Whiskey Fire

Breaking! Must Credit Breitbart!!!

by Ripley

 

 

Look, it's tough, I get it. The election is long gone and things didn't go they way we wanted. But, like it or not, Donald J. Trump is the new Vice President of Russia.

I'm going to keep going to work and do my best. I'm going to love my lady and try to laugh and enjoy Life. We just have to keep keeping on, nyet?

Rip -

 

 

The House Is Divided; Can't Stand It

Lithwick is important on the Sessions nomination. He'll be confirmed, because the modern GOP is opposed to letting black people vote, and his whole job today was to not say that out loud, and the whole historical point of the Senate is to drape pomp over bigotry: he didn't say anything egregiously true, so yay a win for him and Bilbo's ghost, and God fuck us all. 

But then there's this:

Whitehouse suggested that lists were already circulating suggesting there might be purges or demotions of certain career appointees in the Justice Department. Whitehouse wondered whether Sessions would have a problem with career lawyers “with secular beliefs,” having in the past criticized department attorneys for being secular. Sessions replied that he has used that language about secular attorneys to differentiate between people who recognize objective “truth” and those who take positions “in which truth is not sufficiently respected.”

Whitehouse replied, with a leading, and perhaps slightly conclusory question: “And a secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious, correct?” At which point Sessions responded, “Well, I’m not sure.” For a few seconds the Senate chamber seemed to go completely silent.

Fucked up, to be sure.

But good.

Let's call the question. Should these United States be a secular democracy, or... this disgusting Trumpenstein nightmare of rapacity, authoritarianism, lying, hypocrisy, nonsense, and graft, all apologized for if one is sufficiently "churched"? 

I keep trying to game out how the US survives as a nation adhering to even vague approximations of liberal democratic norms in, say, my children's lifetimes. Or else the next time I want coffee. Fucked if I can solve that pancake. 

A Salty Salute to the Russian General

So this is now a thing, From Russia with Pee. 

I'm cautious about reports that cannot be corroborated, because I'm a Trained Scholar, etc. And there is, yes, far more substantially damning-if-true stuff in the document than the urinating prostitute anecdotes.

But in terms of estimating lasting political damage, this particular allegation seems bound to inflict far more bloody schrapnel than the facts in the public record: which, in a more perfect world, one would imagine would be widely considered sufficiently disgusting all on their own -- the motherfucker settled a $25 million dollar fraud lawsuit just in November! And that's just for pussy-grabbing openers. I'm sort of reminded of what annoyed me so much about the "Bush planned 9/11" conspiracy garbage back in the day. Why did we even NEED conspiracy theories about 9/11? The public record was already damning for Bush on its own. Likewise, one hardly needs to Siberian spelunk for Trumpian character flaws. 

Which is not to say that the pee-claims and everything alleged about Trump and the Russkies might not be true. I frankly believe that they are, but that's just a guess, and I'm as susceptible to confirmation bias as anyone else (except I'm smarter than YOU, of course, you neoliberal redsnouts). It's just to say that who knows? Only the Russkies, and you can't trust 'em.

But this has nothing to do with the stone fact that Americans, like everyone else, don't care about graft or treason, but they are liable to be endlessly amused by prostitution stories involving urine. If anything gets this fucking creep impeached, it'll be the pee. For human reasons that J. Joyce, as usual, correctly diagnosed in regards to the tale of Buckley and the Russian General:

Buckley, [Joyce] explained, was an Irish soldier in the Crimean War who drew a bead on a Russian general, but when he observed his splendid epaulettes & decorations, he could not bring himself to shoot. After a moment, alive to his duty, he raised his rifle again, but just then the general let down his pants to defecate. The sight of his enemy in so helpless & human a plight was too much for Buckley, who again lowered his gun. But when the general prepared to finish the operation with a piece of grassy turf, Buckley lost all respect for him & fired.