Author: A.T.

Republican Senators, Take Note

Trump Ally Warns European Leaders: President’s Mental State “Dangerous”

The most damning indictments often come from unexpected sources. Last week in Brussels, Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister and one of Europe’s most vocal Trump supporters, pulled aside his fellow European leaders to share what he’d witnessed during a private meeting with the American president. The word he used to describe Trump’s demeanor? “Dangerous.”

Let that sink in for a moment. This isn’t coming from some liberal European bureaucrat or a member of the so-called “deep state.” This is a man who spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference praising Trump, who’s consistently defended the president’s approach to Ukraine, and who proudly posted about his access to Mar-a-Lago on social media. When someone who’s been in your corner starts warning others about your “psychological state,” you’ve crossed a threshold that should terrify us all. . . .

It’s past time for Republican senators to put country — and world — ahead of party and personal power.  Which is actually a lot to ask, but their chance to be heroes.  So far, they’ve been mostly cowering and — cue the historical echo — “just following orders.”

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Leaving MAGA — Part II

Yesterday I ran the Facebook post of a longtime conservative evangelical Christian pastor who now speaks out forcefully against his old Republican Party..

Today — Rick Logis, who wrote, just a few years back:

“The Democratic Party is the most dangerous group in the history of our republic, foreign or domestic — more than the Islamic supremacists, more than the Nazis.”

But that was then.

He embraced Donald Trump, and then abandoned him.  How did he do it? asks, and answers, the Tampa Bay Times.

Worth sharing.

And the perfect opportunity to remind you of the group he founded, Leaving MAGA, and of his FREE handbook of the same name:

Leaving MAGA

I. Why I Gravitated To MAGA
II. Why I Left MAGA
III. Empowering Others to Leave MAGA

You can also download his FREE Friends & Family Guide . . . or take 5 minutes to watch him here . . . or read his open letter:

Dear MAGA Americans,

I was a devoted member of MAGA nation for seven years; it made me feel I was part of something important: a movement that was trying to save American democracy.

But starting in 2021, I realized I had been mistaken. It took me a full year to finally break away. During that time, I came to understand that MAGA is sustained by a series of myths that are intended to create perpetual feelings of desperation and panic.

Succumbing to these predatory myths does not mean you are unintelligent, weak, or lack good character and morals. I have a Bachelor’s degree; have been a working professional my entire life; am a family man; and consider myself a relatively honest and intelligent person. I think the same about you.

I understand the reasons you have for supporting MAGA. And I know many of us traveled different paths to get there. I gravitated to Donald Trump because I have always been suspicious of our two-party system, and I saw him as the right man at the right time.

I have a sense that some of you have quietly left MAGA already, or are increasingly regretful, confused and scared. All of this can be doubly upsetting, since some of your sincerely-held beliefs may have alienated you from friends and family. That certainly happened to me.

It’s perfectly OK to feel this way; leaving MAGA was a tumultuous roller coaster of a process for me. It may be one of the most difficult endeavors you embark upon. In the end, it brought me an inner peace, and a newfound clarity about what is happening in our beloved country.

I founded this organization, Leaving MAGA, because I wanted to create a safe, non-judgmental community for those who leave MAGA, as well as for those who are having doubts about, or remorse over, their devotion to Trump and MAGA.

Our Leaving MAGA community will celebrate how acknowledging mistakes empowers you and America.

It’s difficult for a democracy to function well when millions are estranged from those closest to them.

You do not deserve to have your anxieties about change exploited. You deserve to know the truth. And with Leaving MAGA, you don’t have to feel you would be alone if you leave the movement.

Leaving MAGA is possible. Recognizing that we were wrong, and acting on that knowledge, makes us all more invested in democracy and in the continued work of perfecting our union.

Sincerely and humbly yours,

Rich

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Stay warm!

 

Moses And Jesus

But first . . .

HE ALONE IS FIXING IT

His people are “doing a helluva job” (30 seconds).

Americans’ confidence in the US economy falls sharply in January to lowest level since 2014.

But c’mon — why so glum?  Corporate profits are strong and billionaires have never done better!  Isn’t that enough?

And now . . .

MOSES

International Holocaust Remembrance Day prompted Noa Tishby (Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth) to co-author this New York Post essay yesterday: Hatred of Israel is the new antisemitism.

You can hate what Netanyahu and Israel have done to Gazans, as many Israelis themselves do . . . but should hate even more, I would argue, what Hamas has done to Gazans and Israelis.  Either way, no one should hate Palestinians or Israelis per se — or Jews.  Yet so many do.  Almost all of whom vote MAGA.  This deeply personal Newsweek essay linking Trump to antisemitism was written before the 2024 election.

JESUS

“I’d like to punch him in the face.” — Jesus, Two Corinthians

There is a modest but real chance for Democrats to win John Cornyn’s Texas Senate seat in November — not least because he faces a tough primary of his own — and two outstanding Democrats are vying for that chance.  Jasmine Crockett blew me away on a recent Zoom and would make a fine Senator.  Texas is not known for electing persons of color (though it’s had two female governors and, from 1993-2013, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson) . . . but a majority of the state’s eligible voters are themselves persons of color — and she’s terrific.  James Talarico is, too.  He has blown me away with clips like this one (2 minutes), asserting with a seminarian’s authority that “there is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism.”

They’d both be great, so the only thing that matters is which one has the best chance of winning.  If it does not become clear which one that is, then I’d like to see Talarico get it — and here’s why.  The race is likely to get loads of national attention.  And getting that word out to Christians around the country — that if they are real Christians, it’s time to think hard about which party they should call home — could make a difference in races nationwide.

This man has done that hard thinking:

I am a straight, white, cisgender, very obviously privileged man in my early forties.

I have a beard that is turning gray. I wear flannel. I wear trucker hats. I wear Carhartt pants. I took up fishing this past year.

If you passed me in a parking lot, there is a solid chance you would assume I am either very angry, very conservative, or about to complain loudly about something on Facebook.
Fair assumption. I look like THAT guy.

I grew up in a home with firearms. Firearm safety was taken seriously. I was taught how to handle them, where the safety was, how to shoot, and how to respect the responsibility that comes with all of that and I understand that culture because I lived in it.

I was also a conservative evangelical Christian pastor for 15 years.

As a senior in high school, I attended meetings for the Young Republicans. I registered to vote as soon as I could and voted for George W. Bush the first time I was eligible in 2000. I voted for him again in 2004. That was normal where I was. That was expected. That was the air I breathed.

Then something inconvenient happened.

I started thinking… and I didn’t like the smell of what I was stepping in.

In 2008, I voted for Barack Obama. I was still an evangelical Christian pastor. I did not tell anyone. In 2012, I voted for Obama again. I was a worship pastor and youth pastor at a very conservative baptist church in a very conservative small coastal town in Northern California near Crescent City.

After Obama won reelection, I posted on Facebook that “everything was going to be okay”.

That was it. One sentence.

I was called into the pastor’s office and grilled about who I voted for and where my politics stood. The same pastor had previously grilled me for allowing a young queer girl to attend overnight church trips. He also took issue with me saying Christians should care about social justice. Apparently loving your neighbor was fine until you meant it.

I share all of this because I did not arrive here accidentally. I lived in that world. I led in it. I preached in it. I defended it. Most of my friends, family, and community thought exactly the way I did at the time.

I attended a conservative Christian Bible college and I graduated. After I left evangelical Christianity, I went back to school and earned a second degree from a local very liberal state school in digital cinema. But at the state school, no one there indoctrinated me. I didn’t catch any woke mind virus. No one tried to change me. What they did do was put me in rooms with people I had been taught to fear.

LGBTQ+ students. Immigrants. Artists. Humans.

A large reason I left evangelical Christianity and my career as a pastor was because LGBTQ+ kids kept showing up to our youth group. The elders of my Church complained that the youth group did not feel welcoming to church kids anymore. What they really meant was that it felt too welcoming to everyone else and all the kids who went to Christian school, and came from Christian homes, and who were in church the first Sunday after they were born, felt uncomfortable.

The LGBTQ+ students came because they felt safe. We did not preach at them. We ate pizza. We played dumb youth group games. We gave them a place to exist without being fixed.

That was apparently a problem.

There are a thousand others reasons I left that world, but that one still sits heavy.

Here is why I am speaking up…

I have the ability to move between worlds. I can walk into a Sportsman’s Warehouse in flannel, Carhartts, sunglasses, and a big beard, grab some tackle, and no one would ever guess I had just come from a rally supporting public lands or standing against hate and authoritarianism.

That matters.

People who look like me are often assumed to be safe, neutral, or on the other side. That gives me access. And access comes with responsibility.

It is more important than ever for people who look like me to speak up. To speak out. To say clearly that hate and discrimination are not acceptable. To say that just because you do not understand someone does not mean they have less value or dignity. To say that LGBTQ+ people are not threats. They are people. Who have dignity worth and purpose and just want to live their lives in peace.

If you grew up conservative evangelical, I see you. I know how deeply this stuff runs. I know how much of it is shaped by church, family, community, and media echo chambers. A lot of people were not taught to hate intentionally. They were taught who to fear.

That does not excuse harm. But it does mean change is possible. I am living proof of that.

And if you are liberal, I would gently suggest remembering that people do not usually change because they are screamed at by strangers online. Again, I know this because I am standing here. It was honestly the love and compassion of the LGBTQ+ community that began to lead me out. They asked me sincere questions about my beliefs, my faith, about who I was as a person.

I soon learned, “hey… they’re pretty cool!”

So if you are conservative and angry right now, pause and ask why. Who taught you that anger. Who benefits from it. Who gets hurt by it.

What is happening right now is not normal. It is not okay.

And I am not going to stay quiet just because silence is comfortable for people who look like me.

If my flannel and beard help someone listen who otherwise would not, then I will use that.

Because compassion, dignity, and justice are not radical ideas. They are human ones.

Oh, and they’re also the ones Jesus taught.

“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.  Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” — Matthew 25:35–40

Sorry to go on so long.

(The comments following his post are great, too.)

Tomorrow — more on this topic, and on leaving MAGA.

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Lies And Lawlessness

Sorry for the strong language, but these 90 seconds make pretty much nail it.

Q:  Why not let the people of Minneapolis deal with threats to their safety, unless they ask the federal government for help?  

A:   Because the idea is to replace our democracy with Putin-style one-man rule.

Timothy Snyder explains how:

The Camps, the Executions, and the Future

. . . The country stops at the border. And so the law stops at the border. And so for the tyrant an obvious move is to extend the border so that is everywhere, to turn the whole country as a border area, where no rules apply.

Stalin did this with border zones and deportations in the 1930s that preceded the Great Terror. Hitler did it with immigration raids in 1938 that targeted undocumented Jews and forced them across the border.

And just what is Trump doing now? By his own admission, as well as by the admission of cabinet members, he is using ICE, nominally a border authority, to enforce his own whims on an American state of his choosing. It is not legal to attack a city because its policies work. It is not legal to threaten a state to gain information about its voters.

The border becomes the pretext to undo the law everywhere, at all times, and against anyone. It is the crack that can be opened. The wedge is the lie.

The lies begin as clichés, memes that are pounded into our heads by the government and by those in the media who repeat them, mindlessly or with malice.

One of these cliches is “law enforcement,” which is uttered over and over like an incantation. “Law enforcement” is not a noun. It is not a thing in the world. It is an action.

And action is something that we have a right to see and judge for ourselves. People enforcing the law do not wear masks. And people wearing masks who trespass, assault, batter, and kill are not enforcing the law.

They are violating it.

It is indeed the job of some local, state, and federal authorities to enforce the law. It is a disservice to them when federal employees carry out public executions. It is a greater disservice to them when such actions are defined as “law enforcement.”

The lies continue as provocative inversions, as what in On Tyranny I called “dangerous words”: these are, precisely, “terrorist” and “extremist.” These two words are known to us from history as those used by tyrants. And these are the words used by the Trump people to defame those killed by their polices.

This is their “messaging,” their banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt called it.

Or the evil of banality, as Václav Havel said. Words turned into reality with the complicity of those who hear them.

Those who actively lie are directly complicit in the deaths that just happen and in any deaths to come. But those in media who choose to treat propaganda as the story, to begin from lies rather than from events, are also complicit. The border is the crack, the lie is the wedge, and the wedge is made up of people — of us.

Words matter, uttered first or repeated. They create an atmosphere, they normalize — or they do not. We can choose to see, to call things by their proper names, to call out people who lie. We have to.

The moral horror of those killings is enough. But there is a political logic as well. And the two are connected. Those who resist the lawlessness and the lies are doing right. And they are giving a second chance to the endangered American republic. . . .

“The president should be impeached and convicted,” argues Snyder, “as should everyone responsible for these outrages.”

Worth sharing in full.

A Stark Warning About the 2026 election — it’s not too late to listen to this New Yorker interview with neoconservative policy analyst Robert Kagan.  You can skip the first couple of minutes until they introduce him — and perhaps listen at 1.2X or whatever suits you — but listen.  And share widely if it strikes you as it has me.

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Telling It Like It Is — On ICE And Taxes

ICE

Seth Moulton — marine to marine (60 seconds).

The terrorists are the ones wearing masks, terrorizing an entire city.

TAXES

Taking it to the billionaires at Davos (90 seconds).

Let me stress that “some of my best friends are” billionaires — wonderful people doing wonderful things.  Not a grifter or murderer among them.

Many have asked to be more heavily taxed:

The Guardian: Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires call for higher taxes on super-rich.

Fast Company: A majority of millionaires say extreme wealth is a threat to democracy.

Forbes: Majority Of Surveyed Millionaires Think Trump Is Damaging Global Economic Stability.

Fortune: Nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires across 24 countries are demanding Davos leaders tax them more: ‘Tax us. Tax the super rich.’

Politico: The tax revolt against global elites.

Some have joined The Patriotic Millionaires.

If, like almost everybody, you’re not yet quite at that level, join Indivisible instead.  Demand (among so much else) the kinds of tax reforms I’ve been suggesting.

Trevor Noah explains why you can’t tax billionaires (90 seconds), tongue firmly in cheek.  But I have argued that you can — How To Tax Wealth — and continue to think it’s a good, workable idea.  (Don’t worry about your wealth, except to the extent it exceeds $100 million.)

Most uber-rich people are patriotic and honest — but competitive.  They may not need that second half billion, or that fifteenth billion, but it’s fun to win . . . and if the rules let you avoid taxes, you’re not going to pay more than you have to.  Why should you, when the guy on the yacht next to you isn’t?

But if everyone has to . . . if the loopholes are closed and top rates hiked for everyone in the top 0.1% and 0.01% . . . if you get a really nice letter congratulating you on your success and thanking you for your good citizenship — maybe even a beautiful commemorative bronze medallion in any year you pay more than $1 million, silver each year you pay more than $5 million, gold $25 million . . . you get the idea . . . I think they would.

Why not?

 

1929 / 1789 / 1984 / 2028

TRUMP’S AMERICA

Returning Iranian asylum seekers to Iran to be killed.

LAWS, SHMAWS

Trump is breaking the law he himself signed requiring release of the Epstein files.

This is the new America, and Robert Kagan has a stark warning about the 2026 election. It’s the same link I shared yesterday — and will continue to share.  You can skip the first couple of minutes until they introduce him — and perhaps listen at 1.2X or whatever suits you — but listen.

2028

He’s strong and terrific in many ways, but (argue Novicoff and Chait in The Atlantic) Gavin Newsom’s Record Is a Problem.

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Never In The History Of Ever

Carl’s America:

Horror as ICE uses 5-year-old as ‘bait’ for family: ‘What has become of our country?’

. . . Immigration attorney Marc Prokosch said he still does not know exactly where Liam or his father were taken but he believes they are likely in a family holding cell in Texas.

“Every step of their immigration process they’ve been doing what they’ve been asked to do, and so this is just … cruelty,” Prokosch said.

Q: If there were so many murderers and rapists roaming the streets of Minneapolis, why didn’t any Minnesotans ask the Federal government to send in thousands of heavily armed, lightly trained masked men?  And why aren’t the citizens and governors and mayors of other cities not clamoring for the same “help”?

Q: Where are the Epstein files?  A law passed by Congress and signed by the president requires their release (by last December 19).  Where are they?

A Stark Warning About the 2026 election

That’s the largest font I’ve ever used on this page, but I think justifiably so.  The link is to a New Yorker podcast with neoconservative policy analyst Robert Kagan (who left the Republican Party in 2016).  You can skip the first couple of minutes until they introduce him — and perhaps listen at 1.2X or whatever suits you — but listen.  And share widely if it strikes you as it has me.

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HYMC

The wild ride continues.  HYMC touched $49 a share in after-hours trading, up from $3 in June.

Earlier in the day, I bought back January 2028 calls I had written with a $37 strike price, paying $29 a share ($290 for each 100-share call).

I then sold new ones — this time with a strike price of 60 — pocketing $24 a share ($240 for each 100-share call).

So I paid $5 ($29 minus $24) in order to raise my potential upside by $23 (from 37 to 60).

If the stock crashes one day, this will prove to have been foolish.

If it stays where it is or goes higher, I’ll be fat and happy.  Above $60, I would get that $60 and keep the $24 I got for selling the calls — $84 in all on each $3 share (less the $5 I spent raising my strike price, so a $76 profit on a $3 investment).

At which point I would likely be hit by a bus, so let’s not get carried away.

(I tell you all this not to gloat, but to suggest ways to lock in some of your profit, and perhaps enhance it, that you might want to explore.)

 

The Scale And Velocity Of Trump’s Accomplishments

14 Ways The Trump Administration is Trying to Kill Us

It’s quite a list.

American democracy on the brink a year after Trump’s inauguration

The scale and velocity of what he has been able to accomplish in just a year have stunned even longtime observers of authoritarian regimes.

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OPRT

After the close yesterday, Oportun Announced A CEO Succession Plan, meaning that the CEO whom activist shareholders have been trying to oust is finally on his way out.  If OPRT could really be earning $3 a share in two or three years as the activists imagine, then, at yesterday’s $4.84 close, it’s incredibly cheap.  The fear, I guess, is that Trump will deport a significant proportion of their low-income Latino customer base.  So: only with money you can truly afford to lose.

 

Alone In The World

In one year, for all our considerable flaws and missteps, we’ve gone from being the world’s good guy . . . its beacon of hope and reliable ally . . . to being its blundering, boorish bully.

No one likes a bully.  All root for bullies to fall.

Who are our allies, asked Rachel Maddow Monday night — Russia?  North Korea?

Putin is winning.

It is to cry.

ANNE APPLEBAUM CRIES OUT TO REPUBLICANS

Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw. Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?

. . . The people around Trump could find ways to stop him, as some did in his first term, but they seem too corrupt or too power-hungry to try. That leaves Republicans in Congress as the last barrier. They owe it to the American people, and to the world, to stop Trump from acting out his fantasy in Greenland and doing permanent damage to American interests. He is at risk of alienating friends in not only Europe but also India, whose leader he also snubbed for failing to nominate him for a Nobel Prize, as well as South Korea, Japan, Australia. Years of careful diplomacy, billions of dollars in trade, are now at risk because senators and representatives who know better have refused to use the powers they have to block him. Now is the time.

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HYMC

Shares we bought for $2.30 a couple of years ago and $3.20 in June changed hands at $45 in after-hours trading last night.  Don’t hate me for suggesting you sell some and write calls against some more on the way up.  I may take a loss on some of those calls and replace them with further out-of-the-money calls.

PIRATE SHIP

FedEx charged me $83.93 for second-day delivery of a 3-pound envelope.  PirateShip.com would have charged $16.43.  They route a zillion packages via UPS and USPS (yours among them) and pass most of their huge-customer-discount on to you.  The reviews are 75% outstanding, though definitely not all.

BREE FRAM FOR CONGRESS

Ousted under Trump’s trans military ban, retired Space Force Col. Bree Fram launches bid for Congress.

I’m proud to know her.

And I love that Four-star General Stanley McChrystal (“perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met” — former Defense Secretary Robert Gates) recently honored Bree and four others of the thousands Trump fired on New Year’s Eve.