Politics & Rule
According to Politico, Vance broke a tie vote for the Colon-in-Chief’s choice of Sec Def.
All Democrats opposed Hegseth. Three Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—and, notably, former GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky—voted against him.
Seems McConnell no longer has any influence at all over his caucus. Or he elected not to use what little he might still have. Somehow fitting.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune sure has some strange notions about military professionalism. (“Senate is preparing to confirm Hegseth…” apnews.com…) The GOP circus is playing a dangerous game with our national security.
Sharpies seem like a pretty good metaphor for a manbaby’s presidency.
I’m trying to remember how long it took me to get used to Orange Oaf in the White House last time. Was it six years? Longer? It took me no time at all to grow used to his departure from the Oval Office.
Now that I’m more than 20 years older than Martin Luther King, Jr., ever had a chance to become, his youth at the time of his murder is much clearer to me, much starker. It makes his achievements seem that much greater and his death all the more painful.
Pictured above: photos of two buttons and a poster from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library, image IDs 57281864, 57281854, and 58250348.
This funny old German postcard about “the end of the world” caught my attention because of tomorrow’s big event in Washington, DC, Orange Oaf’s return to the White House. The card feels somewhat prophetic, but the earlier threat it references was celestial, not human. Many people were panicking because Earth was expected to pass through the tail of Halley’s Comet on May 19, 1910.
One of the signs to the right in the postcard advertises “Airplanes for rent | Deliverance from the apocalypse!” The other offers big jugs of gasoline, each containing enough to reach (reichend ) the moon, or pungent enough for the odor to carry (riechend ) that far. The airplanes, dirigibles, and hot air balloons for escaping to the moon look as fanciful as their purported purpose.
Source: Newberry Library, John I. Monroe collection of fantasy postcards, NL116N96.
I have some sympathy for Orange One’s fear of the cold. He’s an emperor with no clothes, after all.
Feeling sick about next Monday, January 20. Fortunately, I’ll be with family and nowhere near a TV.
I’m assuming the poignant service for Jimmy Carter in the National Cathedral went over TFG’s head and he got bored. Mercifully, the CSPAN camera didn’t linger on his mug for very long.
Propaganda is also a system of attention management that works through repetition.
– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen, chap. 5.
At its core, propaganda is a set of communication strategies designed to sow confusion and uncertainty, discourage critical thinking, and persuade people that reality is what the leader says it is.
– Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen, chap. 5.
“Die Welt am Sonntag veröffentlicht einen Gastbeitrag, in dem Techmilliardär Elon Musk für die AfD wirbt. Mitarbeitende der Redaktion sind empört. Meinungschefin Eva Marie Kogel reicht ihre Kündigung ein.” www.spiegel.de…
Finally started reading Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (Norton, 2020).