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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.
“Apple Intelligence to Be Enabled on All Compatible Devices” by Adam Engst, TidBITS, January 24, 2025, tidbits.com. At least it can be turned off, though that seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition.
Digital Transgender Archive – Trans History, Linked
www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net. 🏳️⚧️
“‘Make a Molotov Cocktail’: How Europeans Are Recruited through Telegram to Commit Sabotage, Arson, and Murder,” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, September 26, 2024, www.occrp.org….
Pro-Immigration Cartoon, 1903
“Captains Courageous” by Udo J. Keppler for Puck, July 1, 1903, centerfold, via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010652280/.
Pro-immigration cartoon with Theodore Roosevelt on the left. A U.S. flag is marked by a rainbow with the text “Liberty.” To the right is a ship in the dark marked “Immigration” that is trying to escape the storms of “Prejudice.” The president has shot a rescue line that forms the word “Tolerance.” The quote in the lower right corner reads:
I feel that we should be peculiarly watchful over them, because of our own history, because we and our fathers came here under like conditions. Now that we have established ourselves, let us see to it that we stretch out the hand of help, the hand of brotherhood, toward the new-comers, and help them as speedily as possible to shape themselves and to get into such relations that it will be easy for them to walk well in the new life.
– The President’s Reference to Immigrants
Source of the quote: “At the Consecration of Grace Memorial Reformed Church, Washington, D.C., June 7, 1903,” in A Compilation of the Messages and Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Alfred Henry Lewis Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1906), pp. 481–83, quote 482.
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.
Snapshot of frost on the inside of my windshield this morning
It was a treat to see my granddaughter and other adults in her life this weekend.
Word of the day is ‘catch-fart’ (17th century: an obsequious individual who will always follow the political wind).
– Susie Dent (@[email protected])
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.
One of the pieces I linked to in my previous post is a “must read” about scientific speculation and its selective dissemination in the media. Sam Kean, “The Comet Panic of 1910, Revisited,” Distillations Magazine, January 16, 2025, www.sciencehistory.org…
Colón-Vásquez’s drawing remains a prime example of how interactions between scientists and the public can go wrong: the prestige and imprimatur of science is such that people take even wild speculation at face value sometimes. It’s easy to chuckle over the sillier manifestations of the 1910 panic—comet pills, insurance scams, and the like. But the record left by a frightened teenager also helps Méndez and Acosta-Colón appreciate the “blend of fear, fascination, and artistic expression that such events can provoke.”
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.
📺 Smart analysis by Anders Puck Nielsen on the dangers of unrealistic expectations for forthcoming talks to end the Russo-Ukrainian War: youtu.be (10 min).
Poster: Cartoon of the German and Italian dictators trying to cobble together what was left of their obscene project in 1945.
Source: Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2015646607.