The road to ruin runs on Russian diesel

image generated via Qwen

{AP 9 October} ‘Trump strikes deal with Putin to get diesel in sharp reversal of US policy weeks before midterms’ — 

https://apnews.com/article/trump-russia-diesel-midterms-12baccc7aade559bf329079b0548c9da

Americans shall forever be hated by the people of Ukraine, and all of Europe, for their treachery in returning a known Putin stooge to high office. We are a nation of cowards, backstabbers, lunatics, and freaks. Much like Russia. Nikita Khrushchev famously declared: ‘We will bury you’, in regards to the United States, and it would appear Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to help finally make that happen.

If Zelensky continues to strike Russian oil refineries — as Ukraine hath every right to do in a war it did not begin — what happens when those attacks collide directly with Trump’s new arrangement with Putin? I fear where this road may lead. Washington is already pressuring Kyiv over its refinery campaign; should Trump ever go so far as to order American military action against Ukraine, the resulting breach with Europe and NATO would be of a magnitude scarcely imaginable. I shall not pretend to know precisely where such madness would end, only there shall be serious consequences for every American citizen, and billions others besides. A vastly wider conflict may become a likelihood.

One way or the other, it is not likely to mean lower diesel prices.  Was whining and moaning for nearly three years — whilst Mr Biden was still in office and US-Ukraine relations were still warm — about the money spent on Ukraine’s defence worth the dissolution of the post-war, Western alliance that hath largely kept peace and brought prosperity for eighty years? Was betraying Ukraine really worth risking a global war, you dumb f**ks? I honestly believe Trump may be deliberately leading America in that direction. He is a destroyer of nations, most especially his own.

This American’s conscience is clear; if worst comes to worst, as I now fear it will, then all Americans who are opposed to this treason and sickening evil shall be compelled to take some sort of action in protest. A general strike, mass protests… hell if I know what is going to happen: we only know that any uprising shall be bloody, with no guarantee that liberty and common sense will save the day. And, I believe, an uprising is exactly what Trump and his allies want. He and they have been licking their lips, ever since he was restored to power, awaiting an all-out crackdown on American society, and it matters not what the current poll numbers may be, the majority of Americans are going to go along to get along once this crackdown is implemented. Many eagerly so.

Remember, ‘y’all’ voted for this. We had already suffered through one term of this fool, which ended in disaster yet very well could have been worse still had some people possessing a degree of competence and character not remained around him to impose restraint (is anybody at all serving that role in the current regime?) Then — after four years during which he officially became a convicted felon and spent the whole time undermining President Joe Biden at every turn (in which the media was entirely complicit) — ‘y’all’ brought him back anyway; anything to avoid being governed by a black female Democrat (whom I harbour no love for, by the way). Anything to be entertained and have your favourite circus clown back on the main stage. 

The rest of us warned you exactly what was going to happen. We see it all playing out: our place in the world hath been ruined, probably beyond repair. We are at odds with Canada now, for f**k’s sake! Our military might is rapidly being depleted, our economy is collapsing (in large part due to this regime’s imbecilic fiscal policies), preventable diseases are spreading, our natural resources are being plundered, and our civil liberties are being eroded.

Was this all worth it? Is silencing and punishing fellow Americans worth the very real pain that hath already been felt, but in earnest is only just beginning? I suspect, for all too many and perhaps for some reading this, the answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. 

The biggest lie in the universe is that people are basically good by nature. No: human nature is rotten, and human beings shall forever hurt themselves in order to hurt their enemies more grievously. Present-day #Murica may yet go down in history as one of the prime examples of this eternal truism. It is going to be an ugly fall, and I pray I somehow shall not have to bear witness to it.

Visit reddit.com/r/TheWireDesk

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The last barrels of empire

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Living on an oil market credit card’ — US strategic petroleum reserve falleth to its lowest level since October 1982. {Oilprice Intelligence 28 September}

https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/u-strategic-petroleum-falls-lowest-183000158.html

October 1982. I was enrolled in nursery school; ‘Jack & Diane’ reigned atop the American charts, whilst Culture Club sat atop the UK charts; Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher presided as the leaders of the free world, and the Soviet Union remained a menace, with glasnost and the end of the Cold War not yet on the horizon. The World Wide Web did not exist; commercially available handheld mobile phones lay yet in the future; and only roughly a third of American households had access to cable television, to say nothing whatsoever of YouTube, TikTok, and today’s sundry other contrivances. 

At that time, the United States lay mired in a fairly deep recession; the ‘malaise’ associated with President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 crisis-of-confidence speech remained palpable, though the cloud would begin to lift over the ensuing two years. Though I was but a small lad, the pessimism characterising late-1970s and early-1980s America proved, by any reasonable measure, decidedly mild when set against the distressing temper of Trumpistan in 2026.

Perchance one day the world shall have achieved complete independence from fossil fuels — an argument for another day — but for now, oil remains a form of geopolitical currency and, for producing states, a potent source of wealth and international leverage. And whilst painfully foolish Americans continue to bray incessantly concerning the supposed wonders of this Donald Trump’s leadership, the international community at large beholds, instead, a cutthroat, oligarchical régime engaged in stripping its own nation of wealth and resources; an orange-hued dictator and underlings rendering their country both sicker and poorer in equal measure; and altogether too many Americans comporting themselves as belligerent idiots, without respite or relief. 

I may have been but four years of age, and my personal memories of those halcyon days remain, at best, exceedingly hazy; yet I know, without the slightest doubt, that this nation was assuredly neither so foolish nor so crass in October 1982 as it is forty-four years hence. Nor doth it presently possess uncontested global primacy, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary emanating from the very cabal undermining it, together with their useful dupes residing amongst us. Those who maintain otherwise are lying — to others and to themselves, whilst placing their faith in the flatteries proffered by populist demagogues.

Populism is, ever hath been, and ever shall be a cancer upon any nation or people that falleth beneath its sway.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

A cathedral of science in ruins

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A ‘zombified’ CDC: sociopath RFK Jr  is thoroughly hollowing out the former ‘undisputed global leader in public health’. {NYT 26 September}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/health/cdc-staff-cuts-rfk-jr.html?unlocked_article_code=1.EFE.v9iu.h-O5UKgvJL_q&smid=url-share

This New York Times article constitutes essential reading. Even the lavatories within CDC headquarters, it is reported, stand neglected. 

Every Trump voter throughout the country beareth some measure of indirect responsibility — direct responsibility, indeed, should we speak of the most hardened anti-vaxxers — for the damage presently being wrought upon American public health. I remain in perpetual disbelief that this is what the American electorate desired: for all of us to be rendered sicker and poorer. Just continually astonished at the sheer wilful stupidity, the anti-intellectualism, and the quasi-medieval mindset that altogether too many #Muricans have adopted towards medical science. Rather than emerging from the pandemic as a society more attuned to matters of hygiene — one that would value handwashing and respect for personal space — we apparently learnt the wrong lessons entirely. I shudder to contemplate how many further lives might have been lost, had the CDC found itself in its present state of dereliction at that hour. Once again, this bloody régime is deliberately making the nation sicker and poorer, whilst more than half the populace either cheereth it onward or averteth its gaze entirely. 

Seriously, doth this not alarm people — that American public-health capacity should be degraded unto depths once scarcely imaginable for the United States? It shall prove exceedingly difficult, perchance outright impossible, ever to rebuild that which hath been so needlessly destroyed. What, in the name of all that is sacred, aileth ‘y’all’? Is this genuinely the life ‘y’all’ wish to lead, and constantly demand that the rest of us endure alongside you? Well, I demand sanity! I demand basic humanity and dignity, and I demand that fundamental healthcare standards be upheld within a nation — in actuality, an empire — which we are perpetually assured is the freest and most powerful upon this earth, even as that very assertion hath grown patently untenable.

Donald Trump hath not rendered America ‘great again’; rather, he hath transformed it into a veritable cesspit, aided and abetted by too many individuals within our own lives — almost none of whom show any genuine repentance, nor shall they ever, however dire circumstances may ultimately become. COVID, January 6, the felony convictions, his putrid record since returning to office, the rupture with longstanding allies: none of it hath yet produced the national reckoning that ought, by rights, to have occurred by now. Whether the November midterm elections shall alter this picture remaineth an open question, though I am not holding my breath expecting anything favourable to come of it. Always assume the worst, folks.

The past decade hath been one of near-universal degradation; I scarce wish even to imagine what the coming ten years shall bring, governed and populated as we are by malevolent and self-destructive fools. Yet, in truth, I need not contemplate it at all. The America we once knew shall never return, and it is all downhill from here.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The Massachusetts GOP 2026 Ballot Guide: ‘No Stance’ on Q8

A bunch of gutless cowards who cannot bring themselves to take a position on a matter of individual liberty, to say nothing of the tax revenue at stake. I have known individuals who despise marijuana and never wanted it legalised, and yet even one such person regards this particular ballot question as a waste of everyone’s time, given the majority of marijuana users are going to consume it regardless. I say ‘the majority’, for crossing the border into Rhode Island, Connecticut, or Vermont proves neither especially practical nor easy for most individuals who do not reside in immediate proximity to those states — especially if they are disabled, as myself am. Ten minutes behind the wheel, and my nerves are shot. Also, and only speaking for myself, I am never going back to having to rely on shady dealers, and being sold Lord only knows what. Spent too many years and endured too many headaches, and I am pushing fifty. Never — but a lot of folks will, of course.

One August poll found fifty-five per cent of registered voters opposed to repeal, yet I am offended that this question ever found its way onto the ballot in the first place. Nine statewide ballot questions, furthermore, constitute an absurdity in its own right. With voters obliged to work their way through that many measures — upon ballots expected to run two or three pages in length — one can scarcely pretend that voter fatigue is not a legitimate concern. Or diminished literacy and shortened attention spans. I’ve not yet made up my mind on every question, but how many of these measures are truly necessary, anyway? Q8 sure as hell is not.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

A role call in shadow

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‘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.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Between memory and tomorrow

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Some Jewish leaders call for retiring the term ‘Zionism’. {Washington Post 17 September}

https://wapo.st/4rgQ3PO

FTA: Some of Israel’s strongest critics see the term “Zionism,” and the Jewish state itself, as inherently oppressive and undemocratic. For them, the debate over whether the Jewish community should use the term is more of a public relations issue.

“It’s not substantive, it’s very cosmetic. It’s not about rethinking: Can an ethno-state be democratic?’” said Rabbi Alissa Wise, a longtime activist for Palestinian rights and founding director of Rabbis for Ceasefire, which began after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza. “In this moment, Zionism means one thing and it means the policy of Jewish supremacy in Israel.”

But for other Jewish leaders, the word and the movement remain a core part of what it means to be Jewish.

Rabbi Loren Sykes, leader of Mercaz, the Zionist part of Conservative Judaism, said the word means simply “the right of self-determination of the Jewish people in our ancient homeland.”

“We refuse to concede the term to those on the extremes who seek to define it in terms of Jewish supremacy,” he said in a statement. Zionism “does not mean supporting a particular government, party, or policy; rather, it requires only supporting the existence of Israel.”

Zionism has always had many definitions and aims. Some religious Zionists saw it as the Jewish yearning in the Bible for Jerusalem. Secular Zionists defined it as Jewish self-determination, freedom and the desire to be masters of their own destiny. The right-wing movement in control of Israel today sees the expansion of Jewish control into the West Bank as a demonstration of Zionism.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The two-dollar beef mirage

image generated via Gemini

GOP congressman, either grievously misinformed or gaslighting the public, asserts that ground beef is less than $2.00 a pound. {Huffington Post 16 September}

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/ar-AA2cnrRE

Actually closer to $7.00, and it hath been well-nigh a quarter of a century since the national average hovered anywhere near $2.00; yet never suffer mere facts to intrude upon a pleasing narrative.

FTA: Rep. Tom Emmer needs to tell the rest of us where he gets his groceries.

The Minnesota Republican appeared Wednesday morning on Fox Business and declared that beef prices had dropped to a level that may have shocked some viewers.

“We still have work to do, there’s no question,” Emmer said, downplaying the recent spike in inflation. “But eggs are at pre-pandemic prices. Beef is at less than $2 a pound for ground beef.”

In reality, the price of ground beef has shot up to nearly $7 a pound and shows no signs of retreating. Prices have risen steadily since the pandemic, with recent increases driven in large part by a historically small domestic cattle herd. 

Despite Emmer’s rosy take on the situation, it’s been roughly 23 years since ground beef cost less than $2 per pound on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

HuffPost reached out to Emmer’s office to see if he misspoke, and if not, whether he would share the name of his ground beef supplier. A spokesperson did not immediately respond Wednesday.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

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.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

'The order to cover it up came from Trump. I asked him why. And he gave me this long, very emotional explanation that this was all a plot against him, like Russiagate.'

Tucker Carlson: the directive to throttle the release of the Epstein Files came directly from Trump himself. {Daily Mail 16 September}

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16136233/Tucker-Carlsons-stunning-claim-order-cover-Epstein-files-came-Trump-directly.html

Guilty as sin. —

FTA: President Donald Trump directly ordered the cover-up of the government's Jeffrey Epstein files, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in a stunning interview. 

Speaking with Vanity Fair, Carlson, 57, said that he warned the president about the political ramifications of withholding the files in the summer of 2025 when Trump was facing overwhelming scrutiny for his administration's handling of the late pedophile's files. 

'My position from the beginning with Trump, I said it to Trump, was, 'I don't understand why you would ever keep any of this stuff secret.' And I got like a bunch of different answers,' Carlson told the outlet. 

'I don't feel any need to cover for Epstein,' the pundit and podcaster said, recounting his conversation with the president. 'So I said, 'You shouldn't either.' In the end, it came from Trump directly.'

Though a deluge of reports has detailed the West Wing's reaction to the Epstein fallout, including meetings on the topic in the Situation Room, Carlson is the first to claim the order to throttle the release of the files came from Trump.   

'The order to cover it up came from Trump,' the former Fox News host said. 'I asked him why. And he gave me this long, very emotional explanation that this was all a plot against him, like Russiagate.'

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The ‘golden age’, deferred

image generated via Grok

Vance, apparently with nothing better to do than make an appearance on a venture capitalist’s podcast: ‘Give us another chance’. {Mediaite 16 September}

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/jd-vance-asks-americans-to-give-us-another-chance-in-candid-podcast-moment/

How, then, about a resounding ‘no’, you arsehole? —

FTA: JD Vance joined the All-In podcast this week and was asked by Canadian-American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya for his closing message ahead of the midterm elections.

“It’s very complicated. But can you just give us some insight into what’s actually happening on the ground and what is the message that needs to be delivered so that folks can come to the right conclusion in November?” Palihapitiya asked.

“I guess I have two basic messages. There’s a lot of good that we’ve done over the past 18 months. We cut taxes bigly. We cut taxes on overtime, Social Security, and tips,” Vance said, adding:

Those are tax cuts for middle American workers, not just for the elites in Washington and New York City. We’ve had an amazing success with the border, with immigration. We’ve pursued H1B reform that prioritizes American workers over foreign nationals.

There’s a lot of good that’s been done, but there’s a lot of work left to do. Don’t give power to the people who cause the problems that we’re fixing. Give us another chance, or give us another couple of years, to continue to work on the amazing things that we’ve been doing for the past two years.

Vance’s request for Americans to “give us another chance” quickly went viral online as critics viewed it as a tacit acknowledgement of the administration’s perceived failures.

“The second argument I’d make is, even if you don’t agree with us on every issue, the other party is consumed by craziness. They’re consumed by people who want to steal everything, who want to give the country over to illegal aliens and criminals. They actively brag about it,”

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The day the North turned away

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Carney: Canada is pursuing a ‘unique alliance’, though not membership, with the European Union. {National Post 14 September}

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/canada-seeking-unique-alliance-eu-141854594.html

Canada and the rest of the free world are starting to walk away from what hath become an abusive relationship, though I daresay Trump and many in our country would take about as kindly to a formal Canadian-EU alliance as Vladimir Putin would to Ukraine joining NATO. A prospect that, until quite recently, hath been unthinkable and a mere absurdity even to conceive — namely, that the United States should invade and attempt to subjugate Canada — hath now become a genuine possibility, owing almost entirely to one evil man and the legion of besotted sectaries who follow and venerate him. Yours truly — whose paternal great-grandfather came to Boston from Prince Edward Island in 1920, and whose Loyalist forebears helped establish communities throughout the Maritimes in the late 1700s and well into the 1800s — shall die before ever consenting to so grave a madness. Unfortunately for Canada, Trump doth not require my approval nor that of any other citizen; having, for all intents and purposes, been given carte blanche to do anything he pleases without consequence, he is moving forward with his nation-killing agenda irrespective of opposition, common sense, and basic humanity.

At this juncture, I can conceive of no manner in which Donald Trump is not a tool of malign actors, domestic and abroad, seeking to weaken and ruin the United States of America. Without question, he is a phenomenally stupid man in numerous respects, yet possessed of considerable cunning in deceiving the gullible and manipulating the media to his own ends. He labours not for the American people, but rather in service to those harbouring nothing but malevolent designs. It is simply inconceivable that he should be pulling all these ridiculous stunts and picking fights with longstanding allies, were he an uncompromised, serious leader genuinely animated by the best interests of the United States in the whole of his decision-making.

And, for those foolish Americans presently so eager to board the ‘blame Canada’ train: just see how the Russian people are faring in the four and a half years since Mr Putin led them into war against their neighbouring and sister nation. The Russian death toll hath proven staggering, the fighting is no longer confined to Ukrainian soil, and the privations — such as the want of fuel — continue steadily to mount. Meanwhile, Trumpistan is mired in a senseless conflict with Iran, its military and economic resources being steadily depleted; yet this nation-destroying cabal continues heedlessly onward. 

Invading Canada would visit hell upon a continent — its northern reaches, at any rate — that hath not experienced real warfare since the nineteenth century; NATO would intervene, and the conflict would swiftly assume global proportions. World War III. And howsoever it may end, it shall not end well. Therefore, let all you loudmouths and sundry malcontents who constitute #MAGA cease your clamouring, begin to seriously weigh the ramifications, and stop demanding that everyone about you become lemmings and follow these demons over the proverbial precipice alongside you. Go ahead, though, and keep crowing about what God-fearing patriots ‘y’all’ are, whilst dismissing all others as ‘libtards’ and ‘communists’. History shall judge such folly harshly, and the consequences of such recklessness shall draw no distinction whatsoever between those who cheered it onward and those who raised their voices in warning against it.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The supermarket panopticon

image generated via ChatGPT

AFL-CIO: electronic shelf labeling to cut grocery jobs, raise prices, even violate shoppers' privacy and basic liberties. {The Guardian 9 September}

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/09/electronic-shelf-labels-grocery

Shady, and after a fashion Orwellian. As with the proliferation of data centres, there hath arisen some pushback in certain quarters; yet, upon the whole, we have rushed headlong towards a technological hellscape for which human beings remain by nature grievously ill-equipped, and I regard this development as a significant escalation of that broader and ever more pervasive tendency. — 

FTA: The universal adoption of electronic shelf labels in grocery stores across the US could cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages while further driving up grocery costs, according to a report released on Tuesday.

An analysis by the AFL-CIO Tech Institute of the label manufacturers’ own marketing materials found the universal adoption of electronic shelf labels, which are marketed to retailers as a cost-cutting measure, could cost workers between $1.6bn and $6.9bn in lost wages annually and affect between 44,223 and 191,633 jobs.

The policy brief – Priced Out, Pushed Out: Electronic Shelf Labels Raise Prices and Shrink Paychecks – calls for a ban on electronic labels to protect consumers and workers.

Manufacturers have hailed the labels as a way to collect huge amounts of personal data from customers, increase profits and cut labor costs.

The report argues that electronic shelf labels use the same pricing systems that allow dynamic pricing – price changes such as increasing allergy medication prices when pollen counts are high – to surveillance pricing, changing prices based on personal data.

These technologies are being implemented across the US retail industry at a time when food prices have surpassed inflation and wage gains, increasing 33% over the past seven years.

“Through our analysis, we found that the implementation of electronic shelf labels are likely going to drive prices even higher. The reason being that these labels are connected to the same algorithmic pricing software that online retailers are already using,” said Sunny Glottmann, policy and programs managers at the AFL-CIO Tech Institute and co-author of the report.

“Electronic shelf labels create the infrastructure that would make rapid algorithmic price changes easier to implement at scale, and this raises concerns for consumers that are already struggling with grocery costs.”

The report comes as several states have begun introducing legislation to ban surveillance pricing and electronic shelf labels. In April, Maryland became the first state in the US to ban surveillance pricing. Connecticut signed a ban into law in June and New Jersey signed a ban into law in July.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Empire of delusions

image generated via Grok

Iceland doth summon the US ambassador following Trump’s cartographic antics. {The New Republic 8 September}

https://newrepublic.com/post/215149/trump-sparks-diplomatic-incident-iceland-usa-map

So thoroughly blinded by choler, and so resolute to impose themselves as lords and masters over all the Western world — mark me well, I say not the whole world, so deferential are they unto Putin, Xi, Modi, Netanyahu, that funny-looking fellow in Argentina, and others of their illiberal ilk — the acolytes within the #MAGA movement shall never come to comprehend that they wound the United States of America, and themselves besides, far more grievously than they wound the Europeans, the Canadians, and perchance our friends beneath the Southern Cross as well. 

The hurt done unto America’s collective reputation and international standing is beyond all reckoning. These #MAGA folk do fancy that Trump playeth some wondrous game of ‘4D chess’, and that all these other countries stand duly chastened before him, even whilst those selfsame nations, in effect, kindly bid him go hang. President Joe Biden laboured to restore America’s honour abroad following Trump’s first reign of terror; whereupon the citizenry of the country chose to confound all over again — and considerably worse than in the former bout. In the end — and should aught be left standing — Americans shall find little to relish in the fruits of universal ostracism. One need only enquire of the Russian people as to what such isolation portends.

More reputable American presidents may yet emerge hereafter, or they may not; but the fundamental matter at hand concerns the reputation of a nation’s people. We are not one people, alas, nor are we a ‘nation’ in any coherent sense, but rather an unsustainable empire presently crumbling about us. 

To every American who hath repeatedly voted for this deranged and highly compromised man: y’all’s reputations lie in tatters, for having enabled so sickly a state of affairs. By all means, however, continue laughing as Trump ‘triggers’ the world at large. The joke is upon you, #Murica.

FTA: President Trump has drawn the ire of Iceland after posting a map depicting the country as part of the United States.

Along with Iceland, the image also included Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean draped in the U.S. flag. The Truth Social post, made on Labor Day, was captionless.

The post—paternalistic at best, colonial at worst—raised enough alarm in Iceland to lead the country’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdóttir, to summon U.S. Ambassador Billy Long. Gunnarsdóttir later told RUV, Iceland’s national broadcasting service, that “it was made clear at the meeting that the post was completely inappropriate.” Other Icelandic leaders felt similarly, comparing their experience to that of Greenland, which Trump has threatened to annex since he returned to office.

“It is not good to be an enemy of the United States, but it is even worse to be its friend,” alternate city councilor Stefán Pálsson told RUV.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The slow unmaking of tomorrow

image generated via ChatGPT

Though not the only country to see a decline, reading scores on PISA tests for US students have fallen headlong in this decade. {NYT 8 September}

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/us/us-reading-test-scores-pisa.html?unlocked_article_code=1._lA.VbNO.EdEx486auG65&smid=url-share

The morrow is most bleak; abandon ye all hope —

FTA: The reading scores of American 15-year-olds have fallen sharply since 2022 and are near their lowest point in 25 years, according to the results of a key global exam released on Tuesday.

U.S. math scores are also among the lowest since the test began in 2000, even as students have held their ground in science.

By every measure, American students are being outperformed by students in Singapore and parts of China who had top scores on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, taken by 15-year-olds around the world.

It is the latest warning sign for an American education system that has seen test scores fall over the last decade, starting before the pandemic.

A telling tidbit, buried somewhat deeper within the NYT article —

Researchers urged some caution when interpreting the U.S. results. The U.S. sample included about 4,600 students from 144 schools, but response rates fell short of the PISA’s targets. The Trump administration last year slashed staffing at the federal agency responsible for administering the PISA in the United States, as part of its plan to shrink the Department of Education.

Thus, to the fullest extent within its power, this unholy régime shall labour assiduously to obscure how grievously American children are falling behind their counterparts elsewhere, most particularly in Southeast Asia. Make the problem vanish by pretending that it doth not exist. Because such a stratagem hath always worked, at all times and in all places… yeah?

What y’all voted for, #Murica. Well done.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

A harvest of distrust

image generated via Seedream

Food safety unravels apace as recalls and inflation mount in tandem, leaving Americans burdened with pricier, toxic provender. {Axios 7 September}

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/07/food-safety-concerns-grocery-inflation

From leader of the world unto shame of all the earth. Fewer inspections, laxer regulations, watchdogs muzzled or turned away entirely, and the ravishing effects of climate change have wrought sufficient ruin that it is, in essence, no longer safe to eat within these former United States. We may debate until our faces wax blue the relative safety and nutritional value of American victuals prior to the nihilistic, nation-slaying Trump 2.0 regime — set against those of other Western nations — yet hither have we come, and here now do we stand.

What y’all voted for, #Murica —

FTA: Plenty of Americans feel like they're forking over a fortune for groceries—only to get hit with a recall notice that forces them to throw that expensive food out.

Why it matters: While grocery prices are driven by complex trade and energy costs, the safety net meant to keep them safe to eat is fraying, creating a dual crisis of affordability and safety.

The average American household pays more than $10,000 on groceries every year, and two-thirds of Americans think they're spending too much.

Prices have increased by more than 18% since 2022, although some foods have seen sharper or smaller increases.

What they're saying: "It can be really, really scary out there," Lauren Borsheim, a food policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, tells Axios.

"The Trump administration since 2025 has really just dismantled many of the fundamental protections we need to keep our food supply safe."

"We have people that are really afraid that the U.S. is not doing a good job regulating our food supply. It's definitely a concern out there that as people are spending more money on their food, they are also fearful that that same food is going to cause them to get sick," Borsheim says.

By the numbers: Recalls are relatively on par with normal levels this fiscal year, according to FDA data.

So far, 5,504 products have been recalled in 2026. That's up slightly from the 5,461 products recalled last year, but down from the 6,524 products recalled in 2024.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Bridging the pariahs

image generated via ChatGPT

Russia opens its first road bridge with North Korea. {DW 7 September}

https://www.dw.com/en/russia-opens-first-road-bridge-with-north-korea/a-79142595

FTA: Russia and North Korea on Monday cut the ribbon on the first road bridge linking the two countries as Moscow and Pyongyang deepen their strategic partnership.

The crossing spans the Tumen River and marks another expansion of transport links between the two countries.

The road crossing is near the existing Friendship Bridge, a railway bridge commissioned in 1959 following the Korean War.

Russia and North Korea already have direct rail and air connections, but until now there had been no road bridge between them.

The new bridge is named after Soviet Red Army officer Yakov Novichenko, who is credited with saving North Korean founder Kim Il Sung's life. Relatives of Novichenko attended the opening ceremony.

Construction began in April 2025 after the project was agreed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea in 2024.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the new crossing should boost economic development, tourism and employment.

"I am convinced that the expansion of cross-border transport infrastructure will provide a powerful impetus for the further development of trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation," the TASS news agency quoted Mishustin as saying by video link at the opening ceremony.

Relations between Moscow and Pyongyang have strengthened considerably since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

North Korea sent thousands of troops to Russia's Kursk region to help Russian forces repel a Ukrainian incursion launched in 2024.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Lost in the feed

image generated via ChatGPT

Just another day in Trumpistan: US president declares American ownership of the moon, vows to rechristen the state of New Mexico. {Huffington Post 7 September}

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-truth-social_n_6a9e3a64e4b00f094b1a67ea

FTA: Between 9:10 a.m. and 10:35 p.m., the president fired off more than 60 messages, links, memes, rants, personal attacks, endorsements, boasts, and AI slop creations.

Clearly, Donald Trump is not a well man; yet the very nation that descended into collective panic when President Joe Biden endured a mild senior moment during a debate now simply cannot trouble itself to care all that much, as this president decomposes before our eyes. Whence finds this orange-sprayed circus clown the leisure to dally, incessantly, upon social media? Hath he not a job of some considerable weight to perform? To all appearances, nobody is running the store at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — for all about us hastens headlong toward perdition. A mean-spirited dotard posts phantasmagorical videos of himself capering to ‘Y.M.C.A.’, heaps vilification upon such worthy men as Robert De Niro and the late Rep. John Dingell, repeatedly stabs our sister nation of Canada and other traditional allies squarely in the back, vows to rename an entire state on a whim, and the greater part of this dying realm either applauds the spectacle or merely shrugs it away. Meanwhile, we who never consented to this mountebank’s coronation are at once exhausted beyond all articulation and perpetually astounded — to be sure, exactly the design.

A further question presses: how doth Trump’s enfeebled mind even digest the ceaseless torrent of digital ephemera he both consumes and disseminates? He is all but brain dead at this pass. The sycophants about him feed him his daily pabulum of memes and assorted gaga, by day and by night. It seemeth their only real purpose is to keep this big baby amused. Anything to avoid having to govern in earnest: for he and they have proven, time out of mind, altogether incapable of it. All of this is happening on taxpayers’ dime, yet most tolerate or endorse it so long as they may continue to delude themselves into believing they are thereby ‘owning the libs’.

Ten years have this nightmare endured, and its blackest leaves remain yet unwritten. What y’all voted for, #Murica — and a certain gentleman seated in the Kremlin, together with every enemy of human liberty besides, do render y’all their most grateful thanks. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Wired for obedience

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.’

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The wilderness we betray

image generated via Seedream

Trump signs order ‘encouraging’ states to let ranchers kill gray wolves, gleefully proclaiming ‘you can shoot them as of today’. {Mediaite 4 September}

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-gives-reluctant-ranchers-the-go-ahead-to-take-care-of-endangered-species-you-can-shoot-them-as-of-today/

Understanding full well that there may be justifiable circumstances in which — and only after every other reasonable recourse hath been exhausted — a rancher must protect himself, his family, or his livestock from a dangerous wild animal, I do not believe this to be the primary motivation for Trump taking this action. Greasing the palms of the agriculture industry is a reason, certainly, yet the cruelty itself seemeth, more often than not, to be precisely the point of his public conduct. And I do not think the majority of American ranchers relish the prospect of shooting endangered species, as the president himself doth appear to — but it is grievous news for wildlife, and for every soul who harbours genuine concern for creatures other than ourselves.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.