Stop the Idiocracy: Marco Rubio

Showing posts with label Marco Rubio. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Threshold of golden light

An evocative editorial illustration viewed from within the dark, battered hold of an aircraft. A gaunt, stooped figure wrapped in tattered cloth stands silhouetted at the open hatch, facing a brilliant expanse of golden daylight. Below, a crowd gathers on the tarmac with arms raised towards the returning figure. Heavy broken chains lie discarded across the metal floor, while a thin feeding tube or cord coils nearby, symbolising captivity and suffering left behind. Stark contrasts between the oppressive, scarred interior and luminous exterior convey liberation, survival and an uncertain homecoming.

image generated via ChatGPT

Welcome tidings, for once: Massachusetts native and former Marine Robert Gilman is released from Russian custody. {AP 12 August}

https://www.npr.org/2026/08/12/g-s1-138323/former-us-marine-russia

Am grateful the gentleman is being returned home, though he shall, without doubt, bear the scars of this ordeal for the remainder of his life. Nor does he stand alone as the sole American unjustly detained within that wretched country. Any United States citizen insane enough to contemplate travel to Russia would be well advised to exercise the utmost caution. —

FTA: Arrests of Americans have become increasingly common in Russia in recent years. Concern has risen that Russia could be targeting U.S. nationals to use later as bargaining chips in talks to bring back Russians convicted of crimes in the U.S. and Europe. Five other Americans remain imprisoned in Russia with deteriorating medical issues, according to a news release from Global Reach, a group that's been working to free them.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a photo on social media of a gaunt-looking Gilman draped in an American flag and surrounded by his family aboard an airplane.

"While we appreciate this positive step, we are still seeking the immediate return of all other unjustly detained Americans," Rubio stated.

Whilst you are about it, Mr Rubio, you might prevail upon your Russian friends to stop kidnapping Ukrainian children — though that, I suppose, constitutes a separate grievance for another occasion entirely. Welcome home, Robert Gilman. May the years that lie ahead furnish you with some measure of peace, in recompense for all that has been so grievously taken from you.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, July 31, 2026

Storm over Ceuta

A symbolic seaside illustration showing a dark-haired woman kneeling alone upon a sandy beach, wrapped in a delicate translucent white shawl that billows around her in the sea breeze. She gazes thoughtfully towards the surf while holding a damp strand of hair, with black diving fins resting beside her and discarded rubber inner tubes scattered across the shoreline. Behind her, shafts of sunlight break dramatically through towering storm clouds, illuminating dozens of distant figures wading ashore through the shallow waves. The contrast between the solitary foreground figure and the mass of arrivals beyond evokes themes of migration, uncertainty, humanitarian crisis, and the fragile hope represented by light piercing the gathering storm.

image generated via Grok

Is the Trump regime covertly stoking Spain's sudden migrant crisis to seize control of the Strait of Gibraltar? {Türkiye Today 31 July}

https://www.turkiyetoday.com/opinion/the-gibraltar-calculus-is-spains-ceuta-included-in-the-abraham-accords-3225028?s=1

Raise hell over migrants coming into the former United States, but facilitate their entering another country and disrupting its economy and security. And for what purpose? Nothing is ever for a good purpose with Trump or those working alongside him. Violating the territorial integrity of a NATO state — under the heretofore unheard-of pretence that the area now being overrun with migrants does not belong to Spain but to Morocco, whose government is evidently complicit in the scheme — is especially nefarious when America is supposed to be Spain's ally and partner. America and Europe have been solid allies throughout the post-war era, but that era is over and the two sides are increasingly being cast as adversaries in a new cold war — or perhaps a hot one; time shall tell. Who else benefits from this new world of America and Europe at odds? Russia, China, possibly India, the Islamists, and anybody else with an interest in dividing and conquering the Western world.

What y’all voted for, #Murica.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, July 11, 2026

The wrath of the red moon

A richly detailed fantasy illustration portrays a powerful sorceress standing at the centre of an opulent Persian-inspired palace hall. She wears flowing crimson robes embroidered with gold, layered jewellery, and an ornate jeweled headdress, while strands of glowing red magical energy spiral from her outstretched hand. Her dark hair cascades around her shoulders and her intense gaze dominates the composition. Surrounding her are lavish carpets, silk cushions, gilded lanterns, carved marble columns, intricate tilework, and jewel-toned draperies rendered in extraordinary detail. In the background, two elegantly dressed women recline together upon cushions, providing a quiet contrast to the central figure’s commanding presence. Warm lantern light, rich crimson and gold hues, and elaborate decorative motifs create an atmosphere of luxury, mysticism, and regal authority.

generated via ChatGPT

Khamenei Jr. vows to avenge his father’s death, crude oil prices soar again, while the White House seeks an agreement to free up the Strait of Hormuz that is never going to be adhered to. What a bloody mess. {Reuters 11 July}

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/us-seeks-iranian-pledge-to-free-up-strait-of-hormuz/

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

The supreme irony of the mindless, anti-intellectual, nationalist populist movement: Its ideological underpins are being set by academia

John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani. Photo: Reuters

In spite of #Cult45’s endless disdain for academia or anything intellectual in nature, it is the ‘conservative’ think tanks – looking to countries such as Hungary for inspiration - that are putting the final death nails in America’s coffin. Via the New Republic -

Since 2016, an array of little-known conservative intellectuals and think tank sorts have emerged as powerful voices in Trump’s Republican Party. Zealous opposition to immigration and so-called woke culture stoked their political ambition. They lent a veneer of much-needed respectability to the Trump administration. And now, despite some genuine theoretical differences, the group is coalescing around an illiberal political project—not just espousing typical conservative policy preferences, but standing against liberal, constitutional democracy in the traditional, nonpartisan sense. Some of the most prominent intellectual voices on the right are openly consolidating around the notion that America needs a radical political transformation, away from rule by and for “We the People” and toward something more top-down and monolithic. At its essence, NatCon II is an opportunity for the big names in this movement to offer a dressed-up, sublimating version of Trumpism.
Today, the conservative intellectuals who first came together in defense of Trumpism and under the banner of National Conservatism are preparing the ideological terrain for a post-liberal America. Not to take them seriously betrays a historical naïveté and a fetishization of the intellect—as if intelligence has never walked alongside moral and political horror—as well as a dreadful overconfidence in the immediate appeal of the liberal democratic worldview. (Read more)