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#Murica: consumers adapt to the largest hike in grocery prices in fifty years by cutting back, sometimes drastically. {AP 25 July}
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Saturday, July 25, 2026
Empty cupboards, heavy hearts
#Murica: consumers adapt to the largest hike in grocery prices in fifty years by cutting back, sometimes drastically. {AP 25 July}
The scorching of green and pleasant land
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| image generated via ChatGPT |
Another sweltering heatwave heading to the UK and much of Europe, with temperatures potentially exceeding 110°F. {The Mirror 25 July}
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-met-office-heatwave-37475303
Godspeed, this is scary.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Render unto Caesar everything: the Christian faith held hostage in #Murica
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| image generated via ChatGPT |
Few ever dare to defect, but those who have left #MAGA/Christian Nationalism behind shine a spotlight on the perverted, tyrannical disgrace American Christianity hath become. {Huffington Post 25 July}
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-christianity-leaving-stories-goog_l_6a63a519e4b0c6ebcf31edf8
If Jesus approves of #MAGA — and maybe He does, I know not — then I want nothing to do with Him. Some, of course, are reading this and saying that He is a fictional character, no more real than Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. I seriously doubt we would ever be so fortunate as to escape this life and not have to answer to a higher power; that we would be as lucky as to walk away and have eternal peace without a reckoning. At this stage of my life, I do not make any bones about it: I believe Jesus is the son of God and saviour of Mankind predominantly out of fear of going to Hell, a lack of any certainty whatsoever concerning alternative beliefs, and a certain fondness for a brand of non-intrusive, mainline Christianity — Yankee Protestantism — that hath almost completely gone the way of the dinosaurs (and actual Yankees) by now. I was baptised as an Episcopalian in 1978, once among the leading faith traditions in New England but now just about extinct. The church in which I was baptised is now controlled by another congregation (a Korean Adventist sect, if memory serves), and other Episcopal churches in the area are gone. Protestant Christianity in this country hath been swallowed up whole by the evangelicals and fundamentalists, and their political allies in the Republican Party. What even is ‘mainline’ Christianity anymore?
Should He indeed be real, we know not His political affiliations, only that He is allowing this nation-killing regime to destroy a realm that hath long regarded itself as Christian. America is mentioned nowhere in the Bible — though some interpret the Babylon in the Book of Revelation as America, which would start to explain a lot of things to my mind — and God will still be in control long after the political unit that is still technically known as the United States of America (Trumpistan) hath been dissolved and lost to history. I know not if Jesus and His Father have blessed American Christian Nationalists, or whether They are merely enabling them and their reprobate leader to teach us some sort of lesson, or whatever the case.
I am merely grateful to have the freedom to think for myself; and to not be enslaved to a vicious cult that — among a number of other odious beliefs and practices — requires fealty to a wayward political party — to any political faction, period — and to the world’s most obnoxious and obvious conman and swindler. I am also grateful to be in Massachusetts Bay Colony, where relative sanity still reigns, and not living in one of the thousands of Trumpvilles all around ‘red state’ #Murica. Those are not truly free societies, and they shall remain deeply illiberal so long as the majority of their denizens fear a genuinely free and diverse world. Simply put, they shall give lip service to ‘freedumb’ all day and night, but their idea of genuine liberty is absurdly complicated and profoundly compromised.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Friday, July 24, 2026
Curating history by decree
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Trump orders signs placed outside the Smithsonian Institution warning of ‘inaccurate’ exhibits. {AP 24 July}
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-orders-signs-outside-smithsonian-225114277.html
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook.
Hunting the architects of chaos
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‘Europol shuts down thousands of websites linked to global nihilist network’. {Brussels Times 24 July}
Whilst the government of the former United States is preoccupied with military adventurism abroad and the glorification of President Trump at home, Europe is addressing genuine threats and taking meaningful action. FTA:
Europol has taken down around 4,340 websites containing violent and extremist material linked to the online network known as 'The Com', in a joint operation involving several EU member states, including Belgium.
The EU's law enforcement agency said the operation aims to dismantle the propaganda network and reduce the reach of its harmful online content.
According to Europol, 'The Com' is a loose network of online groups that promote a nihilistic and misanthropic worldview.
The groups recruit members through social media platforms and online gaming communities before encouraging them to commit acts including animal torture, violent assaults, self-harm and the production of child sexual abuse material.
Europol warned that the network primarily targets young people and operates not only on the dark web but also across mainstream social media platforms.
"Social media algorithms expose young people to extremist content, whether they actively seek it out or not. What initially appears harmless can quickly escalate into extreme violence and deeply traumatic material," the agency said.
Victims are often blackmailed into remaining in the groups, with perpetrators threatening to share intimate images or videos with family and friends.
Some of the groups also use far-right symbols and terminology to promote their ideology or provoke public outrage.
Over the past two years, Europol said 'The Com' has evolved into a major global threat, with minors increasingly becoming both victims and perpetrators of crime.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
The capitalist backlash and the growing appeal of socialism in Trumpistan
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Poll suggests that even some Republican voters may be losing faith in capitalism. {CNN 23 July}
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ar-AA28yb43
Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. American capitalism, at least as it presently exists, is corrupt, bloated, and in dire need of reform and restraint. We could start with regulating the content of these inane television commercials. I digress, however, for the words ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ still scare the majority of the American people, and not entirely without reason. Communism was and is — look to Cuba and North Korea — a brutal and inhumane system of governance. Leftists can, and will, try to sugarcoat matters all they want, but many of the most notorious dictators of the twentieth century — Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, CeauΘescu — were Marxist-Leninists. Nor is it a coincidence that such ideologies have repeatedly attracted ruthless authoritarians willing to subordinate individual liberty to the demands of the state. Fascism combined authoritarian nationalism with extensive state control and accommodation of powerful private interests, producing one of history's most destructive political systems, the worst of all worlds — and, perhaps, the closest historical relative to what exists in the former United States of America today.
Absurd, pie-in-the-sky ideology requires ruthlessness and suppression of human rights in order to implement and enforce; not entirely unlike forcing an entire empire (#Murica) to revolve around the ego and ambitions of one extremely flawed and pathetically insecure man. Perhaps some Americans believe it could not get any worse by now, but that is rather a moot point as everything is going to get worse still: so long as this buffoon remains president, and so long as everybody, left and right, is flirting with previously failed economic and political ideologies, instead of coming up with practical solutions — within the context of our democratic and free market traditions — on how to fix what is broken. Old-fashioned, reasonable, and measured centrism is the most unfashionable thing in the world right now, but it direly needs to make a comeback: boring and safe is far preferable to constantly teetering on the edge of the cliff, and will always produce greater prosperity and liberty than constant chaos.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Freedom does not come with a reimbursement form
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J6 insurrectionists have cost the former United States of America $2.7 billion, and now they want more. {Citizens for Ethics 22 July}
Now they are out to fleece American taxpayers once again. And guess whose side the President and his Department of Justice are on? Certainly not yours — assuming, of course, that one is not a J6 insurrectionist. If any J6 insurrectionists are reading this, kindly remove yourselves from the gene pool, motherf**king thugs.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
The war on others begins within
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| Getty Images |
Closetocracy: Hunter Biden nails the GOP 'closeted gay mafia' America's enemy within. {Pink News 22 July}
https://www.thepinknews.com/2026/07/21/hunter-biden-closeted-gay-republicans/
FTA: “Everybody knows there is this closeted gay mafia, largely Republican, that exists in Washington, D.C., and everybody knows every single one of them who’s gay,” he said.
He did not name any individuals.
Biden argued that the claim’s relevance was in what he saw as the psychological toll of living in the closet. “I believe that internal conflict creates so much vitriol inside a person that they take it out on the rest of the world, and they do,” he said.
“Their whole lives they’ve been closeted and so you have this… blackened heart by the fact that you can’t be who you want to be, so you take it out on everybody else.”
The comments quickly went viral, with the coined term “closetocracy” trending online.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Teaching abstinence, cutting answers
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Trump regime shifts teen pregnancy policy to abstinence and marriage, echoing Project 2025's theocratic vision. {NYT 22 June}
As one who believes our world is already profoundly overpopulated, and that humanity's present trajectory is environmentally unsustainable, I have no desire to see more teenagers becoming parents… or most anyone else. Bringing a child into the world ought to be among the most carefully considered decisions any person ever makes, not something undertaken casually or because of social pressure, religious dogma, or political ideology.
Suggesting that teenagers delay sexual activity is not, in and of itself, unreasonable. Expecting abstinence, however — particularly as the centrepiece of public policy — is another matter entirely. Decades of evidence tell us that comprehensive sex education and reliable access to contraception are far more effective at reducing unintended teenage pregnancies than abstinence-only programmes. Teen pregnancy rates have fallen dramatically over recent decades, and access to contraception is absolutely the reason why. It works, and it ought to be readily available to anyone who needs it without any shame or guilt.
Alas, the Christian Nationalists (or ‘Christofascists’) will never be satisfied with that conclusion because abstinence is not truly the destination they seek. Their broader vision places marriage and childbearing at the centre of young adulthood, reflecting a social order more reminiscent of the nineteenth century than the twenty-first. Modern societies are more complex than agrarian communities of centuries past; young adults spend longer in education, enter stable careers later, and face housing costs and economic pressures unknown to previous generations. Encouraging earlier marriage and parenthood does not resolve those realities; it does not merely ignore reality, it openly defies it.
Ideology is increasingly replacing evidence. Public-health policy ought to be judged by measurable outcomes rather than theological preference. If a programme demonstrably reduces unintended pregnancies, improves maternal health, and gives young people greater control over their futures, abandoning it for ideological reasons strikes me as not merely profoundly irresponsible, but sinister in its intent.
Humanity already consumes resources at a rate the planet cannot sustain, whilst climate change increasingly demonstrates that ecological limits are not theoretical abstractions. Obviously some level of reproduction is necessary to keep the species from extinction, but we should be encouraging thoughtful, deliberate parenthood, not treating reproduction as a cultural or political obligation. Bringing children into the world should be an act of responsibility, not ideology, and I do not believe every man or woman deserves the privilege (another rant for another day).
I predict, within a few years, America shall begin seeing teenage pregnancy rates climb once more as comprehensive sex education and access to contraception continue to be undermined. When that day comes, we shall know exactly who bears responsibility. After all, this is what y'all voted for, #Muricans.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
When healing becomes a luxury: the high cost of political theatre
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Arsonist Trump sets 100% tariff on generic drugs from August 2028, doubling a year later — pure nihilism. {Bloomberg 21 July}
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/trump-plans-100-tariff-generic-230559381.html
FTA: (Bloomberg) -- The US plans to impose a 100% tariff on generic drugs imported to the US beginning in August 2028, President Donald Trump said in a social media post Tuesday.
That levy would then double a year later to 200% in August 2029.
"This is done in order to RESHORE Generic Pharmaceutical Production into America, with a penalty to those Companies that decide not to build Plant and Equipment within the stated period of time given to them," Trump said in the post.
Trump said his administration's tariff plans related to patented drugs would remain unchanged.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
The Truth North stands her ground
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Canada: PM Carney not about to roll over and play dead for Trump as new tariffs are imposed. {NYT 21 July}
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Liberty in the hands of her executioners
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Making America great again by draining the coffers of the world’s most powerful military? The Pentagon is rapidly going broke. {WP 21 July}
Another fine example of what y’all voted for, #Muricans.
Just watch how quickly the federal government begins looking for savings elsewhere whilst ever more resources are devoted to sustaining the military machine. What shall be left? Social Security is already under ever greater strain, with insolvency projected for 2032; now that reckoning may arrive sooner still; Medicare and Medicaid are already effectively on the chopping block, so say ‘goodbye’ to healthcare for millions; infrastructure is already neglected, and will deteriorate further; and our military no longer capable of sustaining the commitments expected of it; and with it, any semblance of national security lost. Just look to Russia to see where Trumpistan is heading.
I wish I had the means to flee this country, for the gradual decline we have been living through hath been painful enough to witness. The pace of that decline is about to accelerate considerably. Americans voted for their own destruction, and they are about to get it.
Empires rarely collapse because they lack enemies — more often, they exhaust themselves — and history is not kind to governments and peoples that confuse spectacle with statecraft. Nor to leaders, such as Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, who mistake recklessness for strength. I pray that those responsible for squandering the resources, institutions, and international standing that were painstakingly built over generations face their reckoning.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Monday, July 20, 2026
A moment's vigilance before the weekly shop
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NOT for the faint of heart, thou hast been warned: '(M)asturbating in front of female customers at branches of Dollar Tree… fast becoming a national phenomenon'. {The Guardian 20 July}
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/20/dollar-tree-sexual-assault-gooner
Yes, thou read the above headline correctly. Disturbed women-hating men (‘incels’) engaging in the gamification of sexual harassment and sexual assault, then posting the video evidence online for the amusement and approval of similarly depraved individuals.
Dollar stores, with their chronically weak security, skeletal staffing, and tendency to be located in poorer or higher-crime communities, provide fertile hunting grounds for these predators (some of whom are employees). Similar incidents have occurred in other countries — I am not proclaiming that the former United States possesses a monopoly on sick people doing deranged things — but if ever there were a measure of how far this nation hath fallen, when women cannot safely shop for household necessities without becoming targets of sexual abuse, this would be it.
Do not read The Guardian article if one hath a weak stomach. It is genuinely horrible in detail. Yet women should know what is happening, and — wherever possible — exercise caution when visiting these establishments. Concealed carry whether it is legal or not to do so in one’s jurisdiction: guns, mace, whatever necessary. Best yet, just avoid dollar stores altogether — wherever possible.
And I stress wherever possible. Throughout large swathes of the former United States — in forever-neglected urban neighbourhoods, dying rural Trumpvilles alike, and increasingly everywhere in between — dollar stores have become the only practical place many people can afford to shop, or can physically access. Much hath already been written about the exploitative business model behind these chains, and I would encourage all readers to investigate it further. The very existence of so many communities dependent upon them is itself a damning indictment of America’s economic system and of the country's overall health.
America's problems are not exactly unique, though it is clearly responsible for the abomination that is the dollar store. Every nation possesses its own extremists, criminals, and cultural maladies. Yet my abiding impression is that most or all of those societies shall still possess functioning institutions and a sense of civic responsibility long after the final remnants of it have been stamped out here in Trumpistan (nearly there). We must accept decline as though it were inevitable, because y’all done made it inevitable, #Muricans. The rest of you in this world still have a chance to hang in for a bit longer, until climate change finishes the planet off, but another topic for another day.
Make no mistake, this grotesque behaviour is not merely the work of isolated deviants. It reflects a culture in which women are treated as objects to be humiliated rather than fellow human beings deserving of dignity and safety. The conduct described in The Guardian article is extreme, but it did not emerge from a vacuum. It grows in an environment where harassment is trivialised, empathy is in short supply, and cruelty increasingly masquerades as entertainment. An environment that gave rise to, and hath since been made immeasurably worse — to the point of no possible recovery — by President Donald J. Trump, his enablers, and his handlers.
All of this is profoundly sick. America’s modern culture is profoundly and plainly sick. What should one expect from a country that knowingly returned a man found liable for sexual abuse — among other things — to the White House? We have become a society in which people either actively despise one another or simply no longer care. In 2024 — knowingly so from past experience and in contempt for the most hated institution of any kind in white working-class America (the Democratic Party), and the (unfortunately politically untalented and personally untrustworthy) black woman who was leading the opposing ticket that year — the ruling plurality of citizens elected a government of wolves that are hostile to public safety, dismissive of civil liberties and human rights, and all too willing — eager, even — to subordinate ordinary people to powerful corporate interests. We should not be surprised when people who voted repeatedly for psychopaths begin acting like psychopaths. Nor that there be any remorse, even as their own lives deteriorate further.
Women should not have to plan an ordinary shopping trip as though entering hostile territory. Until this country rediscovers both the will and the ability to protect ordinary citizens from predators such as these, remaining aware of one's surroundings and taking whatever precautions available is the only prudent thing. No civilised society should require its women — nay, any peaceful citizens, period — to live this way. Trumpistan is not a civilised society.
linktr.ee/arthurnewhook
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
The price of black gold
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Average gas prices in the former United States back above $4.00 per gallon as Iran conflict reignites. {AP 20 July}
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
An empty parsonage, an unanswered prayer
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‘A beloved 54-year-old Massachusetts priest is said to have died by suicide after being forced to return to his home country of Nigeria’. {Irish Star 20 July}
https://www.irishstar.com/news/boston-news/massachusetts-devastated-after-priest-dies-37451659
Jesus was nowhere to be found for this servant of the Lord. FTA:
Under U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulations, Madu had to leave the country to renew his religious worker visa, known as an R-1 visa, according to church officials. While the department recently eliminated the requirement for R-1 recipients to wait a full year before applying for a renewal, options for the church to keep Madu legally in the U.S. were limited because the federal government has suspended processing of certain immigration cases for 75 countries, including Nigeria.
According to the US-Nigeria Civil Society Coalition, Madu suffered from intense emotional distress regarding his anticipated return to Nigeria, where there has been a rise in the kidnappings and killings of Catholic clergy.
Shortly before he passed away, he told parishioners and stated in a farewell message on the parish website that leaving the country was completely out of his hands. He wrote, "Sincerely, it is not my wish to return home right now, but circumstances beyond my control have warranted that my time in the United States come to an end. My heart is broken, yet my joy remains," he wrote, adding that he'd gladly return to minister and will miss the community.
The Boston Globe reported that Madu received emergency room treatment at a hospital after experiencing a panic attack on the Sunday prior to his death, which occurred as he was driving to celebrate Mass.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
“Lettuce celebrate... mmm, maybe not just yet”
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“Fruit and vegetable producer Taylor Fresh Foods says it is voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market amid an ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak across the country that has sickened more than 1,600 people.” {ABC News 19 July}
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
“Congratulations... now look at me”
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After being mercilessly booed, Trump refuses to leave the podium as the Spanish players celebrate their World Cup victory. {The Telegraph 19 July}
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/da89c91b7768d83e
Another giant embarrassment for the former United States of America inflicted by this man, on the world’s biggest sporting stage. King Felipe IV of Spain was on the field, but he did not deign to upstage his own countrymen in this manner. Trump hath spent recent weeks loudly expressing his displeasure with Spain — specifically related to trade — so this is an especially brazen gesture on his part. No, I do not believe this was mere aloofness. He knew exactly what he was doing. Trump must be the star of every show, no matter what it is.
Could not have happened to nicer guys: Andrew Tate and his little brother under arrest in Miami. {AP 18 July}
https://apnews.com/article/tate-brothers-social-influencers-arrest-82b6638219839dcf653c09309da66f16
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Saturday, July 18, 2026
The battle no one wanted to fight again
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Seven American aid workers quarantined in Kenya after Ebola exposure. {WP 18 July}
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Muscles, mirrors, and make-believe
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Closet homosexuality, perhaps? — Inside #MAGA’s creepy obsession with testosterone as a marker of national strength. {The Telegraph 18 July}
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/4c55efbff4de55b1
Truth be told, I may be one of those ‘low T’ men: I am pale, anaemic, underweight, a lifelong smoker and drinker, and I hate exercising anything other than my mind. The only reason to believe otherwise is that I have a very manly voice: I have been told at certain times that I should be in radio, and did consider attending broadcast school when I was considering my college options. Perhaps I should have pursued it, but even thirty years ago it was clear that radio was no longer a growth industry (the Telecommunications Act of that very year, 1996, ruined it). More pertinently, I also lacked greatly in confidence, as a childhood of constantly being made to feel inferior to peers will do that to a human being. I have never been athletic, cut out for military service, and cannot fight my way out of a wet paper bag. Nor hath any of this ever bothered me very much, apart from the lack of confidence in myself and much regret over lacking a backbone to stand up to more than a few motherf**kers who should have been put in their place.
Perhaps my nature hath bothered some other folks I have been unfortunate enough to know over the course of this thankless life, but they may kindly kiss my Anglo-Saxon ass. What the hell do I care about ‘measuring up’ physically to other men, when most other men are complete and total f**king bores and are nothing to emulate? I have never cared what other men look like, do not like most of them on any level, and it is so nonsensical and a bit peculiar to my, admittedly unorthodox, brain that anybody would. Beyond basic biology, I often wonder why women are attracted to us. On the whole, we are ugly creatures, inside and out.
Frankly, I have a hard time imagining how all these men can be so obsessed with their manhood, and the vitality of other men, and there not be some pent-up sexual frustration at play. How can so many men be endlessly preoccupied with other men's bodies and sex lives, yet insist this is simply normal masculine, heterosexual behaviour? I do not even know if I can explain in a paragraph or two, but it is just so bloody gross to me. Bodybuilding in particular… yuck. These fellows spend half their lives admiring themselves in mirrors and spending the other half evaluating other men's physiques, and we are supposed to think this is the epitome of manhood? People are too caught up in other people’s affairs to begin with, but having to engage in virtual dick-measuring contests all the time is not something I am interested in, particularly not at forty-eight.
Like most of these moral panics the extremes of American politics cook up, there is a basis of truth. Falling testosterone levels are a scientifically proven phenomenon, and may well contribute to why many men — to my ears, at least — my age and under have high, effeminate voices now. Have we noticed that not many men have distinctive voices anymore? I notice it most when watching baseball games: nearly all the younger play-by-play announcers have these flat, indistinct voices and there is not a new Jack Buck or Harry Kalas coming along. But I digress. Ultimately, it is simply a question of how grave a 'crisis' we believe this to be. My opinion is that there will always emerge ‘alpha’ males in society, for better and for worse. Basic human nature does not change, and boys are going to be boys, men are going to be men, and most — regardless of their ‘T’ levels — shall be forever insecure in their manhood.
And there will always be grifters such as Trump, Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Dana White, Pete Hegseth, and the rest of these ‘manosphere’ figures ready to take advantage of the weak, insecure, and pathetic.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Charging ahead no longer
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Projections for electric vehicle sales in Trumpistan are slashed significantly. ‘Full withdrawal of federal regulatory support for electrification in the U.S. is the biggest factor’. {Yahoo! Finance 11 July}
https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/us-electric-car-outlook-tumbles-200700626.html
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Humiliation in aisle seven
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US grocery unit sales fall as inflation and benefit cuts squeeze budgets, forcing shoppers to buy less. {Get Ready 16 July}
https://getready.team/news/economic/2026/07/16/the-us-grocery-slowdown-is-real
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Friday, July 17, 2026
The wildfire didn't need a passport
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Trump, Michigan Republicans theatrically and performatively threaten Canada over wildfire smoke covering US regions. {NYT 17 July}
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/weather/trump-canada-tariffs-wildfire-smoke.html?smid=url-share
Ontario Premier Doug Ford provides the best comeback to the latest display of nationalist hysteria, that Canada should be held liable for acts of God. Have they considered those times the shoe hath been on the other foot?
FTA: Earlier on Friday, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, was visibly frustrated with complaints from American lawmakers about the smoke.
“As for other elected officials in the U.S., I have to remind the American people, when there was wildfires in California, we had our water bombers on standby,” Mr. Ford, a conservative, told reporters, listing other American disasters that Ontario has helped with. “If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help, because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends. And that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
The answer to my own question is obvious… these smug #MAGA creeps simply do not care. When America's actions harm Canada or any other nation, they merely shrug. When the roles are reversed, they scream to the heavens and demand retribution (though they will not acknowledge any actual victims beyond invoking them as political props). They are bullies, thugs, and entirely emblematic of who and what the former United States of America hath become in its afterlife.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
No comfort in marble
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Figures: #Murican fast food icon Taco Bell and supplier Taylor Farms tied to cyclospora outbreak in five states. {AP 17 July}
https://apnews.com/article/cyclospora-lettuce-taco-bell-cdc-fda-13d9e9ebdc46a4d05a58da2ae8e8d0de
Not the first time either of these parties have been negligent. Food safety standards are not what they should be in what we — as Americans — are commanded to believe is the freest, richest, most advanced nation on earth. Alas, I do not suspect most Taco Bell consumers care all that much about food safety, but I digress.
FTA: The FDA’s traceback investigation identified a single supplier of iceberg lettuce from Mexico used by the Taco Bell locations where people who got sick ate, federal officials said. The Mexican food chain is among the restaurants linked to foodborne illness outbreaks in the past. Taylor Farms also was tied to a 2013 cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to salad mix and a 2024 E. coli outbreak tied to onions served at McDonald’s.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
The slow suffocation of Lady Liberty
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| image generated via ChatGPT |
‘The Treasury Department’s top tax policy official was forced out of his job after he warned that the White House was at risk of violating a federal law prohibiting senior officials’ involvement in IRS audits’. {WSJ 17 July}
This regime is not even trying to hide its corruption, it is wearing it as a badge of honour. Kenneth Kies, according to the Wall Street Journal, hath ‘been at the center of Republican tax-policy circles in Washington for nearly a half-century’, probably as partisan a creature as one is likely to find. Yet he retained enough sanity and common sense to warn these fascist reprobates not to violate federal law and become politically involved in IRS audits, and said reprobates responded like the petulant, belligerent individuals they are and forced him out.
How many times now have we seen people with a degree of competence and sanity try to work with Trump and the lunatics around him, and every single time they are driven away. From Tillerson to Mattis and Kelly to Fauci to Bolton to his own former VP, and literally hundreds in between, Trump eventually exhausts the patience of serious people. Always. This second reign of terror hath not seen as much turnover as the first, predominantly because Trump took care to put the real lunatics and loyalists in key positions, but even now we are seeing defections, in-fighting, and firings. For there is no pacifying such a chaotic individual.
Electing Donald Trump president in 2016 was a mistake. Wilfully returning such a proven failure and conman to power in 2024 was a collective act of political arson from which white working-class America shall never redeem itself — even those of us who have opposed this madness all along are forever tarnished — and the country as a whole shall never recover from it.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
This was not in the briefing
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| generated via ChatGPT |
Secret Service reportedly fed-up with VP Vance and family. {MS NOW 15 July}
Blatantly entitled, brazenly so, and only a heartbeat away from the presidency. Taking a young boy to a golf lesson aboard a military helicopter at taxpayer expense, reportedly costing more than $24,000. Meanwhile, JD Vance and his wife — ever the natalists — are expecting their fourth child soon.
Vance is not fit for the office he holds, and certainly not the presidency: too young, too self-assured, too many contradictions about him, and too aloof in nature. Alas, thanks largely to his boss, standards no longer apply to most Republican office-holders, provided they remain in Trump's good graces.
White Americans and much of the mainstream media — generally speaking, of course — do not hold Republicans to the same standards they apply to Democrats. I believe this has been true for decades, beginning with the political realignment that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but more acutely so since 2016, when a third or so of the overall American population decided what a wonderful idea it would be to join a political cult led by a foul-mouthed real estate mogul and ‘reality television’ star with closets full of skeletons.
At the dawn of his political career, Donald Trump could have attempted to run as a Democrat. After all, he spent roughly a decade registered with the party in the 2000s. Yet he understood that his chances of success were far greater as a Republican. He needed the white working-class vote, and that constituency had been drifting away from the Democratic Party since the 1960s, a process completed with the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008.
Just look at the number of state legislative seats Democrats lost during Obama's presidency, particularly across the South. The scale of the decline is staggering. Trump was taking note. Trump could not have won as a Democrat, nor could he have gotten away with everything he has gotten away with as a Republican. No demographic group has proven more willing to overlook — or even embrace — his corruption, incompetence, and ethical failings than the coalition that now comprises #MAGA.
So long as JD Vance remains Trump’s trusted VP, he shall be Teflon. Ask Mike Pence what happens, however, when one falls out of good graces. The best thing that can happen between now and the scheduled presidential election of 2028 (and I use the word ‘scheduled’ as there is no guarantee there will be any election in 2028) is for Trump to throw Vance under the bus and fire him, for he would be a horrible president (yes, worse).
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π
¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
La Dernière Liberté
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| generated via ChatGPT |
Dignity: French Assembly approves assisted dying for incurable illnesses; Macron hails passage after Senate rejection. {France 24 15 July}
Not in a million years will assisted dying be permitted in #Murica.
Is there anything ultimately crueler than forcing a person in pain — to be clear, the legislation in France applies only to competent adults suffering from illnesses deemed incurable — to continue existing in this world? What obligation does any individual who is suffering have to everybody else that the force of law should compel them to remain?
Frankly, it is akin to slavery. Society does not legitimately own any individual; it can only claim such ownership through force. Anyone who opposes mercy for the suffering is claiming ownership over them, and that disturbs me more than I can put into words.
I applaud the French legislators responsible for seeing this measure through, but it is only a first step towards establishing genuine respect for individual rights, personal autonomy, and human dignity.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
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