Author: A.T.

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).

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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.

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

Before you read Tom Friedman’s wonderfully uplifting, hopeful, inspirational piece, take 3 minutes to watch How Trump is Turning DC into Pyongyang.

Okay, now:

Tom Friedman: Why Minnesota Matters More Than Iran for America’s Future

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If you see your glass as half empty, pour it into a smaller glass and stop bitching. — Anon

*Okay, I can’t resist a little more.  The narrator does a good job, but here and there it’s so funny.  She’s young.  The world is old.  She clearly has never heard of a mimeograph machine — she pronounces it “MIME-graph” — or of Bulova watches — she pronounces them “bull-LOW-va” — and the same for the names of some famous people she never heard of.  It’s no big deal; and, of course, she knows much we boomers don’t.  But I got a kick out of it.  

TYRANNY

America is still blue — as only 23% of the world is.  (You go, Mongolia!)

Let’s keep it that way.

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INSANITY

Wars start over perceived slights.  Look at someone wrong in certain circles and you could get killed.  Mock someone at a Gridiron dinner or call them “deplorables” at a fundraiser and you could wind up with the unthinkable situation we find ourselves in today.  Kill someone’s evil father and shoot off his legs (or whatever we did) and he might not be amenable to your idea of a “quick excursion.”

Did Trump not know about the strait of Hormuz?  Or that the millions of unhappy but defenseless Iranians are no match for 200,000 heavily armed killers?

I don’t see how this ends well, or soon, for anybody except the Russians and Chinese.  Putin wins again.

RUSSIA

MAGA believes the Russia stuff is a hoax because Trump tells them that it is.

Trump believes Russia didn’t interfere with the 2016 election because Putin told him so.

As a patriotic American, he claims to have more faith in Putin than in the CIA and FBI. (Not that he doesn’t know the truth, of course.)

Witkoff believes Russia isn’t helping Iran fight us because Putin told him so.

When there’s too much evidence — the 400-page Mueller report, for example — it can simply be dismissed.  Who would ever read anything so long?

Shorter — though no more likely to be read by MAGAns — was Jim Stewartson’s post yesterday.

There you had Mike Flynn sitting next to Putin in Moscow — as haven’t we all? — and later being appointed National Security Advisor in the first Trump administration — and later being pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty of lying to the FBI — and out of all this came a defamation lawsuit against Stewartson that MAGA eagerly backed with millions of dollars.

Stewartson has won, but you know the old curse: “May you be party to a lawsuit in which you are in the right.”

It’s an interesting story.

ARE WE NOW THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD ORDER?

The first lesson of war is ‘know your enemy’ – and Britain’s enemy now is Donald Trump, argues Simon Tisdall.

AT ROOT: INEQUALITY

Robert Reich: Why do Americans hate each other while Canadians love each other?

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Before he entered the White House, 47 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats said people in the opposing party were “immoral.”

By 2022, after years of Trump’s venom: 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats called people in the opposing party “immoral.”

Since he’s been back in the Oval, it’s got even worse.

. . . As Barack Obama said at Jesse Jackson’s memorial, “Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all.”

. . . But I can’t help wonder: How much of our distrust and resentment is the byproduct of something more fundamental that’s been unfolding in America for over four decades — something Trump took exploited but that would have invited a hateful demagogue like Trump eventually: the increasing concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands?

Trump took advantage of anger and distrust that had been building for years — at a system increasingly seen as rigged against most of us.

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THE DICTATOR’S NEW SHOES

Trump demands his subordinates wear the same footwear.

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“All the boys have them,” one female White House official told the Wall Street Journal, and another added that “everybody’s afraid not to wear them.”

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SILT ACCUMULATES

Suggested here a whole bunch of times, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock (GLDD) is being acquired at $17 on April 1.  Hardly much reward after 20 years for some of us, mostly at prices ranging from $3 to $6, but better (as they say) than a kick in the head.