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.

Doomsday Eve: paying a lamentable tribute to President Joe Biden

I had hoped that President Biden might make a bold, decisive move in his final hours in office, but such an action does not appear forthcoming—at least not as far as I can discern, though I admit to being in something of a stupor on this lamentable day. To the utterly fatuous Democrats so enamoured with Kamala that you gleefully led the entire nation off a cliff, and to the bloody #MAGA fanatics, heed this: I shall never be persuaded that President Biden would have lost the 2024 election. At the very least, Pennsylvania would not have slipped from his grasp. No number of armies nor a million wild horses could force me to believe otherwise.

I am convinced that the media, the Democratic Party, and assorted malcontents convinced themselves he was unelectable and, in so doing, created a self-fulfilling prophecy by denying him the opportunity to prove otherwise. While I deeply regret that Mr Biden permitted this to transpire, he is, after all, a very old and weary man who likely longs for rest.

Thank you, Joe Biden, for your service to a nation both ungrateful and undeserving. And may those who discard you today soon find themselves wishing you back—and they undoubtedly shall.

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.

The American people (far too many of them, at least) continue to blatantly and deliberately emulate Nazi Germany, with antisemitic incidents soaring to a record high.

Photo: Neo-Nazis on a highway overpass on the I-40 near St. Louis, Missouri. Shared by Reddit user rojowro86 in the r/StLouis subreddit on 5th October 2024. (https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/1fwx5n0/nazis_on_i40_wtf/)

‘Antisemitic incidents in the US surge to a record high’ {BBC 6 October}

Whether it was before (a debate for another day, obviously we weren’t always saints), America in 2024 is undeniably becoming a blatantly and openly evil, repressive, and antisemitic nation. Beyond being a bloody outrage and a national disgrace, it personally repulses me to the point of feeling physically ill. It is also terrifying beyond the comprehension of those of us who grew up in times of greater peace, prosperity, and personal liberty (pre-9/11). For years, I have endured intense prophecies of a neo-Nazi state, and it is all coming together just as I envisioned. People continue to so gravely disappoint me. Remember, the numbers cited by the ADL are just what has been reported. Think of how many more incidents that have not been reported, likely multifold. #Murica is rapidly becoming the new Nazi Germany, to be made official on November 5.

Recent headlines:

East Coast dockworkers have suspended their strike until January and are returning to work - Those who hoarded toilet paper now appear rather foolish, especially since paper goods were not among the affected commodities. {AP 3 October}

Residents in areas devastated by Helene still scrambling for drinking water and basic necessities, a week after the storm. {AP 4 October}

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘They can control the weather.' - She’ll be re-elected to her seat in a landslide, and a great many Americans immediately and without question buy into any right-wing conspiracy theory, no matter how implausible. MTG is the face of #Murica in 2024. {Mediaite 4 October}

President Biden during press room briefing appearance, on the upcoming election: ‘I’m confident it will be free and fair. I don’t know whether it'll be peaceful.’ - It will not. {NPR 4 October}

Trump returns to Butler County, PA: the site where his ear was so badly wounded (yet now miraculously healed) back in July. {BBC 5 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.

Shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally is being investigated as an attempt on his life

Gene J. Puskar/AP

One can only run their mouths and threaten their political enemies, piss on our allies while praising America’s enemies, and domineer over all media for so long before someone pushes back. Of course, this all could have been staged, as well. Never put it past those who are constantly crying 'conspiracy' to engage in a conspiracy. Projection is an estimated 75% of their fascist playbook. Either way, #Cult45 must be watched more carefully than ever, as a retaliation attempt on President Biden is likely to follow. {AP 13/7}

Recent headlines:

Ivan Raiklin, Trump’s ‘secretary of retribution’, vows to have ‘Deep State’ figures killed. Ordinary citizens are next. {Thom Hartmann 11/7}

Trump asks NY judge to overturn guilty verdict in ‘hush money’ case, citing Supreme Court’s immunity decision - Mark my words, this knave shall prevail in eluding justice. The most cosseted, pampered, and self-entitled man in US history. {NBC News 11/7}

WSJ survey finds most economists believe inflation would worsen under Trump 2.0. {Salon 12/7}

Israeli strike targets a mastermind of the 7 October terrorist attacks, unconfirmed if the bastard is among the dead. {BBC 13/7}

UN estimates that the global population shall reach a peak of 10.3 billion by the 2080s - Naturally, it is the poorest citizens in the most impoverished countries who will not stop breeding like rabbits. It is inhumane to continue allowing this. {AP 11/7}

I place next to no stock in polls, but it is interesting that, at a time when his own party and the MSM wax hysterical, insisting he cannot win, Mr Biden’s purported poll numbers are on the rise while the other old man is falling flat. {Newsweek 10/7}

Germans outraged following report that the Putin regime intended to kill the CEO of the country’s largest arms manufacturer. {BBC 12/7}

For the fourth consecutive month, US inflation did abate in June. {ABC News 11/7}

Should he be reinstalled as POTUS, Trump is said to be considering reducing intelligence sharing with NATO allies. {New Voice of Ukraine 11/7}

Alabama GOP chair: ‘The mainstream media wants us to think of ourselves as a democracy because that leads to socialism’. - To quote the author of this article: ‘When someone tells you they don’t believe America is a democracy, you can stop right there. They don’t want America to be a democracy’. {Kyle Whitmire 11/7}

#Murica: Bullets now being sold out of vending machines in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas. {AP 10/7}

Snooty asshole actor and Democratic Party fundraiser who owns homes in Mexico, France, Italy, and England calls for President Biden to step aside - George Clooney may kindly go forth and consort with himself. {CNBC 10/7}

US intelligence warns that Russia, along with Iran and China, remains a 'preeminent threat' for election meddling. {Scripps News 9/07}

‘Project 2025 is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is Project 2025’. Why Donald Trump is lying about Project 2025. {Slate 09/7}

Russians launch a fresh missile assault on Ukrainian cities, targeting a children’s hospital in Kyiv - I defy any American in Putin’s fan club to defend this outrage. I am enraged. {AP 08/7}

Not even human beings, rather demonic orcs: A day after bombing a children’s hospital, the Putin regime issues an arrest warrant for the widow of Alexei Navalny. {BBC 09/7}

‘What Trump 2.0 would mean for Ukraine’ - #Cult45 have become so rabidly Ukrainophobic and pro-Putin that even Trump risks their wrath (and Putin’s) if he ever stops talking out of both sides of his mouth and pivots towards Ukraine. {Cathy Young 06/7}

Christian nationalism and the 'woke right': an authoritarian cult of victimhood employing the tactics of the far-left: a lengthy but vital read, courtesy of Neil Shevni.

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.

#NeverTrump #NeverDeSantis: Ukrainian-American voters angry at the GOP’s 2024 forerunners for their pro-Putin stances

Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images

Republicans are really shooting themselves in the foot by doing or saying anything that will curry favor with their party’s toxic and compromised leader and his toxic supporters. Or, for that matter, being reflexively against anything President Biden supports. FTA: ‘The votes of Ukrainian-Americans - traditionally a Republican-leaning bloc - could have an outsize impact on the 2024 general election, according to some lawmakers, strategists and advocates, plus a Reuters analysis of U.S. census data.

‘While the number of Americans who identify as being of Ukrainian descent is relatively small at about 1 million, they are densely distributed in a string of unusually competitive areas where their votes could potentially be decisive.’ {Reuters 5/20}

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.

Odds and ends: Thoughts on why #Murica is so screwed up in the 21st century, COVID rates multitudes higher than reported, as are Russian death totals in Ukraine, more

New York Post

The 21st century has been awful. Plagued by maladies that in more normal times (the late 20th century) we believed were no longer, or ever, supposed to occur in America - large scale terrorist attacks, pandemics, severe economic turmoil, race riots, disputed elections, the revival of global Fascism, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs winning championships; and I’m only scratching the surface. Today, I find myself wondering if all this chaos, hatred, and degradation is what people want. The only thing that everybody can seem to agree upon is that the country and the world are in a bad place. Logically, it would stand to reason that people would want to each do their part to fix the overall malaise ailing us. Yet, logic typically has so little to do with human thinking and decision making. Certain types of personalities do exist that thrive on chaos. Considering how large of a role entertainment plays in this culture - is there anything Americans demand more than the privilege of being entertained at all times? - perhaps the modern American is subconsciously bored by stability and order? Not an absolute thesis, just brainstorming.

Hollywood nutjobs battle in court - This is the nonsense #Murica has been paying the most attention to over the last few months. Not the plight of the Ukrainian people, or the threat Vladimir Putin and his nuclear arsenal pose to humanity, not COVID, and not the continuing erosion of our constitutional republic. Two Hollywood weirdos airing their dirty laundry to the world. So, if some sleazy actor is legally allowed to extort millions of dollars from a woman, does that mean I get to take my second-to-last girlfriend - a uniquely horrible person, who has offended me worse than any individual I’ve ever known, and that is saying a lot - to court for the hell she put me through? Does this mean I can sue my former high school classmates for emotional damages, because I know I could put a reasonable case together there? I’ve toyed with the idea of seeking legal council against a few individuals from a ‘fellows**t’ I made the mistake of being part of for nearly five years. But, I’m not some privileged a**hole like Johnny Depp, so I’d be laughed out of court, and nobody would be rooting for me as they root for one or the other litigants in this case. For better or worse, being a bitch is not a crime - and that is a resting bitchface if I’ve ever seen one, albeit she is quite gorgeous - and I have a hard time mustering up any sympathy for a sleazy actor who may have missed out on a part or two because of rumor and innuendo spread by the aforementioned woman that I had never ‘heard’ of until very recently.  Rome is burning, and most of us are choosing to be Nero playing our fiddles. (AP 6/01)

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Current COVID-19 infections may be up to thirty times higher than being reported - Quote: ‘It’s almost as though we’ve created a national ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ Covid policy – and that is a perfect way to promise that Covid will spread rapidly.’ (The Guardian 6/02)

Just another weekend in #Murica: Mass shootings in Philadelphia, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, and Arizona (New York Times 6/05)

Why are ‘deaths of despair’ increasing in the United States, but not in other industrialized nations? (JAMA Psychiatry 2/02)

Reuters

An estimated 40,000 or more Russian troops have been injured during the ‘special operation’ against Ukraine (Evening Standard 6/01)

Incredible photographs from inside the Azovstal steel plant (The Guardian 5/23)

Copyright 2022, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here. DONATIONS - click here.

Odds and ends: Yet more evidence the ‘Big Lie’ is just that, something smells rotten in the State of Texas, and more

CNN

Covering their tracks, just like good ole’ boys do: Uvalde school district police chief stops cooperating with state investigators - The narrative keeps changing, seemingly on an hourly basis. Did someone leave a door open, or did they not? Such evasion and confusion only fuels conspiracy theories and further mistrust. (Texas Tribune 5/31)

Rebecca Solnit: U.S. mass shootings will continue until the majority can overrule the minority - Yes, the GOP has become a large death cult. Albeit, a heavily armed and extremely dangerous one. (The Guardian 5/30)

Supreme Court issues emergency stay against Texas law ostensibly protecting free speech on social media platforms - The Texas law is a thinly veiled attempt to shield white supremacists and various other far-right zealots from liability, and Twitter, Facebook, etc., are private companies and can prohibit users from their platforms as they see fit. ‘Conservatives’ used to understand these sorts of things, before their brains turned to orange mush. (Politico 5/31)

Carolyn Kaster/AP

CISA: No evidence of hacking of Dominion voting machines in 2020 presidential election - Will Trump, the GOP, and #Cult45 finally give it a rest now with the Big Lie? Hell no, they won’t. (Washington Post 5/28)

Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussman acquitted on charges of lying to the FBI (BBC News 5/31)

Christian nationalism on the rise in some GOP campaigns - I am a Christian, albeit a really bad one. But, these fundamentalists are becoming every bit as dangerous as the Islamists who have so perverted their faith and caused so much carnage around the world. They must be stopped. (AP 5/28)

Copyright 2022, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here. DONATIONS - click here.

Woman raped in plain sight of bystanders on Philadelphia-area subway train, bystanders do exactly nothing

NBC Philadelphia

Many of us still seem to be under the illusion that Americans, by and large, are good people. The evidence continues to say otherwise. Fear of being sued is the biggest thing that stops anybody from lifting a finger to help anymore, but people everywhere are legitimately apathetic, or outright scornful, toward each other. NBC News -  

A 35-year-old man in Pennsylvania is facing rape and assault charges after a woman was sexually assaulted on board a public transit train Wednesday night as riders witnessed the attack but did not intervene, authorities said on Friday. 

The woman was assaulted at around 11 p.m. while riding the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Market-Frankford line towards the town of Upper Darby. 

"The assault was observed by a SEPTA employee, who called 911, enabling SEPTA officers to respond immediately and apprehend the suspect in the act," Andrew Busch, a SEPTA spokesperson, said in a statement. 

SEPTA officers arrested the man, later identified as 35-year-old Fiston Ngoy, according to Upper Darby Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt. 

Surveillance video captured the entirety of the assault, giving investigators enough evidence to charge Ngoy with rape and assault, Bernhardt told NBC Philadelphia. 

The video also shows how riders, who also witnessed the attack, did nothing to help the woman being assaulted, according to Bernhardt. 

"It's disturbing," he said. "I'm shocked, I have no words for it. I just can't imagine seeing what you were seeing through your own eyes and seeing what this woman was going through that no one would step in and help her." 

Investigators are also reviewing the videos in an effort to determine who was there and interview possible witnesses, Bernhardt added. (Read more)

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American Christian dominionists increasingly becoming more like Middle Eastern Islamists and preparing for war

AP

Another vital piece on Christian nationalism and vaccine resistance. Excerpt -   

Appeals to Christian identity were common during the Trump administration, and Christian nationalist themes were widely visible during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But with Trump out of office and hundreds of insurrectionists now facing federal charges, hard-line Christian nationalists are increasingly fueling their movement with opposition to COVID-19 vaccines and mask mandates, which they cast as threats to their religious and constitutional freedoms. 

A June poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core reported that among the 13% of Americans who said they would not get vaccinated, white evangelicals make up the largest religious chunk, representing 28% of “vaccine refusers.” White evangelicals also happen to be one of the faith groups most likely to embrace QAnon, which claims the world is secretly run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Among vaccine refusers, too, a full 42% believe conspiracy theories associated with the movement. 

There’s also a historical subtext: (Pastor Greg) Locke’s call to “stir up” school board meetings harks back to the strategy of the religious right in the 1980s and 1990s, which agitated at — and eventually took control of — school boards and other local government bodies in an effort to shift American culture from the grassroots up. 

But today’s Christian nationalists are arguably more confrontational than their religious right progenitors. At a school board meeting in Lee County, Florida, on Aug. 30, protesters who gathered outside to oppose an impending mask mandate wore shirts that read “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president” and the logo of the recently launched “Conservative Christians of Southwest Florida,” which features an outline of the state emblazoned with the American flag. 

As protesters and counterprotesters bickered, eventually exchanging blows, a pair of white-coated doctors attempted to walk by the crowd. They were promptly shoved and glared at by apparent opponents of the mask mandate. 

Inside the meeting room, two men wearing the conservative Christian group’s shirt spoke against the mask order. Later, a woman gripping a cross pointed at school board members and denounced them as “demonic entities,” saying people like them are in “all the school boards” in the U.S., but that “all of us Christians will be sticking together to take them all out.” (Read more)

Copyright 2021, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejects Texas lawsuit to overturn election results

The effort in the courts to secure another four years for Trump is over, but now the question is what depths of desperation do he and his minions sink to? Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States, but we’re still in a very dangerous situation between now and January 20. AP: Supreme Court rejects Republican attack on Biden victory.

Copyright 2020, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.