride or misunderstanding alone, but because of what it logically entails. If evolution is true, and the evidence is overwhelming, then humanity did not begin with two individuals, but with a population. No first man and woman means no literal Adam and Eve. No Adam and Eve means no Garden of Eden, no magical tree, no talking serpent, no forbidden fruit, and no fall from grace.

And without original sin, the entire theological scaffolding collapses. If humans were never “fallen,” then there is nothing to redeem, no cosmic debt to pay, and no necessity for Jesus as a sacrificial solution. Christianity, as traditionally taught, stops being a story of salvation and becomes a story built on a myth that no longer holds.

That is why evolution is existentially threatening to the doctrine. Accepting it requires either radically reinterpreting scripture or admitting that foundational claims were symbolic at best and wrong at worst. This is not merely an emotional issue for believers; it is an institutional one. If the core narrative fails, so does the authority built on it. For pastors and religious institutions, this is not abstract philosophy, it is the risk of losing legitimacy, influence, and income; the grift is over.

So the rejection of evolution is not really about “humans coming from monkeys,” a strawman no biologist supports, and hurt egos. It is about preserving a story that cannot survive contact with population genetics, fossil records, and basic biology. When a belief system depends on denying reality to remain intact, the problem is not the science.

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Is Reading a Vice? No.

  • Adam Kirsch at The Atlantic suggests that reading is a vice;
  • Paul Krugman on the Heritage Foundation;
  • Robert Reich on the Trump administration’s policy of hate;
  • Short items about everyone laughing at Trump; a measles outbreak at the Noah’s Ark Museum; how the Trump administration admits to stealing artists’ work; and how CBS is going MAGA.
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Beginning with a counter-intuitive think piece.

The Atlantic, Adam Kirsch, 2 Jan 2026: Reading Is a Vice, subtitled “Being a reader means cultivating a relationship with the world that, by most standards, can seem pointless and counterproductive.”
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Ethnic Cleansing and Collective Effervescence

  • The Department of Homeland Security imagines a future in which 1/3 of the American population is deported;
  • The idea of “collective effervescence”;
  • Brief posts about the dirty 1970s; Trump and aspirin; Florida giving God citations passes; and items from JMG.
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This is going around on Facebook today.

This is bonkers — they want to deport almost 1/3 of the nation?? — but also revealing. MAGA and the Trump aren’t just racists and xenophobes and white supremacists, they’re itching to ethnically cleanse the United States. Who at DHS is responsible for this??

Here’s an item about it here at Huffington Post.

The US is reverting to primitive, tribal human nature.

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Where We Are, Here at the End of 2025

  • How Trump has made the government smaller, but not more efficient or dependable;
  • Example of shutting down NASA’s library;
  • Example of cuts to science research;
  • How Trump prefers “vibes” to data;
  • New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser wonders how people let this happen;
  • And a collage of lists about 2025.
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NY Times, Eileen Sullivan, 30 Dec 2025: Trump Upended the Federal Government. The Full Scope of the Impact Is Still Unclear., subtitled “President Trump achieved his goal of shrinking the work force. But many current and former officials say the government is less dependable and efficient than it was a year ago.” [gift link]
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Return from Holiday Trip

We were in SoCal the past few days, beginning Christmas Day, visiting Sue and Steve, Michael and Honey, Gary and Lynne, Funyun and family, Alan and Ian, Suzanne and extended family; chatting with Vivien and Barry, Alex and Francis, many others. Visiting the Petersen Auto Museum, an item on my bucket list. Dining at the Fairmont Santa Monica and the Georgian and at our hotel’s Penthouse and at Water Grill and Top Island and Scrambled Eggs and Yagul Cafe, and on the way home, Ventana Grill in Pismo Beach.

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Good News, Two Ways

Progress, and Christmas songs.

First, let’s note this.

Vox, Bryan Walsh, 22 Dec 2025: 2025 felt like a disaster — but the numbers tell a very different story, subtitled “From a CRISPR baby to a closing ozone hole, 5 actually good things from 2025.”

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Steady Encroachment

Quick takes today.

Robert Reich, 22 Dec 2025: Farewell to “60 Minutes”, subtitled “It just went the way of the Washington Post’s editorial page”

Once you begin surrendering to Trump, he always wants more. You can’t appease a tyrant.

David Ellison’s CBS — after gutting DEI policies there, appointing right-wing hack Kenneth R. Weinstein to a new “ombudsman” role, and making anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News (despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or newsrooms) — yesterday removed a segment from “60 Minutes” featuring stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador. Bari Weiss had demanded changes to the segment.

The Ellisons — fils et père — have been seeking Trump’s support for their hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, but Trump has been unhappy with recent episodes of “60 Minutes,” even under its new management. Hence, the segment’s removal.

That’s how these people work.

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Steven Pinker, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 6

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress”
(Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.)

Posts about this book: Post 1; Post 2Post 3Post 4Post 5; Post 6.

The final chapter considers humanism as the agent for deploying reason and science and thus producing progress. Pinker defines humanism, considers why some oppose it, and explores the two main alternatives: religion, and authoritarianism, with a particular call-out against the ideas of Nietzsche. As he sums up, Pinker warns against blaming problems (which will always occur) on evildoers, wrecking institutions, and “empowering a leader who will restore the country to its rightful greatness.” Finally, he closes with a page-long summary of the story of human progress: the crooked timber of human nature with its resources to redeem its flaws; how we combine ideas recursively and spread them with language and developed norms and institutions of reason; how we’re penetrating the mysterious of the cosmos; how the human condition has greatly improved, and how this is a heroic story that is true, because we have reasons to believe it.
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