The Captain and the Kremlin: standing behind the sword

TASS/Getty Images, c. 2017

Alex Ovechkin: a gifted hockey player, yet a fool; expresses shock at the backlash provoked by his cameo appearance in a propaganda spot for Putin’s political party; insists he harbours no pro-war sentiment, even as evidence proves otherwise. {ESPN 17 September}

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/49965058/ovechkin-says-supports-russia-not-pro-war

Not pro-war, are we? —

FTA: In the campaign video that aired in Russia earlier this month, Ovechkin stands with supporters of Putin's United Russia political party as Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov delivers a monologue warning anyone who comes at Russia "with a sword" to "expect no mercy: we will rise together, as we do today." Ovechkin, wearing a black polo shirt, stands stoically behind Lavrov.

Ovechkin's appearance earned international condemnation from critics of the regime, which has mounted an offensive against Ukraine that began in 2014 and expanded to a full-scale invasion in 2022 that has resulted in more than 1 million military and civilian casualties. In a letter to the NHL this week, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., called on the league to consider banning Ovechkin over his participation in the ad.

—--

The series of TV advertisements features more than 30 Putin supporters. One of them is Maria Lvova-Belova, a Russian official who has been involved in the kidnapping and "re-education" of Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova, in a televised meeting with Putin, said she had personally taken a Ukrainian boy from war-ravaged Mariupol. The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for her arrest in 2023. Ovechkin stands alongside her and others in a large group shot featured in the ads.

Academic experts in Russian propaganda said Ovechkin's appearance signifies a critical victory for Putin in his bid to justify the country's costly military campaign in Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have accused the Russian military of murdering more than 17,000 Ukrainian civilians, including more than 700 children.

"You can't look away from the fact that Russia is perpetuating a genocide on Ukrainian people," said Sarah Oates, a senior scholar in the field of political communication and democratization at the University of Maryland. "Putin has said Ukraine and Ukrainians have no right to exist. And this is a key reason for the invasion. Ovechkin supports Putin, he supports the Russian regime, and that means he supports genocide."

Asked about assertions that Russia is responsible for a genocide, Ovechkin told ESPN, "I hope it's not gonna, it's not gonna be like that," before he and a team media relations representative ended the interview.

He hopes ‘it’s not gonna be like that’; well, either this fellow is a coward speaking out of both sides of his mouth, or else an impossibly aloof simpleton, utterly oblivious to what is happening immediately about him save when he happens to be upon a sheet of ice. 

I numbered myself among those who called upon the National Hockey League to expel all the Russian players — even the vaunted Ovechkin, presently the game’s all-time leading goal scorer and, arguably, the league’s most recognisable star — at the very onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Obviously, the NHL hearkened not, and shall decline once more to do the right thing now. All that concerns the league, the Washington Capitals, and their sponsors alike is the wringing of every last dollar out of the general public before society at large comes crashing down about us; whilst the American people have demonstrated, with abundant clarity, that they care nothing whatsoever for the plight of Ukraine and her people. 

I fully anticipate that Ovechkin shall be greeted with a standing ovation at the Capitals’ season opener in Washington — and be warmly received within every arena he visits, this expected to be his final season prior to retirement — whilst Ukrainian children continue to suffer abduction and death amid the war. 

Perchance, though, karma shall one day pay Alexander Ovechkin a visit. To anyone inclined to regard him as some manner of victim: he is nothing of the sort. —

FTA: Throughout Ovechkin's career, Capitals officials and people close to Ovechkin have suggested in media interviews that he was under pressure from the Kremlin to support the president and could not safely criticize Putin with his family living in Russia.

In 2022, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, the then-Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said Russian players were trying to navigate "what they can say, what they can't say," and "the repercussions that could happen back home." Of Ovechkin, he said: "He gets pressure from all sides -- from North America, from Russia, from family."

"It's a cop-out," said Slava Malamud, a Russian-born former Sport-Express hockey reporter who said the Capitals revoked his press credential in 2014 after he criticized Ovechkin's "Save Children from Fascism" post.

"All of these excuses presuppose the existence of an alternative Ovechkin no one has ever seen, one who is meekly doing what a brutal dictator tells him to do," Malamud told ESPN. "That is not an Ovechkin we have ever seen. We see a man who is proud of his president, who is standing next to war criminals.

"I don't think it's a coincidence after signing his last contract that he comes out with his unambiguous support for the war."

Unlike the great multitude of Russians, Alexander Ovechkin possesseth the means to depart Russia altogether, and might well become a leading dissident voice, were he truly devoted unto peace and unto the deliverance of children from the grip of fascism. Instead, he elects to return thither when his playing days are ended, thereby demonstrating his continued fealty unto a veritable demon. In so doing, he may thereby have secured a one-way passage unto Hades. At least I hope it be so.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The capitalist backlash and the growing appeal of socialism in Trumpistan

generated via ChatGPT

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, Ceaușescu — 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.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Steaks, sermons, and socialism

generated via ChatGPT

Ron Paul: Trump polices ‘just as, if not more, dangerous to liberty and prosperity as anything proposed by Mamdani or Sanders’. {Ron Paul Institute 13 July}

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/congressional-ratification-of-president-trumps-corporatism/

Ron Paul: yes, he is still alive, and not at all wrong in the following assessment. I wish more folks would start making this point: 

“Despite regularly denouncing the rising socialist menace, President Trump has been pursuing a policy arguably just as, if not more, dangerous to liberty and prosperity as anything proposed by Zohran Mamdani or Bernie Sanders: using government funds to purchase partial ownership of private companies.” 

Here is a little secret that many people do not wish to admit: Trump's voters are perfectly comfortable with socialism, provided it is not openly labelled ‘socialism’ and provided its benefits flow primarily to them rather than to the ‘wrong’ people. They will tolerate endless wars and reckless government spending so long as Daddy Trump tells them society's problems are the fault of liberals, immigrants, and LGBT people, and gives them permission to hate. They will tolerate it so long as their churches continue telling them that Jesus supports Trump and therefore they must as well.

So long as social and cultural grievances remain foremost in these people's minds, they will continue running back to Daddy Trump — and to whatever demagogue eventually follows in his wake.

Ron Paul, Thomas Massie, and only a scant few others represent the remnants of a strain of uncompromising libertarianism that is now nearly extinct. One need not agree with all of their views or policy prescriptions — I certainly do not — but when they call a spade a spade and sound the alarm about what government ownership of previously private companies means for both the economy and individual liberty, fair people ought to give them a fair hearing.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Liberty’s fall on the rocky cliffs of Maine

generated via ChatGPT

Maine Democratic Party calls on Graham Platner to drop out of US Senate race after sexual assault allegations emerge. {Maine Morning Star 6 July}

https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/07/06/democrats-are-calling-on-platner-to-drop-after-latest-allegations/

Do not be so confident the Democratic Party is going to win anything in November. Between backing a clearly unstable and dangerous candidate in Platner, candidates moving further left and alienating a centre-right nation, and successful GOP gerrymandering efforts in key states, it is not looking as though the GOP becoming nothing more than a personality cult — a gaggle of sycophants to Trump — is going to dissuade average voters from leaning Republican, because the alternative is just that much worse to them. I do not personally believe the Democrats are worse — not after ten years of Republicans making fools of themselves, appeasing Trump and his white trash voter base, and adopting neo-fascism as their guiding ideology — but are they any good? They stabbed President Joe Biden in the back, and in doing so allowed Donald Trump to return to office, and these are the consequences of such treachery. The Republicans are clearly aiming toward an eventual one-party state, and the Democrats just keep shooting themselves in the foot. A viable centrist third party should have come along about a decade ago, but it is too late. Into the abyss we go.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Cathedral of the New #Murican Order

generated via ChatGPT

CBS-CNN coming 'marriage' echoes authoritarian media takeovers in Putin's Russia in the 2000s and Orbán's Hungary during the 2010s. {The Bulwark 17 June}

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/cbs-get-ready-for-the-bari-fication-weiss-of-cnn

The #MAGA movement commands roughly a third of the overall population scattered across wide swaths of the country. Its influence extends far beyond electoral politics: they own the churches; law enforcement and the military are infested with them; and most gun owners are in their camp. Rural America remains hopelessly in love with Donald Trump, even as his policies are resulting in economic genocide upon them. There is a reason why the stereotype of the ‘hick’ from the country hath endured for so long, and that is precisely because those who embody that stereotype are, quite literally, holding the world hostage in order that their ‘freedumb’ and their anti-intellectualism never be challenged. 

Combined with a compliant media and influential figures such as Bari Weiss, this is more than sufficient to bring a nation to its knees. At least another third of Americans — the mostly apathetic ones in the middle — will fall to their knees and submit. That is always the way when ideological madmen forcefully take over a nation, as the common people value stability and their lives more than their political rights. History repeatedly demonstrates that uncomfortable truth.

And as for those of us in the remaining thirty-ish per cent — if we even are that large in number — we are being cast to the wind, left behind and forgotten for all time. We lost. Liberalism in the former US is toast, and America today is the sort of nation that would have been fighting alongside Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in World War II.

In other words, I cannot find the words to contemplate what exactly our lives are going to look like, if we live to see it, once the transition to all-out theocratic fascism in the former United States of America hath been completed, and we are almost at that juncture. Media consolidation is the final nail in the coffin.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Premonition: enforced citizen loyalty pledges to Trump are coming to the former United States

generated via ChatGPT

After that public relations catastrophe at MSG on Monday night, I am more convinced than ever that Trump is going to go to drastic lengths to enforce loyalty from the general population. Though he may thrive from confrontation with his chosen media and political enemies, his ego cannot abide by being hated by the masses. I have been having intense visions of this for years, and it came very close to happening, had the January 6 coup attempt succeeded. Now, after ten years, we are nearing the end game and Trump hath never been more wounded. But, we all know what they say about a wounded animal being at its most lethal. He is not going down without a fight, and not without bringing everybody else down with him. Very well could be a forced loyalty pledge that will be universally compulsory, enforced by door-to-door canvassing from an army of Christian nationalist thugs and law enforcement officers. This is going to happen, and most of the gun owners and authorities are going to be backing him. Most will comply in fear of their lives, or because they want fascism (and this is a huge part of the population, no more pretending it is not true). Pray.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

PACT OF FORGETTING: WHY THE #MAGA BASE, AND THE PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE FORMER UNITED STATES IN GENERAL, WILL NEVER ALLOW TRUMP AND ASSOCIATES TO FACE JUSTICE FOR (IN ALL LIKELIHOOD) VISITING EPSTEIN’S PAEDOPHILE ISLAND

Getty Images

Whilst some of them are grumbling, waiting for the #MAGA faithful to break permanently with their cult leader is a fool’s errand. I submit unequivocally: even if there were incontrovertible, undoctored video evidence of Trump sexually assaulting minors, 90% or more of his constituency would maintain their allegiance, provided he continues to sanction their licence to hate fellow Americans.

If disclosures of Russian electoral manipulation on his behalf in 2016 failed to unseat him, if his lamentable handling of this century’s gravest public health crisis proved insufficient, if his mendacious claims of electoral fraud and the January 6 insurrection they incited could not bring him down—then this matter certainly will not. ‘Teflon Don’ has never been a truer moniker.

Close enough to half of the populace in the former United States—the ruling plurality holding roughly 85% to 90% of the guns, and most of the political power—has declared this man infallible, and they will cling to that belief until the bitter end (and beyond, if any of us remain by then). Yes, humans really are this depraved. The past decade has proven we must grow up and confront this reality. The sooner we do, the sooner we might begin fixing this infernal mess. Or maybe not.

Expecting Congress to act on this in earnest—barring a few rogue figures—is as naïve as believing the American public will demand accountability. Given that countless such miscreants, alongside elites across commerce, religion, entertainment, sports, and media, likely frequented Little Saint James, exposing Trump would force them to expose themselves—and the fallout could theoretically collapse the entire system, obliterating everything Americans thought they knew.

Yet even if the full client list were made public, I doubt the American public could bear the sheer scale of it—the revelation that so many idolised figures were complicit in these horrors. Most would retreat into denial, attack the evidence, then ultimately demand their own Pact of Forgetting, much like Spain’s after Franco’s death and the collapse of Fascist rule in the mid-1970s.

Yes, it is that grave. Many are now too jaded to feel shock, having lost all faith in humanity (your correspondent leans decidedly this way, in case it wasn't obvious). The world's horrors come so thick and fast they've become a blur.

Democratic societies, when faced with truths too monstrous to bear, typically choose collective amnesia over painful moral reckoning. Here, it would simply occur on an unprecedented scale. Justice shall not be served—abandon all hope.  —Arthur Newhook, 17 July 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X-TWITTER, and at the same handle on FACEBOOK. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/r/StopTheIdiocracy/new/. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

UK announces stricter immigration policy

photo: AP

{Sky News 12 May} PM: 'Without strong migration rules, we risk becoming an island of strangers'

Sir Keir’s immigration crackdown announcement came with decidedly forced conviction—all stiff delivery and hollow passion, as is his wont. Seems to me, in eternal exile an ocean away, Britain has often been ‘an island of strangers’ throughout its history, at certain junctures more so than others. Make no mistake, this is a necessary declaration—and perhaps these moves might blunt ReformUK’s momentum and appeal to centre-right voters. At this perilous juncture—with fascism resurgent and commandeering history’s most destructive war machine—keeping parties like ReformUK and Germany’s AfD from power is vital. The regime in Washington is openly voicing support for the AfD, and are at least flirting with Nigel Farage, and Sir Keir and Labour tread a precarious tightrope.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X-Twitter, and at the same handle on FACEBOOK. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Educator essentially forced to flee across state lines following far-right intimidation: a requiem for New Hampshire's lost peace and beauty

Ellen Edersheim/New Hampshire Division of Travel and Tourism Development

The Guardian 24 April: Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety

A New Hampshire educator has fled to Vermont after being doxxed and intimidated by far-right extremists—a disgraceful outcome for a state I once cherished. My childhood memories of the White Mountains and Lakes Region paint it as the safest, most idyllic place imaginable. Yet on recent visits—no more than five times in the last decade, despite living about 30 miles south of the state line—I’ve found its natural beauty enduring and some of the trappings remaining, but its social fabric increasingly reminiscent of Tennessee or West Virginia.

Historically conservative but tolerant, New Hampshire once welcomed all comers without celebrating ignorance. That seemed to change when a certain orange demagogue injected himself into national life, compounded by fentanyl and opioid crises ravaging this rural jurisdiction. Though it narrowly backed the Democrat in 2024’s presidential election, the trend is clear: another Democratic victory is improbable—assuming the party even gets the chance, and regardless of how catastrophically Trump and the GOP govern.

How tragic to witness New Hampshire—my childhood sanctuary of granite peaks and glassy lakes—degraded by opioid epidemics and performative bigotry. That an educator must flee newly emboldened extremists speaks volumes.

I shall state plainly: rural America (the decisive majority of it, do not come barking at me if one is a free-thinking liberal in Buttf**k, Arkansas, or Pigs**t, Oklahoma) must be held accountable for enabling an aspiring autocrat and his Christofascist movement. Their perpetual victimhood narratives—blaming others for crises mostly of their own making—can no longer be indulged. This ‘silent majority’ act has festered too long.

Rural white America’s cultural collapse is almost completely self-inflicted, yet its consequences are national. History shows our weakness: after the (first) Civil War and during the Civil Rights era, we prioritised false unity over justice. The reactionaries were contained for a few decades, but that was never going to hold. The second Civil War is coming, and if the Confederates are to lose again, this time they must be forever eradicated and never allowed to reemerge as they were with the end of Reconstruction and the dawn of the Jim Crow era. I am not convinced the Confederates will lose the next time, though, and I’ll leave it at that. Rest in Peace, New Hampshire as I knew it.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X-Twitter, and at the same handle on FACEBOOK. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Pennsylvania governor’s residence torched by arsonist following Passover weekend

AP Photo/Marc Levy

AP: Suspect arrested in arson fire that forced Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, family to flee residence

As far as I am concerned, this is what the majority of the American people voted for and approved, no matter how hard they may protest otherwise, and trying to pretend otherwise is futile at this point. A broken empire in severe economic decline, probably too large and unwieldy for its long-term survival, and one which is inhabited by millions of dangerous and resolutely ignorant lunatics who have embraced far-right governance even after their specific cult figurehead had already proven himself an abject failure the first time he was granted the office of the presidency, shall produce mass violence and depravity. For the record, while VP Vance has issued a generic statement condemning the attack, as of this hour I do not see that either the tawny marionette Trump or the shadow president—the South African—has said anything at all. And maybe that is just as well. With every act of homegrown terrorism, the blood of these acts is on the hands of all those who have nurtured and fostered the revival of a culture of grievance, self-pity, white supremacy, Jew-hatred, and anti-intellectualism run amok.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Like the thugs and toadies they are, Trump and Vance endeavour to intimidate and denigrate Zelensky, within the confines of the Oval Office and before the scrutiny of live cameras; accuse the Ukrainian leader of wanting to start World War III

AP: A transcript of Trump and Zelensky's Oval Office argument

This is the most reprehensible and abhorrent spectacle I have ever witnessed emanating from an American President and Vice-President. The Musk regime has transformed the United States into an adversary of Ukraine and a confederate of the genocidal megalomaniac in Moscow. It would appear that the majority of Americans sanction this position if the persistent lamentations regarding financial assistance to Ukraine during President Biden's tenure serve as any barometer. I am profoundly revolted by, and mortified for, the citizenry of this wretched nation; they have facilitated this fascistic phantasmagoria.

Had the American populace harboured the sort of sentiments in the 1930s and '40s that they presently exhibit (and indeed a minority did, though nowhere approaching today's preponderance, and certainly not including the President of the United States), they would have been proffering justifications for Hitler whilst attributing culpability to the Jews, Poles, and others for their own subjugation. This is not the nation in which I was reared, nor one in which I wish to reside, and were I possessed of sufficient financial resources, I should depart from this moribund cesspit with unprecedented alacrity.resources, I should depart from this moribund cesspit with unprecedented alacrity.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X, and at the same handle on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Speaking directly to Trump-worshipping ‘Christians’ here, though I know I am rather shouting into the void

photo: Apu Gomes/Getty Images

A quote from a friend on Facebook regarding your kind: “Their credibility to even discuss the gospel now falls on deaf ears.” Trump and his handlers—most notably the now-reigning cybernetic puppet master, Elon Musk—are using you Christofascists to destroy Christianity and what was once known as ‘conservatism’ from within. Your witness, such as it is, is worse than worthless: it is an abomination. 

I am hardly a good or pious Christian, though I do profess Christ as saviour; if I lived in the country of my blood, England, I would be more likely to be found at the local pub than Sunday service (alas, I live in #Murica, where we have neither proper pubs, nor much of anyone worth speaking to, so I am found in neither setting). To the point, if God has granted both me and millions of others who do not wear our faith on our sleeve the discernment to see through this charade, then it tells me that thou art falling for a deadly deception: The Great Deception! 

Furthermore, while it still sounds fantastical, I do not entirely dismiss the possibility that Elon Musk may be the Biblical Antichrist. Given the strangeness of this man and the bizarre present circumstances, we cannot completely rule it out. At the very least, he is consciously presenting himself as a would-be Antichrist, and he is sowing near-apocalyptic chaos and destruction. 

American Christianity was thoroughly corrupted long before Donald Trump and Elon Musk entered politics, but now I consider that it may be inexorably heading for the ash heap of history, doing what the Romans never could—destroying itself from within. And for what? The privilege of hating your neighbour with official sanction? It is long past time for you rank-and-file Trump supporters and professed Christians to get all of this through thy thick skulls; and I suspect at least some of you recognise this obvious truth, but go along precisely because you are granted said sanction. Hatred is thy true God, Christianity is just an effective cover and a weapon to be wielded against your designated enemies. 

If this describes you, then congratulations, you are everything that is wrong with this country and our world. The flip side of the same coin as the Islamists who blew up the Twin Towers and have caused so much suffering across the planet for decades. Same circus, different clowns, and every bit as unfunny and deranged. - Arthur Newhook, 24 January 2025

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

US Supreme Court appears keen to restrict online porn. Foolish theocratic crusaders dominate, and civilisation's future is grim

{Vox 15 January} The Supreme Court seems eager to curb First Amendment protections for porn

To one degree or another, the individual jurists on the theocratic US Supreme Court appear keen to restrict adults’ access to online pornography—a right mess brought about by tiresome moral busybodies on the left pushing their social agenda rather too vigorously, which has rather predictably catalysed a reactionary movement culminating in millions embracing the sort of far right, antisemitic rot that those of my age rather naively thought had been permanently vanquished with the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Now, the moral crusaders of the right—who vastly outnumber their ‘progressive’ counterparts, are dreadfully well-embedded in the local/state governments and among military and law enforcement, and whose capacity for armed force is demonstrably superior—are pursuing an absolutist agenda. All vestiges of measured discourse and temperance appear irretrievably forfeit for at least the next quarter-century. The mechanism by which future generations might recover these essential qualities—to put this particular Humpty Dumpty back together again— is a total mystery to me. My gut says future generations will dwell in caves like savages, having quite forgotten how to work a can opener, let alone possessing the knowledge and wherewithall to rebuild anything resembling civilisation. - Arthur Newhook, 15 January 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

America's final week of democracy: as GOP and Musk prepare fascist takeover, a lament for missed chances to prevent this dark fate

Well, this is it then—the final week of what is left of the United States. About to trade what passes for democracy these days for some proper fascist nonsense. Last gasp of the Democrats holding any sway in Washington, I expect. Won’t see them back in power in my lifetime.

Prepare thyselves for grave overreach by the incoming regime and its Republican confederates in Congress and state legislatures; the GOP shall run absolutely bloody riot in the coming months. Steel thy hearts for widespread calamity: civil unrest, food shortages, economic collapse; on top of ever-worsening and more frequent natural disasters. Anticipate that the unelected dictator, Elon Musk, along with his figurehead president—believed by the witless masses of this wilfully ignorant land to wield true authority—to deepen every crisis, without fail; as Trump did in the chaos of his first disastrous reign, and as this unholy pair hath done again and again, leading up to their accursed coronation.

The final week, indeed. If only justice had held firm, and this felon, Trump, had been cast into chains. If only regulators had interceded to thwart Elon Musk from spending $44 billion on Twitter. If only a Vice-President had prioritised the welfare of the nation above self-serving ambition, had not betrayed the President, and had refrained from embarking on a farcical and hopeless campaign in a land that reviles those who share her visage and believe her to be a Marxist. If only the Pollyannas among us had not ensnared us with false hope and led us astray. If only President Biden were not so long in the tooth and still possessed the vigour to fight.

We had a good run, I suppose. - Arthur Newhook, 12 January 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Sound the alarm: Trump is escalating warnings that all dissent against him will be criminalised in his second presidency

'Totally illegal': Trump escalates rhetoric on outlawing political dissent and criticism. {NBC News 13 October}

I’ve long said that the top priority of Donald Trump and his millions of cult-like followers is to dominate the culture and force their fellow citizens to conform to their will. Criticising him is already dangerous to one’s health in certain areas of this country, or in certain circles, and shall soon outright become illegal everywhere. Pay attention to the way his devout supporters speak: they genuinely want all Americans on their side and react with venomous rage to even the slightest criticism. They see any attack on him as a personal attack on themselves, and like him, they are highly sensitive and willfully ignorant. The United States now revolves around one man, Donald J. Trump, and those of us who refuse to bend the knee to him are in serious trouble. Better pay attention, because he is telling us what he is going to do: millions will be repressed, and millions more are perfectly fine with that. Dark days lie ahead.

Recent headlines:

Q-Anon guru and convicted felon Michael Flynn, when questioned, does not deny that he wants Trump’s political enemies to be executed - Quote: ‘Believe me, the gates of hell, my hell will be unleashed.’ {Raw Story 12 October}

‘(C)ompletely comfortable channeling his inner eugenicist.’ Mary Trump: Donald went full-on fascist. {Substack 12 October}

Gen. Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, says Trump is ‘fascist to the core’, the gravest danger to the US in its history. {The Independent 11 October}

‘If given a second term, (Trump is) preparing to go much further, reimagining the military as an all-powerful tool to deploy on U.S. soil.’ {AP 13 October}

‘People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity.’ US meteorologists receiving death threats for doing their jobs - Another quote: ‘Ignorance is becoming socially acceptable. Forty or 50 years ago, if I told you I thought the moon was pretend, people would have laughed at me. Now, people are bonding over these incredibly fringe viewpoints.’ This f**king country, I swear. {Rolling Stone 9 October}

‘What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.’ {Charlie Warzel 10 October}

Poll shows one-fifth of young Americans, and one-tenth of Americans overall, believe Adolf Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy, after all - Take with a grain of a salt, the real numbers are undoubtedly a bit higher {Daily Mail 12 October}

Amsterdam, NY: A giant sign reading ‘vote for Trump’, visible from the Thruway and posing a hazard to drivers, has been given the ‘OK’ to be illuminated - Take NYC and its metro area out of the equation, and most of what remains of New York is a red state. {NY Upstate 8 October}

Trump falsely claims he has visited the Gaza Strip, ‘and it’s rough.’ {CNN 8 October}

England: North London golf club vandalised with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti. {Jerusalem Post 12 October}

Severe COVID-19 cases from the first pandemic wave may face double the risk of heart attack and stroke, a new study finds. {ABC News 11 October}

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

After being interrogated by a disrespectful little toad named Stephanopoulos, President Biden should say ‘no more Mr Nice Guy’; no sense in maintaining civility at a moment when Americans no longer respect it, and fascism is knocking on the door

Getty Images

President Biden should have, in no uncertain terms, bidden George Stephanopoulos of ABC News to go forth and fornicate with himself and should have walked off the set. Likewise, he should have refused to debate Donald Trump, for it proved both a folly and a waste of everyone’s bloody time. 

Americans today respect neither civility nor common manners - behold how they (perchance thou art among them) react on social media whenever another posts anything they dislike or disagree with; they respond with name-calling, childish emojis and memes meant to degrade, and the like. Civility is sneered at, considered a weakness. Go figure, much like their idol Donald Trump, this is a land of thin-skinned bullies who were long ago rendered incapable of expressing themselves any other manner. 

Perchance, Mr Biden might actually benefit politically by adopting a firmer stance with those acting in bad faith, rather than always striving to be the bigger man. Start giving these knaves a taste of their own medicine, Mr President, for none in modern American history deserve retribution more. And it is the only language they understand. As someone who dearly wishes to live in a more civil society, I can plainly see that being the bigger person when dealing with Trump, his supporters, and enablers has gotten us nowhere over the past eight years.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

A nation's disgusting double standards when it comes to President Joe Biden and convicted felon Donald Trump

Reuters

The MSM is veering out of control and hath gone absurdly, pathetically over-the-top with their lamentations about the president’s debate performance, now speculating and calling for him to step aside. Allow me to be blunt: F**k all the way the hell off with this inappropriate and seditious rhetoric! Yes, the debate was ill-advised and should not have taken place. However, these swine in the MSM do actively strive to return Trump to power; never mind that he is a senile old fossil himself, but since when do any rules and standards apply to our orange godking? No president in my lifetime hath been treated worse by the media and the general public than Mr. Biden, and no president - no American, period - hath ever been more privileged and coddled by the same parties than Donald Trump. Not a serious country, not a serious people. #Murica

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

#DDay 1944: The liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny commenced with the Allied invasion of occupied France

Allied soldiers on the eve of the D-Day landings, Normandy, 1944. Photo: Getty Images.

Today, we commemorate all those who stormed the Normandy beaches on the 80th anniversary of the pivotal event in the 20th century. Their bravery and sacrifice secured a period of relative peace, prosperity, and stability that lasted up until recent years. I fear a conflict of this scale and with such perilous consequences will have to be fought again. And I worry that this time, #Murica might not be on the righteous side. Heaven help us all.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

Thin-skinned Donald Trump receives boos, yet also cheers, whilst speaking at the ‘libertarian’ convention

Photo: Jose Luis Magana/AP

Reuters - Trump booed and heckled by raucous crowd at Libertarian convention

Something a little odd about a wanna-be dictator who peddles fascism and Christian nationalism addressing a group that calleth itself ‘libertarian’, yet I have long believed the Libertarian Party to be a collection of crackpots and rank hypocrites. COVID made this crystal clear: they did not wish to be forced to wear a mask or take a vaccine, but had zero concern for the rights and liberties of innocent people around them, unwittingly exposed to deadly germs. This lot truly believes it is their right to make others sick. Others may stay home if they do not like it; I saw this attitude explicitly expressed repeatedly during the pandemic. ‘Liberty and freedom for me, but not for thee’.

These ‘libertarians’ would be wise to remember that Trump, the GOP, and #Cult45 do demand he be treated as infallible. Should he regain the presidency, none shall be allowed to boo or criticise the orange god-king, and every aspect of our lives shall be micromanaged by far-right busybodies and tyrants. Is the Libertarian Party actually ‘libertarian,’ or are they but a gaggle of quasi-fascists who just happen to favour smoking weed and despise paying taxes? A rude awakening eventually awaits all these malcontents with their heads up their arses. #Biden2024

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

#OTD 1976: A military coup in Argentina toppled the constitutional government of Isabel Perón

A monochrome portrait captures Argentine President Isabel Perón at a press conference before she was ousted by the nation’s military. Photo: Getty Images.

On this day in 1976, a military coup in Argentina toppled the constitutional government of Isabel Perón (pictured), heralding eight years of neo-fascist dread known as the ‘National Reorganization Process’. Strikingly, this regime bears notable resemblances to the ideologies espoused today by hard-right #Cult45 populists, Christian nationalists, and a decisive portion of average GOP voters in the United States, with Donald Trump as the centre of this neo-fascist movement. The Argentine junta did not revolve around a cult of personality, whilst our military in the United States rightfully withholdeth from intervening in domestic political matters, but therein may lie the end of the differences.

It is long-past concerning that the individual who led a botched coup attempt continues to evade consequences and is now poised to become his party’s nominee for president this autumn, with a plausible chance of success. While theirs may not be a military coup, #Cult45 hath akin many objectives to the junta that inflicted years of oppression and violence upon the people of Argentina. For further insight, one can search for ‘Project 2025’ to uncover parallels with the ‘National Reorganization Process’.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social, and @arthurnewhook on POST. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.