"I'm looking for famous quotes that express the idea that the person who controls X controls Y."

That's how I prompted Grok just now. I was inspired by something Kakistocracy wrote in the comments in last night's café:

It’s weird to think that Musk will end up having paid far less for the United States Government than he did for Twitter.* To be fair -- what he paid for twitter was kinda the down payment for the presidency. It was a package deal. He needed both.

Here are the quotes Grok fished up for me: 

• "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." This quote from George Orwell's "1984" emphasizes how control over information (history) leads to control over future outcomes.

• "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws." Attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild, this quote suggests that control over a nation's monetary system equates to control over its governance.

• "He who controls the media, controls the mind." This is a variation on a quote by Jim Morrison, highlighting how control over information dissemination (media) can shape public perception and behavior.

• "Control the money, you control countries. Control the food, you control the world." A quote often attributed to Henry Kissinger illustrates the power of controlling essential resources like finance and food to influence global or national control.

I'd like to have those 4 over to dinner at the same time. We could talk about controlling things. Who would control the conversation, hmmm? I say Orwell. 

Anyway, Grok and I — at my prompting — proceeded to talk about the ancient Archimedes quote "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." (It's different from those other 4 quotes, but not completely different.) And then I fed Kakistocracy's quote to Grok thusly: 

"'What are you doing, George?' I asked him plainly and calmly. I got the same answer every time... You work for a madman, George would say in a loud, sinister voice...."

"Night after night, I would come home from a busy day at work ... While I was minding dishes, dogs, laundry, managing adolescent dramas and traumas, George would be just steps away from me, tucked away in his home office, plotting against my boss and me."

Writes Kellyanne Conway, in her new book "Here's the Deal," quoted in "Kellyanne Conway memoir: Husband's attacks 'sneaky, almost sinister'" (Axios). 

Is it weird that those 2 are still married?

He's telling the truth about himself and everyone else — and he's doing it with brilliantly casual humor, which his audience easily gets, while the George Conways of the world stand at a distance and tsk.

Every so often, he tells the truth about his lying. https://t.co/9RiyXDN9T7

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) July 11, 2021

First impressions maahttter.

So which misspelling of "DISTRICT" in the caption do we prefer? https://t.co/0sZxxjnrXa pic.twitter.com/feeRhnEvmF

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) November 26, 2020

"Kellyanne Conway announces she's leaving the White House and George Conway is stepping away from Lincoln Project."

CNN reports.

"I will be transitioning from the White House at the end of this month. George is also making changes," Kellyanne Conway said in a statement. "We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids. Our four children are teens and 'tweens starting a new academic year, in middle school and high school, remotely from home for at least a few months. As millions of parents nationwide know, kids 'doing school from home' requires a level of attention and vigilance that is as unusual as these times."

George Conway tweeted minutes earlier that he was withdrawing from The Lincoln Project -- a group formed by anti-Trump Republicans -- to "devote more time to family matters."...

One of the Conways' high school-aged daughters has generated attention on social media about her family and their political views over the last several months.

Here's yesterday's post about Claudia Conway's social-media cry for help.

ADDED: For once, it's believable that somebody left their job to spend more time with their family.

AND: Congratulations to the girl for putting out such an effective cry for help.

ALSO: "Look what I did. Look at what I did, ladies and gentlemen."

"Left-leaning Claudia [Conway] has been openly feuding with her parents on TikTok and Twitter all summer, bashing them for their conservative views."

"At one point she urged progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to adopt her. Saturday’s tweet ['I’m officially pushing for emancipation'] came alongside many more in which she penned her frustration over her [mother Kellyanne Conway's] work for the president, and over recent praise of her father, George Conway, for his work as co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a Republican anti-Trump group. 'As for my dad, politically, we agree on absolutely nothing. We just both happen to have common sense when it comes to our current president. Stop "stanning" him,' Claudia tweeted.... 'My mother’s job ruined my life to begin with,' she wrote. 'Heartbreaking that she continues to go down that path after years of watching her children suffer. Selfish. It’s all about money and fame, ladies and gentlemen.'... 'I’m a savage lol I’m aware,' read her last tweet...."

From "Kellyanne Conway’s daughter Claudia 'officially pushing for emancipation'" (NY Post).

I see she got a response — a wise response — from Marianne Williamson:

I don’t agree with your mother politically, Claudia, but she’s still your mom. I promise you your life ahead will be better if you handle your issues with her privately. I’m sure she’d go to counseling with you, if you don’t already. Love has got to trump politics. It just has to

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) August 23, 2020

Claudia sounds like she is what she is — a 15-year-old kid. She's saying things that would only be shouted around the house if it weren't for social media and that would go nowhere on social media if her parents weren't famous.

Should have?

I'm giving this my "Althouse the pedant" tag, so stop now if you don't like where this is going. I'm reading the headline at The Washington Post, "Why Scalia should have loved the Supreme Court’s Title VII decision."

The man is dead. There's NOTHING he should have done.

Why not say "Why Scalia would have loved the Supreme Court’s Title VII decision"? I think I know why. The article is by George Conway. It's in WaPo. I'm going to say: They don't want to concede that Scalia would have joined the majority in this case, that he would have stuck to his principles (and that this case was truly an instance where these principles dictated the outcome the majority reached).

Don’t be fooled. The new George T. Conway III is the same as the old George T. Conway III . He can’t help it.

I'm reading George T. Conway III in the Washington Post...

If you think you’ve been hearing a different President Trump this week — more accepting of the reality of the coronavirus pandemic — don’t be fooled. The new Trump is the same as the old Trump. He can’t help it. He’s incapable of taking responsibility for his role in this crisis — and thus incapable of leading us out of it....

... and I'm blogging this solely to say I'm not putting up with this kind of bullshit anymore. We're coming together, we're fighting a great worldwide battle. Ask yourself, before you hit "publish": Am I helping?

These people like George T. Conway III who are doing their same old routine in our new, painful circumstance do not deserve to be read. Ask yourself before you read something: Is this helping?

And don't click on that link.

BUT: That column has almost 5,000 comments over there, so there is an audience for it. It's sad, this desire to drink poison when health is our foremost concern. Take care of yourself, your body and your mind.

I've got to thank George Conway for his "There is no one to stop Trump now" WaPo column.

I've never given a damn about George Conway and his predictable anti-Trumpism, and, in fact, I have yet to read "There is no one to stop Trump now." But I'm delighted with his column, because I read the title and said "What's that song? Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now?" And 2 seconds later, I had my memory refreshed: "Oh! It's Starship!" And I was mesmerized by this trip back to 1986 (replete with stuff from the romcom "Mannequin"):



It's a festival of 80s hair — wet and dry. The notion that nothing is going to stop women who are mannequins is... interesting. I've never seen the movie, but in the video, the love of a man brings mannequins to life. One of the women is Grace Slick and one is so good looking that I thought Grace Slick should have had the clout to demand that in her videos there can be no woman who is better looking than she is.

Researching the underlying movie, "Mannequin," I see that other woman is Kim Cattrall (familiar to me only as Samantha on "Sex and the City"). I guess the movie came first and Grace was going along with a package deal. I see: "At the time, [the song] made the 47 year old Grace Slick the oldest woman to have a number-one single in the United States, surpassed only by Cher, who was 52 when her song 'Believe' reached #1 in early 1999."

Imagine the thrill of achievement to be in a place where you are surpassed only by Cher.

Imagine the thrill of achievement to be George Conway.... Wait. Let me skim this thing so I can get out of this post quickly now that I've had my 80s-retrospective fun.

When the subject of Attorney General William P. Barr comes up these days, it’s hard not to think of John S. McCain. Not the late senator, mind you, but the USS John S. McCain, the naval destroyer named after his father and grandfather.

That's hilariously nonsensical. Of all the things I find hard not to think about when I think about Bill Barr, the USS John S. McCain is nowhere on the list. Anyway, that turns out to be about how the ship was once kept out of Trump's line of sight, not because Trump demanded it, but "[a]nticipating Trump’s narcissistic whims and desires." So, you get it, that's what Barr must be doing.

I thought this column was going to be about how the Democrats have no one who can stop Trump from getting reelected. I was surprised to think Conway would concede that. He didn't. Now, I will go back to my original position of never reading Conway columns.