{"id":26409,"date":"2025-12-03T17:32:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T01:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=26409"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:57:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:57:47","slug":"the-fog-of-war-hurricanes-and-cave-man-mentality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/12\/03\/the-fog-of-war-hurricanes-and-cave-man-mentality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fog of War, Hurricanes, and Cave Man Mentality"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>JD Vance&#8217;s caveman rage against a lesbian stepmom;<\/li>\n<li>Heather Cox Richardson about Trump&#8217;s decline in mental acuity, and Sen. Mark Kelly on Pete Hegseth;<\/li>\n<li>Zack Beauchamp on how Trump is advancing the white nationalist worldview;<\/li>\n<li>Hegseth&#8217;s misunderstanding of the metaphor &#8220;fog of war&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>Briefly noted items about hurricanes, affordability, unlawful orders, the Ten Commandments, and that &#8220;Bible Says So&#8221; essay in Oklahoma.<\/li>\n<li>Preisner: Red.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Given the weightiness of the discussions summarized in the Steven Pinker posts this week, I think it entirely justified to balance things out with the latest lunacies from the Trump administration for today&#8217;s regular post.<\/p>\n<p>(Also, I&#8217;m again tweaking my format here for posted items, to see it if works.)<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lgbtqnation-wp.b-cdn.net\/assets\/2024\/08\/usatsi-24036364-168404765-lowres.jpg?width=772&amp;height=434&amp;aspect_ratio=1.78:1\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>LGBTQNation, Alex Bollinger, 28 Aug 2024<\/strong> (yes it&#8217;s from last year, but it popped up on the site&#8217;s homepage a few days ago): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lgbtqnation.com\/2024\/08\/jd-vance-rages-at-adoptive-lesbian-mom-for-being-childless-brainwashing-children\/\">JD Vance rages at lesbian stepmom for being childless &amp; \u201cbrainwashing\u201d children<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Her not having biological children &#8216;really disorients me, and it really disturbed me,&#8217; Vance said.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Disturbed? Disoriented? Because in cave man morality the only reason for the existence of a woman is to bear children?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/december-1-2025\">December 1, 2025<\/a>. About Trump&#8217;s decline.<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>President Donald J. Trump\u2019s behavior over the holiday weekend has increased concern about his mental acuity. A rant on his social media account at midnight on Thanksgiving itself threatened to strip citizenship from naturalized immigrants, called Minnesota governor Tim Walz a profoundly offensive slur, and ended: \u201cHAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for\u2014You won\u2019t be here for long!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On NBC\u2019s <em>Meet the Press<\/em> yesterday, Walz responded by calling for Trump to release the results of an MRI he told reporters he underwent in October, later saying: \u201cI have no idea what they analyze, but whatever they analyze, they analyzed it well and they said that I had as good a result as they\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d Although Trump told reporters the MRI was part of his routine physical, medical experts say such tests are not routine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>And Sen. Mark Kelly on Pete Hegseth.<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;[H]e runs around on a stage like he\u2019s a 12-year-old playing army. And it is ridiculous, it is embarrassing, and I can\u2019t imagine what our allies think of looking at that guy in this job, one of the most important jobs in our country\u2026. He is in the national command authority for nuclear weapons. And last night, he\u2019s putting out on the internet turtles with rocket-propelled grenades\u2026. This is the secretary of defense. This is not a serious person. He should have been fired after Signalgate. And then every single day after that.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Vox, Zack Beauchamp, 3 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/470967\/trump-immigration-ban-third-world-alt-right\">The dark reality behind Trump\u2019s new anti-immigrant policies<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;His administration is now openly advancing a worldview built by white nationalists in the 2010s.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Like the guy in 2016 who said &#8220;One fundamental policy we\u2019re going to put forward is a break on all immigration, particularly non-European immigration, for a 50-year period.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Trump, in particular, considers Somali immigrants to be &#8220;garbage.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/12\/03\/world\/03xp-fogofwar-02\/03xp-fogofwar-02-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>NY Times, 3 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/03\/us\/fog-of-war-hegseth-boat-strike.html\">Hegseth Invoked the \u2018Fog of War\u2019 in a Boat Strike. What Does That Mean?<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used the term, which alludes to uncertainty in battle, in reference to a deadly U.S. military attack in the Caribbean.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Hegseth thinks that a metaphor for uncertainty, an idea coined by Carl von Clausewitz, is literally about fog.<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI did not personally see survivors,\u201d he said at a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/02\/us\/politics\/hegseth-boat-strikes.html\">cabinet meeting<\/a> in the White House, referring to people who were clinging to the boat\u2019s wreckage between two U.S. strikes on Sept. 2. \u201cThe thing was on fire. It exploded, there\u2019s fire, there\u2019s smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is called the fog of war,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 2 Dec 2025<\/strong> (from <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/kristi-noem-tells-donald-trump-he-kept-hurricanes-away-11860541\">People<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/12\/noem-thanks-trump-for-keeping-hurricanes-away\/\">Noem Thanks Trump For \u201cKeeping Hurricanes Away\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Noem speaks as if Trump literally influenced the weather. Imbecile? Or toady.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 2 Dec 2025<\/strong> (from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2025\/12\/02\/trump-cabinet-meeting-venezuela-live-updates\/87566205007\/\">USA Today<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/12\/trump-the-word-affordability-is-a-democrat-scam\/\">Trump: \u201cThe Word \u2018Affordability\u2019 Is A Democrat Scam\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<li>To Trump, everything that doesn&#8217;t align with his whims is a scam or a hoax or a fraud or fake news. What a chaotic, anarchic, exhausting world he lives in. Full of evil-doers and demons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Oh look, here&#8217;s what Pete Hegseth said about the military following unlawful orders back in 2016.<\/li>\n<li><strong>JMG, 2 Dec 2025<\/strong> (from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/12\/02\/us\/hegseth-illegal-orders-video-democrats-kfile-invs\">CNN<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/12\/2016-video-shows-hegseth-saying-troops-shouldnt-follow-unlawful-orders-from-then-president-obama\/\">2016 Video Shows Hegseth Saying Troops Shouldn\u2019t \u201cFollow Unlawful Orders\u201d From Then-President Obama<\/a><\/li>\n<li>But that was when he thought Obama was issuing unlawful orders. It&#8217;s completely different now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 3 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.friendlyatheist.com\/p\/texas-families-file-class-action\">Texas families file class action lawsuit to halt Ten Commandments display in every school district<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;As Attorney General Ken Paxton urges districts to disobey federal rulings, church\/state watchdogs are pushing for a statewide injunction&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Because school districts in Texas keep defying judicial orders against posting the Ten Commandments in public schools. They think they know better than the law, because they have God on their side.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 3 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/12\/former-oklahoma-schools-chief-fire-everybody-who-agreed-with-flunking-student-for-bible-says-so-essay\/\">Former Oklahoma Schools Chief: Fire Everybody Who Agreed With Flunking Student For \u201cBible Says So\u201d Essay<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Once again, evidence for my provisional conclusion that religious inculcation (especially in childhood) undermines the ability to think rationally, to draw conclusions from object evidence and not from authority or holy books. Christians, some of them at least, seem genuinely not to understand this. Their old stories must be retained as their modern stories. Nothing learned since the Bible was written can revise their understanding of anything. To take exception is what they consider &#8220;persecution.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Still revisiting the couple dozen albums I have by Zbigniew Preisner, most of them film music. This is one of the best, despite my distaste for including songs on a soundtrack album. You can skip them. Or not.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Zbigniew Preisner \u2022 Trois Couleurs: Red (Bande Originale Du Film)  [1994]\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w38fpEYeLTs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JD Vance&#8217;s caveman rage against a lesbian stepmom; Heather Cox Richardson about Trump&#8217;s decline in mental acuity, and Sen. Mark Kelly on Pete Hegseth; Zack Beauchamp on how Trump is advancing the white nationalist worldview; Hegseth&#8217;s misunderstanding of the metaphor &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/12\/03\/the-fog-of-war-hurricanes-and-cave-man-mentality\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,90,54,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-conservatives","category-politics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26409"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26494,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409\/revisions\/26494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}