Stop the Idiocracy: Pete Hegseth

Showing posts with label Pete Hegseth. Show all posts

Friday, September 18, 2026

A role call in shadow

A darkly sumptuous editorial illustration depicts a solemn brunette woman as an allegorical military figure overlooking Washington in a violent nocturnal storm. Wearing provocative black-and-gold military-inspired couture, stockings, gloves and thigh-high boots, she carries an open dossier from which documents and identification tags spill. Behind her, an aircraft carrier battles mountainous seas as warplanes cross the sky. Memorial walls, helmets, boots, candles, folded flags and white roses evoke military deaths, while a balance weighs medals against concealed files. The Pentagon and Washington monuments below reinforce themes of war, secrecy, institutional accountability and disputed casualty reporting.

image generated via ChatGPT

‘More American service members have died in the Middle East during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly’. {Washington Post 18 September}

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ar-AA2cwmIj

Pete Hegseth must be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanours and removed from office. His stewardship of the United States Armed Forces hath proved an utter disgrace, and even thus do I speak mildly. The plight of the USS Abraham Lincoln alone ought, in mine own judgement, to furnish sufficient grounds for impeachment.

In truth, this punk finds himself fortunate indeed that the American people have not presently their wits fully about them; for, were it otherwise, they should be marching upon Washington and Arlington, bearing pitchforks and torches, and demanding that the ‘Secretary of War’ be called to account. —

FTA: According to a document reviewed by The Washington Post, U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, has estimated that the Iran war has cost about $43.6 billion through early September. The total includes $28 billion in munitions expended during the conflict but does not account for the damage to U.S. bases.

As The Post reported last month, several top U.S. military officials have warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.

According to a September Reuters-Ipsos poll, 28 percent of Americans support Trump’s approach to Iran, whereas 62 percent disapprove.

On Tuesday, a record seven GOP lawmakers joined Democrats and helped pass a largely symbolic measure intended to halt the war — the latest of several war powers resolutions to advance in Congress.

All war deaths and injuries are supposed to be publicly reported on the Pentagon’s public DCAS system, where the military accounts for personnel lost or injured in its conflicts.

Over the summer, when the four combat deaths were temporarily excluded from the casualty database, the Trump administration reclassified renewed hostilities with Iran as Overseas Operations instead of being tied to Operation Epic Fury.

The change, which occurred as U.S. negotiators struggled to broker a permanent peace deal with Tehran, coincided with efforts by the administration to portray the war as a success even as Iran continued to fire on American forces and continued to target shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Senate Democrats have pledged to investigate the Pentagon’s handling of casualty notifications if they retake the majority after the midterms.

Rep. Jason Crow (Colorado) and 11 other House Democrats, all of them military veterans, on Friday said they were introducing a bill that would prevent the Pentagon from manipulating government data on troop casualties.

One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (Kentucky), moved this week to force a House vote on impeaching Hegseth over the war, alleging the defense secretary violated provisions of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 by pursuing hostilities without congressional authorization.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Treasure into the furnace

An intricate Persian-inspired fantasy illustration depicts a pale, long-haired woman standing nearly nude within a magnificent vaulted palace, modestly adorned with jewelled ornaments and translucent drapery. She looks anxiously over her shoulder, hands drawn protectively towards her chest. Beside her, an ornate treasure chest disgorges molten gold into a cracked basin, from which a gleaming stream winds across richly patterned carpets towards her feet. Beyond the stained-glass arches, flames and smoke rise over a distant landscape. Turquoise waterways, burning braziers, flowers, discarded sandals and sumptuous decorative motifs intensify the scene’s uneasy juxtaposition of beauty, wealth and destruction.

image generated via Qwen

CBO: Iran war costs top $38 billion as of 1 Aug, excluding expenses related to US personnel killed or injured, repair costs, etc. {AP 15 September}

https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-cbo-estimate-b99089b11749f04bbc8ddb1b3c64a373

FTA: The U.S. war against Iran has cost the Department of Defense more than $38 billion through Aug. 1, and will continue costing up to $3 billion a month or more depending on the intensity of the conflict, according to an assessment released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

CBO said the war is expected to contribute to inflation into the first quarter of 2027, making inflation roughly 0.5 percentage points higher than they had previously estimated. That’s driven largely by the reduction of oil and natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and disruptions to shipping through the Red Sea.

The estimate, prepared in response to a request for information from the top Democrat on the House Budget committee, Rep. Brendan Boyle, largely aligns with a previous estimate from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who pinned the costs at $37.5 billion, according to his Senate testimony.

The estimates come largely from replacing munitions and equipment lost in battle, the CBO said, and do not include costs related to U.S. military personnel killed or injured in the conflict or longer term veterans’ healthcare and disability compensation.

Boyle said that beyond with the war’s human toll, “this nonpartisan CBO report makes clear that the war has also cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and counting, while continuing to drive up costs.”

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Wired for obedience

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

image generated via ChatGPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

The reckoning in the Pentagon

image generated via Grok

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He added:

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

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

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

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

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Monday, August 31, 2026

The narrative factory

A dark, dystopian editorial illustration depicts a clandestine communications and surveillance centre crowded with machinery, cables, smartphones and illuminated data screens. At centre, a pale, dark-haired woman in a short black dress and stockings sits upon a desk, surrounded by similarly dressed female operatives examining files, devices and network displays. Screens map interconnected anonymous profiles and an official-looking figure, suggesting organised influence operations. Behind them, an ominous mechanical apparatus bristles with cameras beneath red warning lights. A web of glowing cables spreads across the desk and floor, linking numerous phones and evoking covert propaganda, digital manipulation and institutional surveillance.

image generated via ChatGPT

Ministers of propaganda: Pentagon found to be secretly installing right-wing military veteran ‘influencers’ in government roles. {WP 30 August}

https://wapo.st/4iExvH4

Hegseth must go. America doth not need this half-baked culture warrior directing the affairs of its armed forces; rather, it requires an individual genuinely competent in the duties and responsibilities attendant upon overseeing the world’s largest fighting force. The incompetence on display is sickening in and of itself, but that they should endeavour to dictate public opinion — at taxpayer expense — on top of it is stunning for its sheer arrogance and effrontery. We are not in World War II, nor in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and the Christian Nationalist agenda now being advanced remains nefarious and thoroughly un-American in every conceivable respect. —

FTA: The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material.

At least some of the influencers have been assigned to civilian roles that could lead to changes in policy, the people familiar with the matter said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Neither the Pentagon nor those involved have disclosed the government roles despite the Trump administration’s claims that they are running the most transparent Defense Department ever.

Those involved include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, people familiar with the matter said. Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post show that both have active official government email addresses as of this past week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The email addresses include a “.civ” suffix, meaning they are labeled as civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors.

Both served for decades in uniform and, since retiring, have turned from the military to conservative commentary. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, while Schlichter has nearly 620,000.

Another retired Army colonel and influencer, Thomas Anderson, was listed in Pentagon records earlier this year with a “.civ” email address and assigned to Tata’s office, according to people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by The Post. An attorney, he writes online under the pen name Cynical Publius and has more than 323,000 followers on X. He was no longer listed in Pentagon records late this past week, the people familiar with the issue said.

The assignments for all three have not previously been reported. Questions have been raised online about influencers’ connections with the Pentagon, including in an article last week by the Bulwark.

Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez declined to comment to The Post about whether any of the three are drawing a taxpayer-funded salary, what roles they have or how long those jobs are expected to last. Tata did not respond to a request for comment.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, August 15, 2026

‘Not nearly long enough’

A sombre allegorical illustration depicts an aircraft carrier navigating dark, turbulent seas beneath a vast, clouded sky. A solitary naval officer stands on the otherwise deserted flight deck beside parked fighter jets and a coiled mooring rope, gazing towards the horizon where another carrier appears in the distance. Looming translucently above are an enormous clock face and the silhouettes of a woman and young child, suggesting memories of family and the passage of time. Muted blue-grey tones, sparse golden light and the immense scale of the vessel evoke isolation, duty, separation and longing.

image generated via ChatGPT

Sadistic Trump, on the record deployment endured by sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln: ‘not nearly long enough’. {AP 14 August}

https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-aircraft-carrier-uss-lincoln-023413c38373d4a6ba033612a1f552c6

What can be said about this? If these comments do not rouse people to anger, after all else that hath failed to do so, nothing shall.

FTA: WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday downplayed the toll on American sailors enduring nearly nine months at sea on the USS Abraham Lincoln as concerns escalated about mental health and supply issues aboard the aircraft carrier supporting U.S. operations against Iran.

In a brief exchange with reporters before flying to New York for an event to highlight falling violent crime rates across the U.S., Trump refuted that family members have raised concerns about the deployment’s length and even said that the deployment — which includes a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days — is “not nearly long enough.”

“That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship,” Trump said when asked about the lengthy deployment. The acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, said the Lincoln “will return home soon” in a social media post on Friday.

Trump strode into office for a second term vowing to avoid lengthy and expensive military entanglements. And after launching the Iran war, alongside Israel, Trump and his advisers said the conflict would last a matter of weeks. The war is now more than five months old.

But on Friday, during his crime address in Garden City, New York, he acknowledged that he’s used the U.S. military “a little bit more than I wanted to,” while asserting anew that the U.S. operation against Iran is going well. He even said, seemingly in jest, that “pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”

“I’ll never apologize,” Trump added about the war and its impact on oil prices. “I did the right thing.”

That last sentence sums it all up: he shall never apologise for anything, because, in his deranged mind, he is always right. And an entire nation hath given him free rein to do whatever he wants. God help us all.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

The bookkeeping of bloodshed

$A dramatic allegorical digital illustration of a dark-haired woman standing barefoot upon a cracked ledger whose pages spill into long curling ribbons that wind around her wrists and ankles before drifting across the landscape. She wears a dramatically distressed olive-drab garment with silver dog tags, her windswept hair and solemn expression conveying resilience amid turmoil. Torn operational maps and administrative papers whirl through the air around her beneath the immense ringed planet Saturn dominating the night sky. The barren ground and distant horizon reinforce the atmosphere of desolation, while the symbolic military attire, fractured records, and swirling documents create an evocative meditation on bureaucracy, sacrifice, memory, and the weight of institutional decisions.$

image generated via ChatGPT

Veteran groups express outrage after the Trump regime makes controversial revision to Iran war casualty numbers. {The Guardian 27 July}

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/27/trump-administration-iran-war-casualties-veterans

FTA: The department’s reclassification of Iran war casualties has faced criticism in Washington, including from Thomas Massie, a Republican House member from Kentucky, ousted in a primary earlier this year after repeatedly breaking with the president.

“Let me explain this absurd ruse: The Pentagon is pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire,” Massie wrote on X on Friday. “The reality: By going more than 90 days without congressional authorization,” the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, “IS BREAKING THE LAW and must be held accountable”.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Liberty in the hands of her executioners

A richly detailed illustration in the style of a classic adventure comic depicts a pale, unconscious woman representing Lady Liberty reclining across an ornate Victorian chaise longue. She wears a flowing ivory gown and the iconic spiked crown, her extraordinarily long platinum-blonde hair cascading over the cushions. Small crimson puncture wounds on her neck, wrists and ankle suggest severe blood loss, leaving her complexion ghostly white. Five elegantly dressed women in lavish black and crimson gowns, each bearing subtle bloodstains at the throat, surround her with intent expressions, evoking aristocratic vampires. One gently lifts Lady Liberty’s chin while the others lean closer beneath candlelight in an opulent Gothic chamber filled with statues, heavy drapery and antique furnishings, creating an atmosphere of foreboding menace.

generated via ChatGPT

Making America great again by draining the coffers of the world’s most powerful military? The Pentagon is rapidly going broke. {WP 21 July}

https://wapo.st/4wYclry

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.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Muscles, mirrors, and make-believe

A richly detailed illustration in a classic adventure-comic style depicts an older silver-haired man standing before an ornate bathroom mirror, proudly flexing both arms while admiring his own muscular reflection. He wears a fitted grey sleeveless shirt and dark lounge trousers, his expression one of unmistakable self-satisfaction. Behind him, reflected in the open doorway, two young women in elegant satin nightwear pause, smiling warmly at one another while holding hands, seemingly amused rather than impressed by his display. The luxurious bathroom features polished black marble, gilded fittings, crystal perfume bottles, folded towels and a vase of white roses, all rendered with bold ink linework, warm hand-painted colours and meticulous vintage-inspired detail.

generated via ChatGPT

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.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Thursday, June 18, 2026

The republic in the recovery ward

A polished retro-style illustration of a military medical ward during a flu outbreak. Four nurses in crisp white uniforms move among rows of beds caring for recovering servicemen. Foreground, a blonde nurse gently presseth a cool cloth to a soldier’s forehead. Behind, a brunette nurse offereth water to another patient sitting upright. Farther down, two more nurses tend to bedridden men beneath blue-grey blankets. Large windows fill the room with warm daylight, illuminating metal beds, IV stands, and spotless furnishings. The soldiers appear tired but reassured. Compassion, professionalism, and human connection—nostalgic mid-century medical imagery, soft lighting, and calm resilience amid illness and recovery.

generated via ChatGPT

‘A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu’. {NYT 18 June}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/flu-outbreak-air-force-base.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rFA.Q81W.RstIwquP1M61&smid=url-share

Expect to see many more headlines such as this in the years to come, as this gaggle of malevolent idiots and traitors continues decimating the Armed Forces (and everything else in its path). What you people voted for.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Compassion is no repeal of law: DOJ orders Facebook to remove a group tracking ICE agents in Chicago

image generated via ChatGPT

{NYT 15 October} “Meta on Tuesday removed a Facebook group that was used to share information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago after the Department of Justice requested that it be taken down.”

One may rightly condemn the excesses of ICE, and insist that non-violent migrants deserve dignity rather than degradation—and I would concur. Yet compassion, however noble, does not erase law. To obstruct officers acting within their legal remit remains an offence, regardless of intent, and regardless of how unjust the methods ICE is employing these days may be. And, furthermore, if one must broadcast the movements of federal agents, then at least choose a medium less porous than the echo-chambers of social media. #JustSaying —Arthur Newhook, 15 October 2025.

An omen, perhaps: the aircraft bearing ‘Secretary of War’ Hegseth home from the NATO summit in Brussels makes an unplanned descent in Britain—its windshield fractured, as if by prophecy itself. {BBC 15 October}

“Nations that embrace openness and cooperation are surging ahead, while those resting on past privilege are being left behind.” Once the world’s most powerful passport, the US now ranks 12th—its holders welcomed visa-free to fewer shores than a decade past. {WP 15 October}

Trump confers a posthumous Medal of Freedom upon a man whose life’s work advanced Christian nationalism—curtailing freedoms for undesirables, and all who refuse the yoke of Dominionist rule. {The Guardian 14 October}

Friday, October 10, 2025

A farce too crude for any stage: the ‘America First’ Trump regime invites the Qatari air force to nest at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho

image generated via Google Gemini

{CNBC 10 October} ‘Qatar Air Force facility to be built at USAF base in Idaho, Defense Secretary Hegseth says’

The ‘America First’ charade—what a tawdry spectacle of hypocrisy it remains. Draped in the flag like pious patriots, they sell off the very soil beneath it to whichever foreign bidder flatters Trump’s vanity or funds the GOP’s campaign coffers. The Trump regime, in its latest grotesque parody of nationalism, hath invited the Qatari Air Force to establish itself at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho—a scene so absurd one might think it lifted from a discarded political satire.

This, then, is the empire in its dotage: swaggering under the banner of sovereignty while leasing out its soul to the highest bidder. The rhetoric of ‘Make America Great Again’ rings hollow against the clatter of foreign boots on American tarmac. Once, even hypocrisy required a touch of subtlety; now, thanks to Donald J Trump and all who have enabled him, it parades itself in daylight, indifferent to ridicule.

An empire’s decline rarely announces itself with dignity—it seeps through the cracks of its own bombast, until farce becomes its only surviving export. —Arthur Newhook, 10 October 2025.

{alternate text for the above image} A digitally rendered allegorical scene steeped in both grandeur and menace. At its centre stands a young woman in a vivid scarlet dress, her platinum hair rippling in the wind. Behind her looms an enormous American flag, its stripes swelling like storm waves against a golden, smoke-hazed sky. The phrase “America First” blazes on a banner nearby, echoing through the industrial backdrop of chimneys and military aircraft. Uniformed men stride about in regimented order, their presence mechanical and impersonal, while the woman—barefoot on the cracked tarmac—remains poised and solitary, embodying at once defiance and despair. The sunlight gilds her figure but cannot dispel the pall of authoritarianism gathering in the distance. The image juxtaposes patriotic spectacle with moral unease: a nation dressed for ceremony yet haunted by its own power, its ideals fluttering as perilously as its flag.

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

The essence of the Quantico address: a calculated rite of humiliation, with Trump imperilling the patience of US generals

Alex Wong/Getty Images

{USNI News 30 September} 'Pentagon issues fresh edict on physical fitness and grooming standards in the wake of the Quantico address'

An assembly of generals, all feigned enthusiasm, hanging rapt upon each syllable uttered by the Secretary of War and the President of the United States. (/obvious sarcasm).

To be fair, the new directives, taken on their own, possess a surface logic—most notably in prescribing stricter standards of physical fitness and ensuring combat readiness. Yet what is far more disquieting is the pageantry of their unveiling, staged unmistakably as a ritual of humiliation. For years—since his first tenure in the White House—Trump has inveighed against generals who honoured their oaths. His disdain for the military is unvarnished, at once putting them on a pedestal and emasculating them. Thus to assemble them, and then subject them to over an hour of his typical rambling irrelevance, was to reduce the nation’s senior commanders to the theatre of abasement. They recognised as much; their stony demeanours and reluctant postures betrayed the truth.

It may yet be these very generals—men, and a diminished handful of women, many of the latter already purged by this regime—who preserve the republic. For they did not appear as a cadre inclined to betray their oaths, nor to contort the Constitution into sanctioning a presidential war against his own citizenry and all whom he capriciously names ‘enemy’. One suspects, or at least strongly hopes, they confer in private, formulating strategy for the inevitable hour—fast approaching—when the Commander-in-Chief’s commands trespass so egregiously into unlawfulness that they cannot, in conscience, be obeyed.

{alternate text) In this photograph taken on 30 September 2025, rows of senior US military officers, clad in dark dress uniforms heavy with insignia, ribbons, and medals, sit in stony formation at Quantico. Their faces, rigid and unsmiling, betray an air of discomfort that undercuts the ceremony of their appearance. Some look downward, others stare blankly ahead, while a few allow the faintest flicker of exasperation to cross their features. The sea of green and blue uniforms, punctuated by the glint of brass and polished cloth, forms a tableau of disciplined composure masking inner disquiet. Against the gravity of their bearing, the mood is unmistakably strained, the officers’ silent demeanour reflecting a collective unease at being compelled to endure the rambling oratory of President Donald Trump. It is an image less of military pomp than of professional stoicism tested by political theatre, each face a study in the art of concealing disdain under the iron weight of duty.

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