Author: A.T.

But first . . .

SATURDAY!

I’m excited about what promises to be the largest protest in American history.

I went to NO KINGS and NO KINGS 2 with one friend.

Tomorrow: four.

If all 7 million of us from the last one add, on average, just one more . . . imagine!

So I repeat:

You’re not a protester?  Neither was I.

Hate crowds?  Me, too.

But this is easy and fun . . . and you can always just stand on the edge of it all and leave whenever you want.

No sign?  No problem.  You’ll be welcome without one.

Or just write WE’RE BETTER THAN THIS on a piece of cardboard.

Or bring an American flag.

Or: SO BAD, EVEN THE INTROVERTS ARE HERE.

Find directions to your totally peaceful, joyful protest here (scroll down to see the map).

And now . . .

JESUS AGAIN

Pete Hegseth presides over monthly “Christian Prayer and Worship Services” at the Pentagon

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Hegseth’s Christian rhetoric has drawn renewed scrutiny, including his past defense of the Crusades, the brutal medieval wars that pitted Christians against Muslims.

Hegseth belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a conservative network co-founded by the self-described Christian nationalist Doug Wilson. CREC pastors have appeared at Hegseth’s Pentagon services at least three times, including Wilson who preached there in February.

Hegseth often goes beyond standard calls for God to bless the country or its troops. Last week, he asked Americans to pray for service members “in the name of Jesus Christ.” On Wednesday, he again prayed in Jesus’ name.

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Which brings us back to John Fugelsang’s Separation of Church and Hate, the book I’ve been excerpting all week.

I just listened to Chapter 6, the “gay” chapter.  So fun.  So much I didn’t know!

(And, heck, I wrote a chapter of my own about this — Chapter 21 — and, I now see, barely scratched the surface.)

He starts his chapter with a quote from Jerry Falwell:

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“Homosexuals are brute beasts… part of a vile and satanic system that will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven.”

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I started mine with a quote from Queen Isabella:

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“I have caused great calamities. I have depopulated provinces and kingdoms. But I did it for the love of Christ and His Holy Mother.”

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. . . and made the case that Jesus — whom I much admire — was the best little boy in the history of the world.

My favorite Fugelsang line:

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BEING gay is natural; HATING gay is a lifestyle choice. And unlike being gay, homophobia is highly curable.

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Also:

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Any guy who tells you same-sex attraction is a “choice” to be resisted probably has some experience resisting it.

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Mainly, though, he offers a fascinating, rigorous explication, chapter and verse, that leaves zero doubt that Jesus — booed off the MAGA stage, as suggested yesterday — would have been all in for equal rights.

OH, AND WAIT . . .

Any word on those Epstein Files?

That could be your sign tomorrow:

WHAT ABOUT EPSTEIN?

DEATH!

I’m not sure I buy the premise that we’re all going to die.  But, yeah, well, maybe.  In any event, we should all be able to control how we go . . . choosing, if we want, to avoid suffering, to avoid undue strain on those who love us, and to avoid enormous health care costs to gain a few more days of pain and indignity.

Watch this superb 16-minute short (password, all lower case: mancini) and, if the spirit moves you, join Compassion and Choices and share widely.

THEFT!

Trump appeared to have business motive for stealing and concealing and lying about highly classified documents.

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The special counsel’s office found that Donald Trump held on to documents so secret that only six people could legally review them — and the team believed his reason for doing so was financial gain.

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But that’s okay, if you’re MAGA, because he gets you; he’s not some elite snob know-it-all.  He loves the poorly educated — and he loves . . .

. . . JESUS!

Which brings us back to John Fugelsang’s Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds.

It’s such a good read, I’m plugging it again.

Condensed from Chapter One:

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I’m here because two people broke a promise to God.

My mother was born during the Depression in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She entered the convent directly out of high school.

Before they sent her overseas to begin her new life, they briefly assigned her to Holy Family Hospital in Brooklyn, New York.

My father had been born in Brooklyn just a few months before her, and had become a Franciscan brother a year after graduating high school. He’d been working as a butcher at the Brooklyn fish market, and after losing half a finger, celibacy probably seemed like a step up. Upon entering the brotherhood, he became Brother Boniface. As a brother, he taught history to Catholic boys at St. Francis Prep, coached basketball, wore the robe and rope belt, and walked among the people like the Lost Jedi of Flatbush.

My father, the brother, met my mother, the sister, when he entered Holy Family for tuberculosis treatment. By all accounts, he was instantly smitten by this quiet, Southern girl in a nun’s habit, a woman he knew he couldn’t have, and had promised God he would never want.

But they became friends, and when the convent sent Sister Damien to Malawi, Brother Boniface took it upon himself to write her letters—many letters—to innocently keep her informed of what was going on in the states—civil rights, Vietnam, and US politics.

Her village had no TV or radio, so his letters became the de facto newspaper for the entire convent.

Eventually, she returned—briefly—to the US. After ten years of hiding his feelings, poorly, my father eventually convinced her to leave the convent and go on a date.

They were married two months later, in the chapel at Fort Story Army base in Virginia Beach. They soon settled on Long Island and tried to raise us to be progressive, free-thinking, sexually repressed Catholics. Which is why I would eventually turn to stand-up comedy.

We were an extremely Catholic family.  

My dad was a lector, Christian doctrine teacher, and eucharistic minister at church; my Uncle Louis in Brooklyn was a Catholic deacon; my brother an altar boy. And when my mother became head nurse at a convent nursing home for her former order, there was a steady multicultural flow of elderly nuns in and out of our house.

We said grace before every dinner and our prayers before bedtime. Whereas some kids were taught piano, my parents got me ORGAN lessons.

I was taught—relentlessly—that Christianity was about the things Jesus prioritized: Service to others. Forgiveness. Caring for the poor, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner. Fighting injustice with nonviolence. Love. Empathy. Compassion. And go wash your hands, we’re leaving for Mass in five minutes.

My parents presented as Republicans, identified as Independents, and lived like closeted Democrats.

Like most dads, mine was liberal in some ways and conservative in others. He maintained the same severely short haircut regardless of what decade he was in, flew the US flag outside our home, and believed God was love. His overall parenting strategy was to guarantee that I’d be way too liberal to ever fit in with Christians and far too Christian to ever blend with liberals.

And almost every therapist I’ve ever been able to afford has agreed that his plan worked perfectly. . . .

If you watched American TV news in the late twentieth century, you received a steady diet of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and all manner of ex-segregationists and blow-dried televangelists, all ranting about welfare queens, feminists, and AIDS patients.

These right-wing Christian media stars preached the virtue of forcing poor pregnant women to give birth against their will, that they might experience substantially greater poverty and greater risk to their health. They warned us that any government programs that actually helped the poor were “communist.”

They always punched down—always attacking the poor, the addicts, the migrants at the border, and a gay minority they assured me the Bible condemned, somewhere.

Zero teachings of Jesus. Only condemnation and propaganda, always seeking more power, and always needing more cash.

I didn’t have the words to express it, but it was awkward to be told I was the same religion as these men.

These were the fundamentalists, the power-hungry grifters who took advantage of the fact that most people don’t know the Bible all that well. They were charlatans, frauds, hypocrites, and villains. And they made for great TV.

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I’ll stop there except to say that the rest of the book tells you — in the most engaging way possible — what’s actually IN the Bible, and why, and how . . . and it’s fascinating.  And verifies everything James Talarico and others have long been saying:  There’s nothing Christian about Christian nationalism.  Were Jesus alive today, he’d be booed off the MAGA stage.

Read, listen, share.

Okay, sorry.  I can’t resist.  One more passage:

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“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

You’ve probably guessed that this is not going to end well for the goats.  But this is important—Jesus gives a clear mandate to all people and nations.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ ”

Then, Jesus addresses those who don’t think societies should care for poor and sick people, or incarcerated people, or immigrants. This part is like Jesus’s memo to the Heritage Foundation.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

It’s a happy story. I always wondered what the vibe in the room was like when Jesus finished that one.

But that’s it. That’s what Christianity was supposed to be about.

Not banning abortion, blocking care for trans kids, hating Muslims, fighting for tax cuts, or making people believe in a talking snake.

Jesus asserts that his true followers are the people and societies who care for the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the immigrants, and the incarcerated. And he tells you who his fake followers are—the ones who are openly religious but indifferent to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the immigrants, and the incarcerated, the lowest of the low. How we treat them is how we treat him.

I mean, we could end the book right here. You’ve got things to do. But there’s more.

Jesus emphasizes that nations will be judged based on their actions and treatment of the vulnerable—not their religious affiliations or beliefs. He’s not just commanding individuals—he’s calling on societies to commit to compassion, mercy, and kindness on a policy level. This means that Christians living in a democracy have the option to vote for—or against—Jesus’s very direct instructions.

Note that he doesn’t care how pious you are, how often you go to church, or how much money you donate. You get zero points with Jesus for being religiously observant. He’s giving instructions on exactly what a Christian nation should do, which is why conservative politicians never talk about it.

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TOUGH GUYS

For a Christian with a bone spur, Trump is one tough cookie.  Far from loving his enemies, he posts that he’s glad Robert Mueller is dead.

Pete Hegseth’s pastor goes a step further: he prays for James Talarico’s death.

Trump has a Talarico opinion, too:

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. . . saying on Truth Social: he “insults Jesus” and “may be the worst candidate I have ever seen” next to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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To which Talarico replied, “You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off their healthcare. Bombing school children in Iran. Deporting moms and babies. Covering up the Epstein files.

Again I say unto you, patient reader:

There’s nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. 

Were Jesus alive today, he’d be booed off the MAGA stage.

Join today’s 3pm Indivisible call: What’s the Plan.

But first . . .

REPUBLICANS PROTECTING PEDOPHILES

Hey — any word on the Epstein Files?  The law requiring their release in full without unnecessary redactions passed by a vote of 427-1 in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate.  Shouldn’t Trump comply with it?

FIVE LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM ROBERT MUELLER

That’s the title Garrett Graff gives this remembrance — but it’s really a lot more than that.

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This was one of his favorite refrains: “Whatever we do, we must act with honesty and with integrity. There are no gray areas here; there should be no room for doubt. Regardless of your chosen career, you are only as good as your word. You can be smart, aggressive, articulate, and indeed persuasive. But if you are not honest, your reputation will suffer. And once lost, a good reputation can never, ever be regained. As the saying goes, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. And if you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”

It’s this last point that feels so poignant and important to me. Time and time again this past year, I’ve been thinking about the failure of our system of checks and balances. It turns out, in the end, that there’s only one check and balance that actually matters: Good character. Everything else in a constitutional system follows and relies on that simple foundation.

I’ve spent the last twenty years covering national security and have, over the years, interviewed or met almost every senior decision-maker in the intelligence community and federal law enforcement from the 21st century — FBI, CIA, NSA, and ICE directors, CBP commissioners, the directors of national intelligence, and most of this century’s attorneys general, DHS and defense secretaries and secretaries of state, not to mention dozens of sub-Cabinet officials — the deputies, under-secretaries, assistant secretaries, and deputy assistant secretaries who make up the day-to-day decision-making at most levels of government. Many I’ve gotten to know quite well. Some are good friends.

Prior to January 2025, almost to a person I trusted that they took seriously the rule of law and their constitutional obligations under their oaths of office. I didn’t always agree with their decisions and sometimes debated with them the morality underlying their decisions, but never once doubted that there had been a robust discussion and debate about the legal and constitutional obligations behind the scenes before they made their decisions.

For generations, we have been protected from doubt, uncertain fates, and problems because voters chose leaders of both parties with good character who, in turn, appointed people of good character, who, in turn, were constrained by a professional, nonpartisan, and merit-based civil service of good character that took seriously their oaths to serve the Constitution and not an individual.

Once you elect or appoint someone who has no moral core — who then appoints people with no moral core and fires those who do — nothing else in the system of checks-and-balances turns out to matter.

Which brings me to the final topic I want to address today. Why America is struggling right now — it is no coincidence to me that this is all happening is exactly 80 years after the end of World War II.

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So worth reading in full — and so important that we all find our local NO KINGS protest and show up Saturday with friends.

Even if you’ve never protested before.  Indeed, especially if you’ve never protested before.

It’s fun!

Make plans for pizza or margaritas — or margherita pizzas — afterwards!

It’s one of the steps required to restore decency, competence, and integrity to our government.

Garrett Graff continues:

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The World War II generation uniquely understood that the natural state of the world and geopolitics was Hobbesian — freedom, democracy, and peace were not natural conditions of the world. They required active involvement, reinforcement, and hard, grinding, day-in, day-out effort to secure and extend.

Moreover, they knew intimately and up-close that the alternative to peace and freedom — fascism and war — was worse. America itself flirted with authoritarian fascism before. It’s easy to forget the model that Father Coughlin and other right-wing leaders of the 1930s offered Americans disenchanted with the Great Depression. But as fascism’s dark cloak descended across Europe — as secret police began demanding “papers, please” and kidnapping people off the streets and disappearing them to concentration camps, as Hitler’s government cracked down on free speech and expression, labeling critics “evil” enemies of the state, as they cut off access to science and education and demanded arts organizations fall in line, persecuted homosexuals, and closed borders to visitors — America made a different choice. It, along with a precious few allies like Great Britain, stood and fought for democracy when it counted most.

We now know that freedom and democracy prevailed, but for longer than we are comfortable to remember, it was a close-run thing. After, that generation of officials, policymakers, and veterans wanted to ensure that nothing like that ever happened again, and they devoted their entire working careers to that task. Building the postwar architecture that has secured the world and underpinned a tremendous economic boom and elevation of global standards of living was neither easy nor a foregone conclusion after the war.

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See you Saturday!

And now . . .

1984

I just watched Orwell: 2+2=5.  A little too leftist for me in a couple of places but in the main I agree with TIME Magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek: “Brilliant. Exhilarating.  The boldest documentary anyone could make right now.” 

BONUS

Do you know who just won the House seat in Florida’s legislature that represents Donald Trump? 

A Democrat!

In a district the Republican won in 2024 by 19 points in 2024 and that Trump himself carried by 11.

The tide is turning.

David Jolly could be Florida’s next governor, Alex Vindman its next junior United States Senator.

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Jesus was a peaceful radically nonviolent revolutionary who wasn’t American and never spoke English; who hung around lepers, hookers, and crooks; never sought tax cuts for rich Nazarenes, was anti-wealth and anti-death penalty, anti-public prayer too (Matthew 6:5); never asked lepers for a co-pay, never called poor people “lazy,” never even slightly anti-gay, never mentioned abortion, supported paying taxes, and was a long-haired community-organizing authority-questioning anti-slut-shaming brown-skinned Palestinian unarmed homeless Jew.

But that’s only if you believe what’s actually in the bible.

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I’ve come to view Jesus the way I’ve come to view Elvis. I love the guy, but some of the fan clubs terrify me.

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“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

Jesus, Luke 6:46

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Yesterday, I linked to a chilling piece by Jim Stewartson:  The Pentagon is integrating Peter Thiel’s surveillance software throughout the military. Be very afraid.

I asked a friend who knows Thiel well to review it.

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Even though I consider Peter Thiel to be a villain [he replied], I do not consider him to be a bloodthirsty maniac who wants to drown the world in blood so that he can make more money. I think some of the things that this author writes are true but that lot is conjecture based on negative press that is not accurate.  Some of the things in the article I know to be not factual and some of it is just plain, you know, personal attack. The guy was born in South Africa. It’s not his fault. He was born during Apartheid.  Not his fault either. His parents emigrated here. He went to Stanford. Wrote a book about political correctness and started the libertarian newspaper. That doesn’t make him a Nazi. Attacking him for hiring Oswald Mosley’s grandson is the sort of low blow that reduces credibility.

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I had never heard of Oswald Mosley until I read Stewartson:

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Finally, out of everyone in the United Kingdom, Peter Thiel chose Louis Mosley to run Palantir UK, which has taken over the National Health Service, and is getting into business with the British military. Mosley is the only grandson of Oswald Mosley, the most infamous fascist in British history, who was so enamored with the Nazis that he had his wedding at Joseph Goebbels’ house so Hitler could attend.

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WHAT THE MILITARY AND THE CHURCH HAVE IN COMMON

Michael J: “This analysis is a piercing revelation of what has been going on with republicans since Reagan.  It was clearly composed by a Protestant soundly grounded in reality. I am a retired Catholic priest. I hope you find it interesting.”

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The Militarization of MAGA and God: Hearts Turned to ICE That Would Kill Jesus
By A Country Pastor

When I was a child, sitting in a country church with my parents, voting instructions were handed out in the pews. They came from organizations connected to Pat Robertson’s movement. Everyone knew what they were for. They told us how faithful people voted. No one suggested these were merely informational. The expectation was understood, and so was the cost of ignoring it. Faith was being shaped toward compliance long before most of us had language for what was happening.

At the front of that sanctuary, the Christian flag stood beside the American flag. That placement mattered. It taught without words. Allegiance to God and allegiance to nation were being aligned visually and symbolically, week after week. Jesus was no longer the sole focal point. Power had entered the frame. Worship was slowly learning the posture of loyalty rather than discernment.

That pairing prepared us. It trained us to hear political direction as moral guidance. It trained us to associate faithfulness with obedience to authority. Long before MAGA had a name, the groundwork for white Christian nationalism was being laid inside places meant to form people in the way of Jesus.

Anyone who has watched military formation understands the logic that followed. You are broken down before you are rebuilt. Identity is narrowed. Orders replace questions.  Conscience is subordinated to command. On a battlefield, that process has a purpose. In a spiritual community, it reshapes the soul in dangerous ways.

Jesus also calls people to change, but the direction is entirely different. God does not erase conscience. God sharpens it. God does not break people down to make them manageable. God restores people so they can love. Jesus calls disciples by name and teaches them to discern, not simply to obey.

It is important to honor those who enter the military with integrity. I know many who did so willing to give their lives for others. That impulse reflects the deepest teaching of Jesus, that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another. Many return carrying wounds that are visible and wounds that are not. Bodies are damaged. Minds are burdened. Souls are stretched thin. They return changed, still human, still worthy of care and truth.

What emerged later was something else entirely. MAGA did not honor sacrifice. It redefined strength to exclude it. Humility was treated as weakness. Service was dismissed as foolish. What was elevated instead was domination, aggression, and loyalty to power. Military language was borrowed, but military discipline was not. Courage was replaced with intimidation. Strength was recast as the ability to harm without consequence.

That formation was not accidental. It was cultivated. Religious media helped lead the way. Repetition replaced reflection. Political loyalty was framed as spiritual obedience. Fear was presented as faithfulness. What was being formed was not political opinion, but a moral reflex.

The same approach moved into churches through voter guides and partisan instruction. They worked because pastors, entrusted with the care of souls, allowed political authority to speak from the pulpit, redirecting trust meant for Jesus toward a national identity instead. What was perverted in that process was the faith people brought with them. It happened slowly, over years, embedding itself into hearts formed to trust their churches and leaders. That trust was redirected away from Jesus and toward a militant posture that framed faith as constant warfare, discipleship as loyalty, and righteousness as being right and unquestioning.

Hearts were hardened not through argument, but through repetition, fear, and obedience. Faith was trained to stand guard, to carry weapons, to distrust neighbors, and to confuse aggression with strength. By the time Donald Trump emerged, the movement was ready for him. A man whose morals are the antithesis of God’s character was able to step forward and be received as a spiritual authority. Truth was replaced with grievance. Humility with domination. Repentance with defiance. Compassion with cruelty. What had once been centered on Jesus was displaced, as the space at the front of the pulpit was given over to MAGA and white Christian nationalism.

God was not merely sidelined. God was replaced by a figure who embodied everything Jesus warned against, and faith, long trained to follow power, followed him instead.

That conditioning was amplified through partisan media. It did more than report events. It trained people to see the world as a battlefield and themselves as besieged patriots. Fear was constant. Grievance was rewarded. Complexity was mocked. Over time, people were broken down emotionally and rebuilt around outrage and suspicion. A sense of belonging replaced critical thought.

This is how a private army forms without barracks. The hat becomes a uniform. The slogans function like drills. The screen becomes the command center. Obedience is enforced through belonging. Dissent becomes betrayal.

January 6 made this visible. Christian symbols appeared alongside symbols of racism and authoritarianism. A hangman’s noose stood on the Capitol grounds. These images did not clash. They blended. Faith, violence, and power occupied the same space without resistance.

That blending reveals the loss of moral discernment. When symbols of Jesus coexist comfortably with symbols of terror, something essential has already been stripped away. Scripture names this moment clearly, when good is called evil and darkness is treated as light.

What was on display that day was not discipline or real sacrifice. It was fantasy. Many arrived speaking the language of civil war, convinced they were warriors. Most had never lived under real military discipline, where bravado is stripped away because bravado costs lives. What appeared instead was aggression without humility and confidence without accountability.

When January 6 failed, that posture did not disappear. It shifted into institutions. It took on procedures and uniforms. It found legitimacy. When this kind of formation moves from crowds into institutions, it no longer needs chants or rallies. This is how cruelty becomes policy, and how human beings are reduced to numbers and processed without mercy.

This is not about individual agents. It is about formation. Scripture describes what happens when people stop seeing others as neighbors. Understanding darkens. Sensitivity fades. Souls disconnect from the life that gives fullness.

Scripture has traced this arc before. When people demanded a king to fight their battles, God warned them what that choice would bring. Power would concentrate. Violence would expand. The vulnerable would suffer. They insisted anyway, because fear prefers control to trust. The prophets later condemned a faith that trusted horses and chariots instead of justice and mercy.

By the time of Jesus, that formation had hardened. Religious leaders guarded power rather than people. Control replaced compassion. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, welcomed outsiders, and rejected violence, he threatened the entire system. That is why he was killed.

One moment in the garden makes the contrast unmistakable. When violence breaks out, Jesus stops it. He heals the ear of the man who came to arrest him, restoring the capacity to hear at the very moment force is rising. Violence destroys listening, and Jesus restores it so that love can speak again.

It is important to say clearly that this is not the whole story. Many followers of Jesus did not follow this path. Many resisted the militarization of faith even when it cost them relationships, churches, and a sense of belonging. They kept putting Jesus first. They chose love over loyalty, discernment over obedience, and compassion over power. Their faith was not loud, but it was faithful.

They understood what the Bible has always been. Not a war manual. Not a roadmap to domination. Not a story that ends with a strongman as savior. The Bible is the greatest love story ever told, the story of a God who refuses to give up on humanity and keeps moving toward us with mercy, truth, and grace. Jesus is not the champion of a nation. Jesus is the revelation of God’s heart.

In that light, Donald Trump is not the fulfillment of Christian history. He is the great test of it. A test of whether faith would cling to love or surrender to fear. A test of whether churches would remain rooted in Jesus or allow themselves to be hijacked by power. A test that revealed how much formation had already taken place and how urgently re-formation is now needed.

The good news is that the story is not over. The way back has always been the same. It is the way of Jesus, the way that teaches us how to see again, how to listen again, and how to love again. That way has never been closed. It is still open, and many are already walking it.

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→ Some, indeed, are Leaving MAGA.

Jim Stewartson on Palantir:

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The Pentagon is integrating Peter Thiel’s surveillance software throughout the military. Be very afraid.

. . . Thiel’s Naziphilia has been clear for a very long time. And there is a reason for that. Thiel was raised in the most Nazi town on Earth in the 1970s: Swakopmund, in apartheid-controlled SW Africa (now Namibia). Thiel’s apartheid Christian school—and the town itself—used “Heil Hitler!” as a normal greeting, just as they did in Nazi Germany. Thiel’s father Klaus moved his family to Swakopmund when Peter was a baby to develop a secret uranium mine outside of town—which fed apartheid South Africa’s illegal nuclear weapons program.

. . . Imagine what it was like to be a young gay boy growing up in a Nazi-soaked apartheid town in southern Africa, and being brought back to the U.S. at ten years old. Peter Thiel has reportedly described the early part of his childhood as being formative in his thinking—about who should have power and who should not.

This supremacist belief that the world should bend itself to your will because of your genetics alone was a feature of apartheid-era education—just as it was in Nazi Germany. This background is why both Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the most racist people to ever gain fame or power. The apartheid system was designed to produce people like Musk and Thiel—people who believe they are entitled to make the world safe for those who are privileged and white, and to enslave or kill everyone else.

. . . By 2015, Thiel was heavily involved with Jeffrey Epstein, the Russians, and a who’s who of neo-Nazi propagandists, hackers, and fellow fascist billionaires in a plan to make sure Hillary Clinton did not become president. The Epstein files make it clear: Epstein, Thiel, and the Russian government conspired to smear Hillary with Epstein’s child rape crimes.

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I hope this is overdone — I only fact-checked the Swakopmund part — but it’s worth your consideration.

Not all Trumpers are racist!  (Though most racists are Trumpers.)

Still . . . some who expected prices to come down and Russia’s brutalization of Ukraine to end “on day one” are getting restless.

Some are even Leaving MAGA.

They may like having lightly trained, heavily armed masked agents ripping families apart without due process.  But seeing billionaire wealth rise by more than trillion dollars while they struggle to make their own ends meet?

And some of them would like to see the Epstein files released in full without unnecessary redaction.

And wonder why he “wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well” and sells pardons and . . . well, it’s a long list, when they start to look closely.

Joyce Vance: Decency Died Along With Bob Mueller:

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When the Mueller report was finished during Trump’s first term in office, Trump‘s Attorney General, Bill Barr, claimed it was a total exoneration. That, of course, was not the case. Once the entire, albeit redacted, report became available, it was clear that it was a stunning indictment of a sitting president—but one that respected constraints on prosecutors that prevented an actual indictment of a sitting president. It should’ve been a roadmap for Congress to impeach and convict, but they did not take up Muller’s invitation.

Trump shared his comments on the passing of an American hero this morning: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”

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VOTER FRAUD

Carl believes millions of noncitizens vote illegally — Trump says they do! — risking prison and/or deportation to do so — just as a dear friend of mine believes he has communicated with aliens and flown on one of their spaceships.  (Seriously.  They picked him up at Mt. Shasta.)

I’m pretty sure both of them are mistaken.

Voter Fraud What You Should Know in under two minutes.

There is voter fraud — and surely more than leads to convictions.  But even if only one in 100 perpetrators is caught — so that the 1,620 cases cited in that video are really 162,000 cases spread over those 43 years — 3700 a year — it’s still effectively zero.  All the more so because of what our friends on the red team fail to acknowledge:  It is at least as often their voters and operatives who commit the fraud, not ours.

WHERE TO GIVE

Rob N.: “With so many candidates deluging us with requests, can you give advice on KEY races that would have the most impact?”

For talking back the House, A House United was built exactly for you.  Though I would argue that, now, while there’s still time for it to make a difference, much of your money should go to the “infrastructure” that all 8,000+ Democratic candidates rely on.  My favorite in that area is the much-maligned, much-misunderstood DNC.  Give here.

WHAT TO GIVE

John G.: “I just received my tax refund and it reminded me to suggest that you encourage your readers to use this windfall to make a contribution to the DNC. There is no more critical time than the present.”

→ Full disclosure: I do not know John.  Nor have I invented him or paid him in any way to send that note.  I just love him madly — as I will you, if you follow his lead.  The best form of polyamory.

BOROWITZ

God Formally Notifies Mike Johnson That he is Going to Hell.

I War-Gamed Iran for Obama. This Is the Worst-Case Scenario.

Uh, oh.

Hoping for the best — but worried.

There’s something about great speeches.

I’ve posted this (real) one several times — Ronald Reagan’s farewell remarks (4 minutes).

As apt today as 27 years ago.

And I’ve probably posted this (fictional) one, as well:

America Is Not the Greatest Country Anymore — But We could Be (5 minutes).

Truer, sadly, than ever.

BONUS

On the off chance you haven’t seen this: “Apparently, I’m an idiot” (19 seconds).

Join today’s Indivisible call — 3pm Eastern.

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PRKR

The trial was postponed again.  If I hadn’t seen the Seinfeld “Serenity Now” episode so many times, this might have sent me over the edge.  But like the refugees stuck in Casablanca desperate for exit visas, what can we do?  We just wait.  And wait.  And wait.

AI DJ

In the meantime, the capability of our future overlords just continues to explode.  This, I’m told by someone smarter than me, is real:  Live AI DJ takes calls.

I’m taking the rest of the day off.

PUTIN + EPSTEIN

Tom Hartmann: Staggering evidence trove shows who put Trump in the White House — and controls him still.

→ No Trump supporter will read this; but refusing to makes it no less damning.

YOUR MONEY

Richard Bookstaber:  I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse.

→ Who knows whether or when, if ever, we’ll have another financial collapse — we are, arguably, overdue — but I’d sure rather have some cash on the sidelines than be investing on margin.

PRKR

Pre-trial conference Wednesday, jury selection Thursday, trial begins Friday and should last about a week.  This could be the beginning of a cascade of good news; the beginning of the end; or something in between.  With 200 million or so shares outstanding, vastly more than we first nibbled at this speculation, the dream of a $10 stock, let alone higher, seems fanciful.  But neither am I selling here at 30 cents.

FLORIDA!

Three months after a Democrat won the Miami mayoralty — for the first time in more than 30 years — a Democrat did it again in Boca Raton, also for the first time in 30 years.

The tide is turning: Alex Vindman could be Florida’s next senator; David Jolly, its next Governor.

In Miami, Eileen Higgins won by a mile.  It was a blow-out.  In Boca, Andy Thomson won by just five votes.

November will see a giant Blue Wave from Florida to Alaska if each of us acts as though our involvement just might make that five-vote difference.

Join Indivisible.

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We can’t let Stephen Miller, Putin and the Proud Boys win.