Stop the Idiocracy

Monday, September 14, 2026

The cathedral of artificial minds

A spectacular futuristic editorial illustration depicts a colossal artificial-intelligence network housed within a cathedral-like technological complex suspended above the clouds. At its centre, a luminous glass enclosure contains an enormous brain-shaped web of branching circuitry, blazing with countless electrical connections. Streams of autonomous digital agents escape the structure and race across space towards Earth, linking cities, aircraft, satellites and communications infrastructure into an increasingly dense global web. Three female technicians watch anxiously from a control station as the system expands beyond their apparent command. Surveillance cameras, transparent screens and machinery crowd the complex, while the illuminated planet dominates the distance, creating an unsettling vision of advanced AI proliferating across the internet faster than its human creators can contain it.

image generated via ChatGPT

AI chiefs warn swarms of agents could seize the internet within a year, possibly destroying all life on earth. {AP 14 September}

https://whdh.com/news/new-warnings-about-the-risks-of-ai-to-humanity-revive-a-long-running-debate/

When industry leaders themselves are warning that their own creations could bring about a catastrophe of unprecedented scale, we probably ought to take heed:

FTA: LOS ANGELES (AP) — New warnings from within the artificial intelligence industry have revived a long-running debate over whether advanced AI could escape human control and ultimately threaten humanity’s survival, and whether the companies developing the technology are doing enough to prevent such a scenario.

The CEO of Anthropic, the San Francisco company behind Claude, said he thought the industry needed to reduce the speed of its work, cautioning Saturday that a swarm of AI agents might be able to take over the internet in six months to a year unless companies devoted more time to putting safeguards in place.

Dario Amodei outlined a plan for companies like his and governments around the world to ensure that increasingly capable AI models remain aligned with the commands and values of responsible people days after two former Anthropic safety researchers publicly aired concerns that the existential threats AI might pose to humanity were receiving too little attention.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, September 11, 2026

Where the waters turned

A richly detailed contemporary illustration depicts a red-haired woman with loose pigtails kneeling amid an immense sunlit lettuce field. Wearing a knotted white shirt, abbreviated denim shorts, stockings, work gloves and muddy boots, she examines an enormous head of iceberg lettuce with a troubled expression. Irrigation channels snake unnaturally through regimented crops towards distant mountains, while pipes discharge water directly into the fields. Dew beads heavily across the leaves. In the foreground, a magnified droplet contains a brilliantly coloured microscopic organism, while contaminated-looking water seeps visibly through exposed soil and roots, transforming an idyllic agricultural landscape into an unsettling visual metaphor for parasitic food contamination.

image generated via ChatGPT

FDA declares cyclospora outbreak ‘over’, though its exact origin remaineth unknown. {AP 11 September}

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/us-officials-declare-an-end-to-record-setting-cyclospora-outbreak-but-its-origin-is-still-unknown/

Yet another particularly sordid chapter in the ongoing and deliberate collapse of food safety standards in Trumpistan. Worse is to come —

FTA: The largest cyclospora food poisoning outbreak in U.S. history is over, U.S. health officials said Friday.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said they are confident that all recalled iceberg lettuce related to this specific outbreak is off the market.

Nearly 13,000 reported cyclospora cases were tied to the multistate outbreak, federal officials say. They represent the bulk of an unprecedented surge in the parasitic diarrheal illness this year.

Even with the outbreak deemed over, several questions remain, including about its origin. The parasite is spread through human feces, and it still isn’t clear how sewage could have contaminated enough food to sicken so many people.

“This contamination can happen if produce is grown in soil or comes into contact with water that has been contaminated,” said Ellen Shumaker, director of outreach for a North Carolina State University food safety program, Safe Plates.

Since May 1, the government has received reports of nearly 20,000 lab-confirmed cases, or more than 16 times the number reported during the same period last year. More than 6,100 suspected cases also have been reported.

The worst previous year in the U.S. for infections was 2019, when about 4,700 illnesses were reported nationally.

This year’s surge in cases was dominated by an outbreak in 21 states linked to iceberg lettuce. But there are thousands of other cases that have not been linked to that outbreak.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The supermarket panopticon

A contemporary editorial illustration depicts a solitary young woman standing barefoot in the centre of an immense, eerily deserted supermarket aisle. She wears a luminous ivory slip dress beneath a dark coat trailing across the polished floor, while tears stream down her face as she gazes upwards with an anxious, overwhelmed expression. Endless shelves of brightly coloured, anonymous products converge behind her beneath harsh fluorescent lighting. Glowing electronic shelf labels line both sides, surveillance cameras watch from overhead, and abandoned trolleys and baskets punctuate the aisle. The mirror-like floor repeatedly reflects fragments of the woman’s distressed face, intensifying the atmosphere of isolation, surveillance and psychological unease.

image generated via ChatGPT

AFL-CIO: electronic shelf labeling to cut grocery jobs, raise prices, even violate shoppers' privacy and basic liberties. {The Guardian 9 September}

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/09/electronic-shelf-labels-grocery

Shady, and after a fashion Orwellian. As with the proliferation of data centres, there hath arisen some pushback in certain quarters; yet, upon the whole, we have rushed headlong towards a technological hellscape for which human beings remain by nature grievously ill-equipped, and I regard this development as a significant escalation of that broader and ever more pervasive tendency. —

FTA: The universal adoption of electronic shelf labels in grocery stores across the US could cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages while further driving up grocery costs, according to a report released on Tuesday.

An analysis by the AFL-CIO Tech Institute of the label manufacturers’ own marketing materials found the universal adoption of electronic shelf labels, which are marketed to retailers as a cost-cutting measure, could cost workers between $1.6bn and $6.9bn in lost wages annually and affect between 44,223 and 191,633 jobs.

The policy brief – Priced Out, Pushed Out: Electronic Shelf Labels Raise Prices and Shrink Paychecks – calls for a ban on electronic labels to protect consumers and workers.

Manufacturers have hailed the labels as a way to collect huge amounts of personal data from customers, increase profits and cut labor costs.

The report argues that electronic shelf labels use the same pricing systems that allow dynamic pricing – price changes such as increasing allergy medication prices when pollen counts are high – to surveillance pricing, changing prices based on personal data.

These technologies are being implemented across the US retail industry at a time when food prices have surpassed inflation and wage gains, increasing 33% over the past seven years.

“Through our analysis, we found that the implementation of electronic shelf labels are likely going to drive prices even higher. The reason being that these labels are connected to the same algorithmic pricing software that online retailers are already using,” said Sunny Glottmann, policy and programs managers at the AFL-CIO Tech Institute and co-author of the report.

“Electronic shelf labels create the infrastructure that would make rapid algorithmic price changes easier to implement at scale, and this raises concerns for consumers that are already struggling with grocery costs.”

The report comes as several states have begun introducing legislation to ban surveillance pricing and electronic shelf labels. In April, Maryland became the first state in the US to ban surveillance pricing. Connecticut signed a ban into law in June and New Jersey signed a ban into law in July.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The reverberations of 11 September 2001 — from cinders unto an age of darkness

An aerial photograph of Lower Manhattan on 11 September 2001 captures the World Trade Center amid catastrophic destruction. One tower remains standing but is engulfed by immense billowing clouds of dark grey smoke from its upper floors, while enormous pale clouds of dust and debris spread through the surrounding streets and obscure much of the neighbouring skyline. Nearby office towers emerge intermittently from the haze beneath a bright blue-white sky. The elevated perspective conveys the extraordinary scale of the disaster, with the surviving skyscraper rising starkly above a landscape rapidly disappearing beneath smoke and dust.

photo: Det. Greg Semendinger, NYPD

Twenty-five years ago today. And from thence it hath been all downhill. Indeed, in looking back, certain harbingers of doom presented themselves beforehand, yet if we are to mark the beginning of America's ongoing collapse in earnest, it is unquestionably 11 September 2001. I was twenty-three then, and squandering my prime years upon garbage people and worthless vanities. And I really do not much like remembering that day, or that particular season of my life; collectively, we simply never did recover from it.

In lieu of any further commemoration, I shall only offer my gratitude to those heroes who set themselves in harm's way, together with the reflection that those so senselessly lost have, alas, missed little of lasting worth, beyond bearing witness to their country — and much of the wider world besides — descending into the proverbial sewer. It hath truly proven a wretched quarter-century; and yet some souls may one day recall our present age as the 'good ol' days', when measured against the horrors that very likely await in the next twenty-five years.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

The fractured covenant

image generated via ChatGPT

Forty per cent of Israelis polled believe there was ‘a betrayal from within’ during the 7 October 2023 attacks. {Jerusalem Post 4 September}

https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907575

FTA: Almost half of Israelis, particularly those aligned with parties that form Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, believe that there was a "betrayal from within" conspiracy around the morning of October 7, 2023, a poll published by Maariv on Friday found.

Out of the respondents, a slight plurality, at 44%, believed that there was no "betrayal from within," while 40% believed such an event did occur, and 16% said they were unsure.

The poll also broke down these results by political affiliation, with 61% of coalition voters believing there was an "betrayal from within," while 64% of opposition voters believed there was no such event.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Empire of delusions

A darkly fantastical political allegory casts Iceland as a commanding, armour-clad woman amid a frozen volcanic landscape, physically chastising a distressed, nude blonde figure representing MAGA America. Behind them, an enormous American-flag palace hangs precariously above icy waters, its grand approach leading towards an empty golden throne and council table. Fractured maps, crowns, chessboards, volcanic fissures and grotesque monuments suggest imperial delusion, geopolitical gamesmanship and national disintegration. Beneath an aurora-lit full moon, the collision of Icelandic ice, American heraldry and infernal fire gives the scene the atmosphere of a macabre fairy tale about arrogance encountering unexpectedly forceful resistance.

image generated via Grok

Iceland doth summon the US ambassador following Trump’s cartographic antics. {The New Republic 8 September}

https://newrepublic.com/post/215149/trump-sparks-diplomatic-incident-iceland-usa-map

So thoroughly blinded by choler, and so resolute to impose themselves as lords and masters over all the Western world — mark me well, I say not the whole world, so deferential are they unto Putin, Xi, Modi, Netanyahu, that funny-looking fellow in Argentina, and others of their illiberal ilk — the acolytes within the #MAGA movement shall never come to comprehend that they wound the United States of America, and themselves besides, far more grievously than they wound the Europeans, the Canadians, and perchance our friends beneath the Southern Cross as well.

The hurt done unto America’s collective reputation and international standing is beyond all reckoning. These #MAGA folk do fancy that Trump playeth some wondrous game of ‘4D chess’, and that all these other countries stand duly chastened before him, even whilst those selfsame nations, in effect, kindly bid him go hang. President Joe Biden laboured to restore America’s honour abroad following Trump’s first reign of terror; whereupon the citizenry of the country chose to confound all over again — and considerably worse than in the former bout. In the end — and should aught be left standing — Americans shall find little to relish in the fruits of universal ostracism. One need only enquire of the Russian people as to what such isolation portends.

More reputable American presidents may yet emerge hereafter, or they may not; but the fundamental matter at hand concerns the reputation of a nation’s people. We are not one people, alas, nor are we a ‘nation’ in any coherent sense, but rather an unsustainable empire presently crumbling about us.

To every American who hath repeatedly voted for this deranged and highly compromised man: y’all’s reputations lie in tatters, for having enabled so sickly a state of affairs. By all means, however, continue laughing as Trump ‘triggers’ the world at large. The joke is upon you, #Murica.

FTA: President Trump has drawn the ire of Iceland after posting a map depicting the country as part of the United States.

Along with Iceland, the image also included Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean draped in the U.S. flag. The Truth Social post, made on Labor Day, was captionless.

The post—paternalistic at best, colonial at worst—raised enough alarm in Iceland to lead the country’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdóttir, to summon U.S. Ambassador Billy Long. Gunnarsdóttir later told RUV, Iceland’s national broadcasting service, that “it was made clear at the meeting that the post was completely inappropriate.” Other Icelandic leaders felt similarly, comparing their experience to that of Greenland, which Trump has threatened to annex since he returned to office.

“It is not good to be an enemy of the United States, but it is even worse to be its friend,” alternate city councilor Stefán Pálsson told RUV.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

The plague of Summer 2026

image generated via ChatGPT

E-bike and e-scooter injuries dubbed ‘the plague of Summer 2026’ by a leading paediatric trauma surgeon. {Boston 25 8 September}

https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/25-investigates-pediatric-trauma-surgeon-calls-e-bike-e-scooter-injuries-plague-summer-2026/676GWX24UFCAFC3VGZKEV5A3OI/

Not at liberty to divulge details, but I can confirm that the younger siblings of one of the deceased children mentioned in the article continue to terrorise our community, and their pitiful excuses for parents have not shown the slightest remorse. Belligerent fools who behave as though they were living on an isolated ranch rather than in suburban Boston. Ban the bloody bikes altogether.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The slow unmaking of tomorrow

A richly detailed allegorical illustration depicts a despondent young woman sitting upon a battered teacher’s desk in a deteriorating American classroom. Wearing a white camisole, short navy skirt, stockings and red heels, she holds an open book while resting her head wearily in one hand. Towering stacks of books lean precariously beside her as loose papers swirl through the room. An antique calculating machine, abacus, globe and geometric blocks evoke traditional learning, while glowing smartphones lie conspicuously upon neglected pupil desks. Through the window, an American flag hangs beside a distant state capitol beneath a fiery sunset, suggesting an education system caught between intellectual decline, technological distraction and institutional failure.

image generated via ChatGPT

Though not the only country to see a decline, reading scores on PISA tests for US students have fallen headlong in this decade. {NYT 8 September}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/us/us-reading-test-scores-pisa.html?unlocked_article_code=1._lA.VbNO.EdEx486auG65&smid=url-share

The morrow is most bleak; abandon ye all hope —

FTA: The reading scores of American 15-year-olds have fallen sharply since 2022 and are near their lowest point in 25 years, according to the results of a key global exam released on Tuesday.

U.S. math scores are also among the lowest since the test began in 2000, even as students have held their ground in science.

By every measure, American students are being outperformed by students in Singapore and parts of China who had top scores on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, taken by 15-year-olds around the world.

It is the latest warning sign for an American education system that has seen test scores fall over the last decade, starting before the pandemic.

A telling tidbit, buried somewhat deeper within the NYT article —

Researchers urged some caution when interpreting the U.S. results. The U.S. sample included about 4,600 students from 144 schools, but response rates fell short of the PISA’s targets. The Trump administration last year slashed staffing at the federal agency responsible for administering the PISA in the United States, as part of its plan to shrink the Department of Education.

Thus, to the fullest extent within its power, this unholy régime shall labour assiduously to obscure how grievously American children are falling behind their counterparts elsewhere, most particularly in Southeast Asia. Make the problem vanish by pretending that it doth not exist. Because such a stratagem hath always worked, at all times and in all places… yeah?

What y’all voted for, #Murica. Well done.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, September 7, 2026

A harvest of distrust

A darkly whimsical Gothic illustration depicts a cavernous, deteriorating supermarket overwhelmed by disorder. Shelves and refrigerated cases remain crowded with groceries, yet packages, vegetables and containers spill across the tiled floor and tumble inexplicably from above through a sagging net. Numerous scantily clad women wander the aisles in visible distress, inspecting food, crouching beside overturned baskets or clutching groceries uncertainly. At centre, an enormous chaotic mound of discarded provisions rises beneath ominous red lights. Frayed wiring, broken fixtures, scattered receipts and neglected produce transform an ordinary grocery shop into a nightmarish emblem of a food system in collapse, where abundance coexists with contamination, waste and insecurity.

image generated via Seedream

Food safety unravels apace as recalls and inflation mount in tandem, leaving Americans burdened with pricier, toxic provender. {Axios 7 September}

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/07/food-safety-concerns-grocery-inflation

From leader of the world unto shame of all the earth. Fewer inspections, laxer regulations, watchdogs muzzled or turned away entirely, and the ravishing effects of climate change have wrought sufficient ruin that it is, in essence, no longer safe to eat within these former United States. We may debate until our faces wax blue the relative safety and nutritional value of American victuals prior to the nihilistic, nation-slaying Trump 2.0 regime — set against those of other Western nations — yet hither have we come, and here now do we stand.

What y’all voted for, #Murica —

FTA: Plenty of Americans feel like they're forking over a fortune for groceries—only to get hit with a recall notice that forces them to throw that expensive food out.

Why it matters: While grocery prices are driven by complex trade and energy costs, the safety net meant to keep them safe to eat is fraying, creating a dual crisis of affordability and safety.

The average American household pays more than $10,000 on groceries every year, and two-thirds of Americans think they're spending too much.

Prices have increased by more than 18% since 2022, although some foods have seen sharper or smaller increases.

What they're saying: "It can be really, really scary out there," Lauren Borsheim, a food policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, tells Axios.

"The Trump administration since 2025 has really just dismantled many of the fundamental protections we need to keep our food supply safe."

"We have people that are really afraid that the U.S. is not doing a good job regulating our food supply. It's definitely a concern out there that as people are spending more money on their food, they are also fearful that that same food is going to cause them to get sick," Borsheim says.

By the numbers: Recalls are relatively on par with normal levels this fiscal year, according to FDA data.

So far, 5,504 products have been recalled in 2026. That's up slightly from the 5,461 products recalled last year, but down from the 6,524 products recalled in 2024.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Bridging the pariahs

A darkly fantastical Gothic illustration depicts a newly constructed road bridge spanning a mist-shrouded river between two monumental authoritarian landscapes. Military lorries travel in procession across the pale, bone-like arches towards a forbidding red-starred citadel, while an older railway bridge carries a steam locomotive nearby. In the foreground, scantily clad women in stylised military attire gather ceremonially around an enormous pair of golden scissors and a flowing red ribbon, evoking an extravagant ribbon-cutting ritual. Watchtowers, barbed wire, abandoned helmets and boots, ravens and a colossal stone handshake reinforce the atmosphere of militarisation, repression and deepening strategic alliance beneath a blood-red crescent moon..

image generated via ChatGPT

Russia opens its first road bridge with North Korea. {DW 7 September}

https://www.dw.com/en/russia-opens-first-road-bridge-with-north-korea/a-79142595

FTA: Russia and North Korea on Monday cut the ribbon on the first road bridge linking the two countries as Moscow and Pyongyang deepen their strategic partnership.

The crossing spans the Tumen River and marks another expansion of transport links between the two countries.

The road crossing is near the existing Friendship Bridge, a railway bridge commissioned in 1959 following the Korean War.

Russia and North Korea already have direct rail and air connections, but until now there had been no road bridge between them.

The new bridge is named after Soviet Red Army officer Yakov Novichenko, who is credited with saving North Korean founder Kim Il Sung's life. Relatives of Novichenko attended the opening ceremony.

Construction began in April 2025 after the project was agreed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea in 2024.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the new crossing should boost economic development, tourism and employment.

"I am convinced that the expansion of cross-border transport infrastructure will provide a powerful impetus for the further development of trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation," the TASS news agency quoted Mishustin as saying by video link at the opening ceremony.

Relations between Moscow and Pyongyang have strengthened considerably since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

North Korea sent thousands of troops to Russia's Kursk region to help Russian forces repel a Ukrainian incursion launched in 2024.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Lost in the feed

$A feverish political illustration depicts Donald Trump standing in an ornate Oval Office, absorbed in a smartphone while a torrent of glowing digital images swirls chaotically around him. The floating screens portray exaggerated fantasies of Trump as golfer, wrestler, statesman, conqueror and heroic figure, alongside rockets, warships, eagles and other spectacles of power. Behind the desk, an astronaut appears to stride across the Moon beside an American flag, while a fractured map of the United States hangs nearby. George Washington sits at left with his head in his hand, surveying the disorder in apparent despair. The cluttered desk and cascading imagery evoke a presidency consumed by social-media fantasy while the responsibilities of government lie neglected.$

image generated via ChatGPT

Just another day in Trumpistan: US president declares American ownership of the moon, vows to rechristen the state of New Mexico. {Huffington Post 7 September}

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-truth-social_n_6a9e3a64e4b00f094b1a67ea

FTA: Between 9:10 a.m. and 10:35 p.m., the president fired off more than 60 messages, links, memes, rants, personal attacks, endorsements, boasts, and AI slop creations.

Clearly, Donald Trump is not a well man; yet the very nation that descended into collective panic when President Joe Biden endured a mild senior moment during a debate now simply cannot trouble itself to care all that much, as this president decomposes before our eyes. Whence finds this orange-sprayed circus clown the leisure to dally, incessantly, upon social media? Hath he not a job of some considerable weight to perform? To all appearances, nobody is running the store at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — for all about us hastens headlong toward perdition. A mean-spirited dotard posts phantasmagorical videos of himself capering to ‘Y.M.C.A.’, heaps vilification upon such worthy men as Robert De Niro and the late Rep. John Dingell, repeatedly stabs our sister nation of Canada and other traditional allies squarely in the back, vows to rename an entire state on a whim, and the greater part of this dying realm either applauds the spectacle or merely shrugs it away. Meanwhile, we who never consented to this mountebank’s coronation are at once exhausted beyond all articulation and perpetually astounded — to be sure, exactly the design.

A further question presses: how doth Trump’s enfeebled mind even digest the ceaseless torrent of digital ephemera he both consumes and disseminates? He is all but brain dead at this pass. The sycophants about him feed him his daily pabulum of memes and assorted gaga, by day and by night. It seemeth their only real purpose is to keep this big baby amused. Anything to avoid having to govern in earnest: for he and they have proven, time out of mind, altogether incapable of it. All of this is happening on taxpayers’ dime, yet most tolerate or endorse it so long as they may continue to delude themselves into believing they are thereby ‘owning the libs’.

Ten years have this nightmare endured, and its blackest leaves remain yet unwritten. What y’all voted for, #Murica — and a certain gentleman seated in the Kremlin, together with every enemy of human liberty besides, do render y’all their most grateful thanks.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Wired for obedience

A lavishly detailed illustration depicts a vast government polygraph chamber crowded exclusively with women in stylised 1940s-inspired military and clerical attire. At centre, a dark-haired woman reclines in a testing chair wearing a pale slip, electrodes attached to her fingers and a blood-pressure cuff encircling her arm, while a red-haired examiner leans closely beside her. Banks of analogue machinery, tangled cables and continuously feeding graph paper dominate the room as other women undergo tests, scrutinise records or confer intimately at their desks. Filing cabinets and American flags line the walls, while a monumental eagle seal presides over the scene, transforming bureaucratic surveillance into an atmosphere of institutional secrecy, suspicion and coercive scrutiny.

image generated via ChatGPT

No trust whatsoever in Hegseth’s severely compromised Pentagon: in an unprecedented move, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are subjected to polygraph tests over press leaks. {NYT 4 September}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/us/politics/pentagon-staff-polygraph-tests.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-1A.T2lb.yfe3zweF0P0V&smid=url-share

FTA: U.S. government investigators have taken the extraordinary step of subjecting roughly 50 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests over leaks to journalists, including about how the Iran war has created a shortage of crucial munitions, according to officials briefed on the move.

The investigators asked military officers and civilian employees on the Joint Staff if they disclosed classified information to members of the press, and about whether they provided information about diminished U.S. munitions stocks.

The polygraph tests were conducted in August after a flurry of news reports detailed diminished stocks of crucial munitions, including of long-range missiles and Patriot interceptors. The show of force appeared aimed at not just ferreting out anyone who may have shared information, but intimidating others who might do so in the future, according to people with knowledge of the effort.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 officers and officials work for the Joint Staff, which coordinates operations, policy and war plans with combatant commanders around the world.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that the department “does not comment on internal personnel or investigative matters but takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly.”

“Securing classified information is critical to ensuring the security of the United States and of our troops deployed around the world,” he added.

The scope of the investigation is without parallel. Mass polygraph tests have never been administered to the top ranks of the U.S. military in modern history.

“I’ve never seen polygraphs employed this broadly or at this seniority level,” said Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter, a retired top judge advocate general for the Navy from 2000 to 2002. “In my experience, it’s unprecedented.”

The move comes as multiple news organizations have revealed details about how the war with Iran has drained munition stockpiles and reported on concerns inside the administration about the strategic direction of the conflict.

President Trump has pressured administration officials to aggressively hunt for those leaking information. But the president has gone further than merely trying to stop the flow of unauthorized information; he has labeled “treasonous” the media coverage that is critical of the U.S. handling of the war in Iran and the shortages of munitions.

The leaks have intensified an atmosphere of deep distrust and paranoia inside the Pentagon, one that current and former officials say has been fostered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Surrounded by a tight inner circle of loyalists, Mr. Hegseth has pushed out or blocked the promotions of at least 80 generals, admirals and other officials during his tenure. Since early last year, the Pentagon has been conducting a number of leak investigations in response to news coverage about his leadership, even as he faced criticism for sharing sensitive details about strikes in Yemen in a Signal group last year.

Mr. Hegseth has not given a briefing to the Pentagon press corps about the U.S. war in Iran since May 5 and has sought to limit the access of journalists at the Pentagon, a policy that The New York Times has challenged in court.

Last month, the Defense Department fired the publisher and the editor in chief of Stars and Stripes, a government-funded news outlet that reports on the U.S. military, a move the journalists said was retribution for their coverage of the worsening conditions on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Trump has stood by Mr. Hegseth, saying he is doing a “fantastic job,” despite growing concerns about the leadership turmoil inside the Pentagon.

Recently, some Republicans on Capitol Hill have begun publicly voicing criticism of the Pentagon secretary, saying he is mistreating top officials.

“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a social media post this week, calling on Mr. Trump to replace Mr. Hegseth.

“He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force,” Mr. Tillis said.

Mr. Tillis was among the senators who voted to confirm Mr. Hegseth for the role in early 2025, despite having voiced concerns about his nomination.’

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, September 4, 2026

The wilderness we betray

A dramatic allegorical illustration depicts a nude, red-haired woman standing barefoot upon rocks in an expansive ranch landscape, protectively embracing a wounded grey wolf against her body. Blood marks the animal’s flank, while the woman stares directly towards the viewer with a grave, defiant expression. Behind them, fenced pastureland, grazing cattle and a distant barn extend beneath turbulent storm clouds. A rifle and coiled rope hang conspicuously from a fence post, evoking the lethal authority of the rancher, while ravens circle overhead. Most ominously, the enormous shadow of a howling wolf rises across the clouds, transforming the injured creature into a spectral emblem of threatened wilderness, persecution and impending loss.

image generated via Seedream

Trump signs order ‘encouraging’ states to let ranchers kill gray wolves, gleefully proclaiming ‘you can shoot them as of today’. {Mediaite 4 September}

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-gives-reluctant-ranchers-the-go-ahead-to-take-care-of-endangered-species-you-can-shoot-them-as-of-today/

Understanding full well that there may be justifiable circumstances in which — and only after every other reasonable recourse hath been exhausted — a rancher must protect himself, his family, or his livestock from a dangerous wild animal, I do not believe this to be the primary motivation for Trump taking this action. Greasing the palms of the agriculture industry is a reason, certainly, yet the cruelty itself seemeth, more often than not, to be precisely the point of his public conduct. And I do not think the majority of American ranchers relish the prospect of shooting endangered species, as the president himself doth appear to — but it is grievous news for wildlife, and for every soul who harbours genuine concern for creatures other than ourselves.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The last watch before the storm

A richly detailed allegorical illustration depicts six scantily clad women defending a fortified European stronghold beneath a divided, apocalyptic sky. At centre, a barefoot blonde woman stands beside a battered shield bearing a map of Europe encircled by stars, while companions repair armour, survey the horizon through binoculars and prepare arrows and lanterns. European Union and NATO symbolism appears amid weathered battlements and military equipment. Beyond them, a devastated landscape burns beneath a colossal, dark double-headed eagle formed from smoke and flame, its wings spreading across a blood-red sky. The contrast between the embattled blue-and-gold citadel and the infernal horizon evokes a continent confronting an increasingly existential military threat.

image generated via ChatGPT

The EU and NATO have exhausted nearly the whole of their available options in confronting the terrorist state Russia. {NYT 4 September}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/world/europe/russia-europe-nato-sabotage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-lA.bhtU.jLwng-1AzHWM&smid=url-share

All-out war appears an ever more serious prospect. —

FTA: Russia’s failed drone attack on a German airport was part of a dangerous pattern of escalation that, experts and officials said, risks sparking an open confrontation with NATO — whether the Kremlin wants it or not.

German officials declared this week that the Russian state was behind the attack, in which one explosive drone hit a parked Ukrainian cargo plane and another appeared to collide with a plane taking off. Both drones failed to detonate. If successful, the attack could have killed or maimed people and led to unpredictable consequences, officials said.

It was the most dramatic in a spate of such attacks that includes plots to place incendiary devices aboard DHL cargo planes, blow up railroad tracks in Poland, and burn down warehouses and shopping centers all over Europe.

Such attacks began occurring shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, part of an effort by President Vladimir V. Putin to bring the war to the West. But they have recently increased in frequency and intensity, Western security officials said. The attacks, along with recent reports citing Western intelligence services suggesting Russia could be planning some kind of military incursion or provocation along NATO’s eastern flank, have frazzled Europe and left officials there casting about for solutions.

And how shall the former United States and its people — now under the governance of those who are, inarguably, just a bit more friendly unto the Kremlin than were prior administrations, yet still a NATO member — react if and when a wider European war begins in earnest? —

FTA: Another challenge for NATO is keeping its 32 member countries aligned. After Germany’s announcement this week, a chorus of allies voiced support and solidarity, including the American ambassador to NATO, Matthew G. Whitaker. Notably, though, his statement did not mention Russia by name. By contrast, a statement by Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain named Russia three times.

The omission was an example of the failure by the Trump administration to hold the Kremlin accountable. Since taking office last year, Mr. Trump has occasionally dangled the possibility of imposing costs on Mr. Putin’s transgressions, but he has rarely followed through.

Last week at NATO headquarters, Elbridge Colby, a senior Pentagon official, also omitted any mention of Russia while pushing European countries to take the lead in supporting Ukraine, part of an effort to reduce U.S. military presence on the continent. And on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blamed Ukraine for high energy prices dragging down the global economy, citing its attacks on Russia’s oil industry. He did not mention that Russia started the war and has relentlessly targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

It is the threat of a united response, Western officials believe, that keeps the Kremlin in check. And it is that unity that Mr. Putin seems to be testing with each new attack.

For now, Western officials insist that NATO retains its deterrent effect, though the ambivalence of the Trump administration has created uncertainty about whether it will continue to.

Personally, I do not believe Trumpistan shall remain within NATO for very much longer. Trump shall abandon the alliance when push cometh to shove, and hath said or implied as much on many occasions through the years. He was making noise of this during his first reign of terror, when there were more guardrails keeping in his lane than there are now. Alas, I see but little to encourage me that the majority of the American people would be outraged at such a move — the grave betrayal of European allies. Most citizens would be baying about not wishing to shed blood for the ‘Europoors’ — look about oneself, and one shall not have to look too hard: Europhobia is presently all the rage among #MAGA and ‘conservative’ Americans. We heard the incessant whining, whilst Mr Biden yet held office, about the billions in necessary military aid sent for the defence of Ukraine. Some years back it would have been unthinkable, but it is no longer hard to imagine the American public writ large being content to see their country break faith with its international commitments and collectively spit upon the face of all it hath purported to stand for since the Second World War. The likely consequences for such, on the other hand, are unimaginable.

What y’all voted for, #Murica.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The myth after the man: a cult shall outlive its king

A densely detailed Gothic illustration depicts an extravagant moonlit cult of personality centred upon monumental statues and portraits of Donald Trump. An immense stone figure dominates the composition, surrounded by busts, fountains and colossal carved likenesses integrated into a fantastical palace garden. Numerous scantily clad women in black, crimson and ivory garments kneel, embrace, kiss and caress the monuments in gestures of fervent adoration, while roses, candles, gargoyles and gilded ornament heighten the atmosphere of decadent ritual. Repeated representations of the same leader extend into the distance, transforming political hero-worship into an eerie spectacle of idolatry, excess and manufactured immortality.

image generated via ChatGPT

Trump, on the raising of monuments unto himself: ‘Nobody will do it once I’m gone’. {CNN 4 September}

https://www.kten.com/news/politics/trump-doesn-t-dispute-he-s-building-monuments-to-himself-nobody-will-do-it-once/article_c5df451c-87aa-5e20-94a4-af52c1035877.html

I would say the president doth exhibit a measure of genuine perceptiveness, for once, as most of us are not going to lament his eventual departure from the stage of life — though decrepit as he is now, it is going to be many years still as I am convinced God is employing this man as an instrument of chastisement against the United States of America for its manifold transgressions, and shall preserve him unto an absurd age purely to prolong our torment. Yet in truth, Trump may be mistaken (imagine that), for millions of #Muricans remain so far gone into this cult of personality that even after he be dead, they shall endeavour to deify him regardless — a diminished number, seeing as many others shall themselves have departed this earth within some twenty to twenty-five years, and supposing the planet hath not by then been reduced to ruin (looking like a big ‘if’).

Even should this constitute but a modest fraction of the population, they shall nonetheless venerate Donald Trump in death. Decades after his denunciation by Khrushchev, and long past even the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, no small number of souls within his native country of Georgia, and throughout Russia and other lands once Soviet, did continue to lionise Joseph Stalin. Maoist guerrilla movements remain active in parts of South Asia. And, naturally, there have always existed those neo-Nazis harbouring an affection for Hitler, together with a full disregard for the reasons that rendered Nazism so catastrophic a failure on every conceivable level — and their numbers, indeed, are expanding, as neo-fascist doctrine continueth to poison the minds of millions, whilst living memory of the Third Reich’s horrors fades away with the passage of time.

Whether Trump doth genuinely belong in the same company as brutal tyrants and suchlike, I shall not here address — nor do I believe, even now, that most of us wish in earnest to entertain whether any elected American president might be justly likened unto some of history’s worst monsters, howsoever we may hold a given president in contempt. At the very least, however, he is as reviled across the globe as almost any political leader within living memory. Perchance Vladimir Putin is held in worse regard, and that would be deserved. No matter: the world at large shall not mourn Donald Trump upon his day of reckoning, yet his hold upon the most fervent of his acolytes shall, if anything, only grow stronger. It mattereth not how corrupt and inept the man doth prove to be in our own time, for in fifty to seventy-five years hence, there shall doubtless remain those who account Trump a folk hero and cultural icon — assuming, once again, that the planet itself remains standing to bear witness. Nothing is guaranteed... save for more misery, so long as this whoreson knave and his cult maintain their stranglehold upon the rest of us.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Minting a monarchy

image generated via ChatGPT

Gold-plated Trump $1 coins enter circulation, contravening long-standing U.S. Code barring living figures appearing on currency. {WP 2 September}

https://wapo.st/4xKQCnq

As we have been discovering over the past decade, in a banana republic laws and traditions mean very little and do not apply to the political elite. —

FTA: The U.S. Mint said Wednesday that new golden $1 coins featuring President Donald Trump’s image are now in circulation, marking only the second time in U.S. history that a living president has appeared on U.S. coinage.

The Trump coins, intended to mark the United States’ 250th birthday, were first proposed last year and drew controversy and questions about their legality.

One side of the coin features an image of Trump’s face and is inscribed with “Liberty,” “In God We Trust” and “1776-2026.” The other side of the coin depicts an eagle holding an olive branch and arrows in its talons, along with a banner that reads “E Pluribus Unum.”

The U.S. Mint will begin selling the Trump coins on its website at noon Wednesday at a markup of more than 50 percent above their face value. Rolls of 25 coins will cost $61 and bags of 100 coins will cost $154.50, according to its website.

When the coins were first proposed last year, draft images showed Trump’s image on both sides of the coin. At the time, a bipartisan committee that reviews U.S. coin designs balked at taking up the proposal, with members saying that putting a sitting president on currency would break with democratic norms.

GOP and Democratic members of that committee — the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee — also warned the U.S. Mint not to move forward with any plan to put Trump’s face on coins.

“The CCAC has not been presented with a Trump gold coin for review. If they make it without our review, it will be illegal,” Donald Scarinci, a Democrat whom Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) named to the committee, told The Washington Post in June.

Mint officials argued that because the committee declined to consider the coin, the administration was not bound by its review, and pressed forward with the coin’s production.

Under a law passed in 2020, the Treasury Department can mint $1 coins during 2026 to mark the 250th anniversary “with designs emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial.”

However, according to U.S. Code, “[o]nly the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities” — a law that sprung from a Colonial-era tradition against putting current presidents on American coins, to distance them from the British monarchy.

Treasury officials have defended the Trump coin’s design, noting that the image of President Calvin Coolidge appeared on a coin for the United States’ 150th anniversary.

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Presidential $1 Coin Act, directing the U.S. Mint to issue a line of dollar coins honoring past U.S. presidents in the order they served — but only those who had been deceased for at least two years. The U.S. Mint suspended issuing those presidential coins in 2011.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

The reckoning in the Pentagon

image generated via Grok

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis urges Trump to fire Pete Hegseth, says ‘I have never witnessed more inept management’ at the Pentagon. {Mediate 2 September}

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/republican-senator-urges-trump-to-fire-hegseth-i-have-never-witnessed-more-inept-management/

FTA: Republican Senator Thom Tillis is pushing President Donald Trump to show Pete Hegseth the door.

In a long-winded X post on Wednesday, Tillis thanked outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll for his leadership, calling him “the right man at the right moment to lead our Soldiers and Army civilians.”

The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that Driscoll would step down before the end of the year amid “months of tension” with Hegseth.

Tillis then turned his attention — and some venom — to Hegseth.

“If we had a [Defense secretary] who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement,” Tillis wrote. “Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”

He added:

I served on Senate Armed Services for 8 years and as chair or ranking member of the Personnel and Readiness subcommittee. I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.

Concluding, Tillis delivered a final knockout blow, saying, “I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”

With his demand, Tillis has joined numerous other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have called for Hegseth’s firing.

Earlier Wednesday, The Atlantic reported that Trump “expressed concern” when Driscoll went to the commander in chief directly to tell him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over for promotion under Hegseth.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

A fresh coat of whitewash

A richly detailed illustration depicts a solitary blonde woman standing beside an ornate wooden desk within a dimly illuminated collegiate football museum. Wearing a short navy satin dress and matching heels, she gazes directly towards the viewer while an empty stadium looms through expansive windows behind her. Glass cabinets display footballs, helmets, trophies and other sporting memorabilia beneath framed archival photographs. At right, however, a large section of the navy wall has been conspicuously covered in fresh white paint, with a roller and open tin abandoned below. The stark unfinished patch disrupts the museum’s polished reverence, serving as an unmistakable visual metaphor for institutional whitewashing and the deliberate obscuring of an uncomfortable legacy.

image generated via Grok

Penn State University to honour the late, disgraced Joe Paterno — he who overlooked what his defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was doing to children for years — with a museum exhibit. {ESPN 2 September}

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/49804479/penn-state-open-paterno-family-football-experience

Should we be surprised in a country that allows a likely paedophile to be president? No matter, in any event. Whitewashing the tarnished legacy of their beloved ‘Joe Pa’, and that of the football programme itself, hath always appeared to matter far more to these people than confronting the full moral weight of the scandal. Those whose lives were forever ruined by Sandusky’s actions — and by the inaction of Paterno and numerous other culpable parties in State College — can just suck it up, I suppose.

FTA: Penn State has announced it is opening the Paterno Family Football Experience Room in the All-Sports Museum inside Beaver Stadium on Thursday, a "permanent museum experience" the school says will celebrate Penn State's football history.

The museum will now include a Joe Paterno exhibit, featuring the former Penn State coach's original office desk and workspace, personal artifacts and a curated timeline documenting significant moments from his more than six decades with the Nittany Lions. The museum will also hold Penn State trophies, commemorating past achievements by individual teams and players.

"Penn State Football's history belongs to generations of student-athletes, coaches, staff and supporters who helped build this program," athletic director Pat Kraft said in a statement. "This room gives us an opportunity to preserve that history, present it thoughtfully and create an experience that connects the proud tradition of Penn State Football with its future."

The museum exhibit will open a little over 14 years since the school removed Paterno's statue outside the stadium, in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky's crimes. Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant under Paterno, was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period and sentenced to at least 30 years in prison. Paterno was fired in November 2011.

An internal report headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh later concluded that Paterno and other university leaders "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade." The university and the Paterno family came to a settlement over the Freeh report in 2020. In that settlement release, the Penn State Trustees said the Freeh report contained "opinions about individuals and matters that are not shared by the university."

Paterno, who won 409 games from 1966 to 2011 at Penn State, died in 2012, just months after his firing. The Nittany Lions, under new coach Matt Campbell, open the season Saturday at home against Marshall.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

The market above the abyss

A densely symbolic illustration depicts a towering financial metropolis at night, rendered in deep blue and incandescent orange. A blazing stock-market graph surges erratically across the skyscrapers before arcing overhead, while a steam locomotive races along a precarious elevated track beside a charging Wall Street bull. Beneath the city, enormous gears, pressure gauges, pistons and pipelines expose a vast industrial mechanism sustaining the apparent prosperity above. A glass lift containing a miniature illuminated skyline descends into the machinery, while an immense fissure opens towards a harbour at sunset, suggesting that spectacular market growth rests upon increasingly unstable foundations.

image generated via ChatGPT

Historical precedent and Trump-related chaos suggest a US stock market crash is a legitimate possibility. {The Motley Fool 1 September}

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/stock-market-crash-imminent-under-082601339.html

FTA: The stock market has soared under President Trump.

But these gains under President Trump have also occurred amid historic bouts of volatility. During the unforeseen COVID-19 crash, the broad-based S&P 500 shed 34% of its value in 33 calendar days. Likewise, the "tariff tantrum" in early April 2025 witnessed the S&P 500 lose more than 10% of its value over just two trading sessions.

It begs the question: Is a stock market crash imminent under President Donald Trump?

While short-term directional moves in Wall Street's major stock indexes can't be guaranteed, 85 years of historical precedent offers an answer -- and investors might not be thrilled with it.

Trump's second term has been packed with geopolitical/major events

Since Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, he's been somewhat of a magnet for major geopolitical and historical events.

There was the aforementioned tariff tantrum, involving the April 2025 unveiling of sweeping global tariffs and higher reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries deemed to have unfavorable trade imbalances with America. The U.S. also bombed nuclear facilities in Iran in June 2025, removed Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro, in early January 2026, and began military operations against Iran at the end of February 2026.

Shortly after the Trump-led Iran war began, Carson Group's Chief Market Strategist, Ryan Detrick, published a data set to X (formerly Twitter) examining the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 at various intervals following more than three dozen stock market shock events since the start of 1940.

Using data from S&P Dow Jones Indices, CFRA, and Carson Group's own research, Detrick and his team determined that, on average, the S&P 500 gained 3% one year after a market shock event officially began. Furthermore, the S&P 500 was higher following 65% of qualifying shock events.

Although a 3% gain is well below the long-term annualized return of the broad-based S&P 500, it's nevertheless a positive outcome amid heightened periods of uncertainty.

Based solely on the headline figure from Detrick's data set, a stock market crash doesn't appear likely under President Trump. However, there's a bit more nuance to Carson Group's data set than meets the eye.

One scenario makes stock market crashes likelier, and Trump is overseeing it right now

Though nearly two-thirds of geopolitical and major market shock events spanning more than 85 years were followed by S&P 500 gains after 12 months, several of the losing events shared a common theme: energy supply disruption.

In October 1956, Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalized in July 1956. The closure of the Suez Canal disrupted oil shipments from the Middle East to Western Europe. The S&P 500 was lower by nearly 12% one year later.

The Oil Embargo of 1973 was an even bigger shock to Wall Street. Arab members of OPEC stopped selling oil to the U.S. and other allies of Israel, leading to a petroleum shortage and substantially higher fuel costs. The benchmark S&P 500 lost 35% of its value over the next year.

The ongoing Iran war features the largest energy supply disruption in modern history. Shortly after Trump approved military attacks against Iran, the latter closed the Strait of Hormuz to virtually all maritime traffic. This effectively halted the daily movement of a fifth of the world's petroleum liquids (about 20 million barrels/day).

Energy supply shocks are the one geopolitical/major historical event that history shows Wall Street struggles to put in the back seat. While this doesn't mean a stock market crash is in any way imminent or guaranteed under President Trump, the likelihood of an elevator-down move amid the largest energy disruption in modern history is certainly heightened.

Making matters worse, evidence is mounting that Iran-war-driven Trumpflation has spilled beyond the energy sector. The price stickiness of Core Personal Consumption Expenditures, which excludes volatile food and energy costs and provides economists with a clearer view of long-term price trends, has been stuck at roughly 3.3%-3.4% for months. This suggests that businesses are incurring higher production and transportation costs as a result of the Strait of Hormuz's closure, which are being passed on to consumers.

If Trump-driven inflation (i.e., Trumpflation) entrenches itself in the broader economy, persistently elevated inflation would make outsize stock market returns unlikely.

While there's no imminent threat of a stock market crash under Donald Trump, the historical puzzle pieces do suggest a heightened likelihood of an elevator-down move and/or a substantial pullback in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, August 31, 2026

Blue hour in the neighbourhood

image generated via ChatGPT

Florida: an eleven-year-old boy menaces other children on the playground with a semi-automatic handgun. {WCJB/Gray News 31 August}

https://www.wafb.com/2026/08/31/11-year-old-threatens-children-with-gun-playground-deputies-say/

FTA: ALACHUA COUNTY, Fla. (WCJB/Gray News) - Florida deputies arrested an 11-year-old boy accused of threatening other children with a gun at a neighborhood playground.

Alachua County Sheriff’s deputies say they were called to reports of an armed disturbance in a neighborhood near Eastside High School on Saturday morning. The incident, they said, did not happen on campus.

Two children told deputies that they were inside a home when they saw the 11-year-old suspect through their window on the playground.

An argument broke out, and they said the suspect grabbed a semi-automatic handgun. He then allegedly walked up to the victim’s window and knocked on it with the gun, threatening to shoot them.

An adult in the house called 911, and the suspect left the area. Deputies found the boy at his home and arrested him.

The 11-year-old was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without the intention to kill.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈