Whiskey Fire

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. 

Nino Dead

So Antonin Scalia is dead, and fuck him, that ancient unpleasant angry-assed bigot.

And there's this:

So...

GOP TO BLACK VOTERS: THE BLACK PRESIDENT IS NOT ALLOWED TO NAME THE REPLACEMENT FOR A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE WHO VOTED TO MAKE IT LEGAL TO SUPPRESS THE BLACK VOTE.

I predict massive black voter turnout this year, whoever gets the Dem nomination.

 

Some Choices Are Not Hobsonian, Particularly

I'm not really seeing the dilemma here....

Senate Democrats are considering a vote in the lame-duck session to force approval of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline, a party aide said, a move that may bolster Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu’s re-election chances.

Catastophic environmental disaster balanced against the at best dubious benefits of continuing to acknowledge the existence of Mary Landrieu?

Not even a close one.

Beg pardon: not even a fucking close one. Let's keep this civil.

 

 

Those Big Words Which Make Us So Unhappy

Well gosh. I guess I am a liberal what hates...

I mean, according to Science.

Michelle Obama took some heat in 2008 for saying that, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country..."

As it turns out, that sentiment isn't all that unusual on the far left of American politics. According to a new Pew Research Center study, only 40 percent of consistently liberal Americans say they often feel proud to be Americans.

"Liberals" are on the "far left of American politics"? The things you learn from the Washington Post lint-catchers.

Because the WaPo opinion section is apparently surprised that a well-educated, intelligent black woman like Michelle Obama might objectively review all of American history and yet still harbor lingering skepticism about what promises as regards equality might stay kept.

Maybe she'd be more reassured if the South were not trying desperately to cling to racial supremacy.

But anyway, I am a proud American. I am a proud FDR American. New York City ethnic Irish, New Deal, Fuck the Fascists, fair play to all, one for all, all for one, damn the torpedoes and fuck the bigots.

I will not count myself proud to be an American unless I worked all my life for my fellows for:

Freedom of speech

Freedom of religion

Freedom from want

Freedom from fear

FDR's Four Freedoms. Worth fighting for.

Yeah, I'm a patriot. Always was.

I kind of think most right wing assholes don't so much have a coherent explanation for why they love America, as opposed to they are vicious racist assholes invoking patriotism because they are shitbrained ignorant fucks like Victor David fucknose Hanson.

It's a theory.

Thank Goodness There Is No War on Women

Nope, the GOP just ain't warring on the womens. Nope nope nope.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act failed to overcome a filibuster Thursday afternoon in a 55 to 45 vote. That is, of course, 55 votes in favor, 45 votes against, leaving the bill five votes short of the required supermajority. As expected, the vote shook up usual partisan lines, with 10 Republicans supporting the bill and 10 Democrats opposing it.

The Senate is a cesspit.

I will say though that Gillibrand is a much better Senator than I'd initially imagined she'd be. Admittedly, of course, I have extremely low exectations of Senators as a class -- these are people who just postured and preened in order to beat back a law intended to protect rape victims, for fuck's sake. It is awfully fucking hard to not want to pee on an institution that insists on a supermajority in order to make life easier for fucking rapists.

But yeah, Gillibrand is OK. She didn't have to take this on, but she did, and I wouldn't have thought it of her back in the day, so good for her, glad to be wrong.

How to Be a Horrible Scabby Asshole in Just One Quoted Word

This is some impressive assholery.

 

Here are some other fun quotes from that NYT article that provide some entertaining perspective. And show that John J. Miller is not merely an asshole --

An emergency federal program that acts as a lifeline for 1.3 million jobless workers will end on Saturday, drastically curtailing government support for the long-term unemployed....

The program, in place since the recession started in 2008, provides up to 47 weeks of supplemental unemployment insurance payments to jobless people looking for work. Its expiration is expected to have far-reaching ramifications for the economy, cutting job growth by about 300,000 positions next year and pushing hundreds of thousands of households below the poverty line....

-- but a total asshole --

The loss of benefits is expected to drain billions in consumer spending from the economy next year. People losing their federal benefits — often benefits they expected to continue to receive for weeks or months into 2014 — described cutting back on Christmas, driving less, turning off the heat, draining retirement accounts, applying for food stamps, readying to move in with relatives and missing mortgage payments....

-- indeed, a scabby, bleeding asshole --

Since her federal benefits expired, Jamie Young, a library scientist living in Portland, Ore., has accepted a part-time job, taking a large reduction in her income. “It’s embarrassing for me,” she said. “I dread going to parties or social functions and having people ask me what I do.”

-- because, get a load of this, what Ms. Young has turned to doing to get by:

Her unemployment has also spurred her to donate her eggs for $6,000 in compensation.

Maybe the rest of the unemployed can sell their internal organs to rich people in exchange for food stamps.

Also, Miller is, surprise, dishonest! Why will the unelpoyment rate drop 5%, exactly?

But the unemployment rate will primarily drop as workers, especially older workers, drop out of the labor force. Those receiving unemployment benefits are required to demonstrate that they are actively looking and applying for jobs. Without those benefits, and requirements, economists said, many might give up.

And perhaps die. And perhaps be mulched to fertilize the lawns of the obscenely rich.

Because, what else is there?

Analysts also believe the end of the federal program will lead to an increase in poverty. Already, cuts to unemployment insurance payments and reductions in the weeks of benefits have meant that the program has lifted fewer people out of poverty: 1.7 million Americans in 2012, down from 2.3 million in 2011 and 3.2 million in 2010.

John J. Miller is an absolutely representative member of his class: a class of an absolute assholes.

Extraordinary Naivety and Arrogance

The Guardian has shown "extraordinary naivety and arrogance" over the publication of articles based on NSA documents leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, the former foreign secretary Jack Straw has said.

I'm not suggesting for a moment anybody in the Guardian gratuitously wants to risk anybody's life. But what I do think is that their sense of power of having these secrets and excitement – almost adolescent excitement – about these secrets has gone to their head.

"They're blinding themselves about the consequence and also showing an extraordinary naivety and arrogance in implying that they are in a position to judge whether or not particular secrets which they have published are not likely to damage the national interest, and they're not in any position at all to do that.

Extraordinary naivety and arrogance? You don't say, Jack.


P.S. For no particular reason, here's Lindsey and Miley.


Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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BREAKING! Republican Senator Demands Filibuster Reform

Not really, but you just kind of have to stand up and cheer on this astonishing class of sheer batshit ballsiness.

Setup:

With Speaker John Boehner embracing the push to defund Obamacare in the House bill to fund the government, the battle will soon be moving to the Senate, which is controlled by Democratic majority leader Harry Reid.

It’s hostile territory for the effort, and since the initial calls to push for defunding Obamacare came from Senate Republicans, there’s added pressure on the strategy’s architects to make it a major fight.

Aaaaaand punchline!

Senator Mike Lee is organizing a messaging push to pressure Reid to hold an “up or down” vote.

Wow.

You can contemplate this from Senator Lee. Or else you can contemplate this dancing leprechaun. You will arrive at the same destination, in the heel of the hunt.

Strictly Comedy

I don't necessarily disagree with Steve M. as to What the Failed Senate Gun Bill all Means.

But I will say that what happened doesn't prove Glenn Reynolds anywhere near Fucking Right.

Reynolds links here, specifically applauding this:

Passion may have a place, but it is not a substitute for rational argument.

Oh for fuck's sake.

Libertarians did not Triumph in a Rational Argument; the GOP scraped a minority procedural win in the Senate, where many things occur -- Rational Fucking Argument rarely being responsible for any of them.

It is not exactly a Triumph of Libertarian Reason that the least democratically responsive body in Our National Democracy was able, by means of a parliamentiary trick played by the side that decisively lost the last set of national elections, a parliamentary trick which appears nowhere in the Constitution, to defeat a widely popular law.

"Rational argument."

Fuck you.

Libertarians are not committed to democracy. Also, they are horrible nitwit assholes.

"Rand Paul supported a filibuster! I am JOHN MOTHERFUCKING LOCKE!"

Fuck. You.

BREAKING: State of the Union Address Canceled

Just saw this --

Apparently James Inhofe has threatened to filibuster Obama's SOTU unless Ted Nugent is named head of a fully reformed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose new mission will be to train schoolchildren to fire AR-15s at portraits of "prominent socialists."

Obviously the Democratic Senate leadership can't have that, and so Harry Reid says the SOTU is off. Also there will be no more food stamps, school lunches, or regulations against leaded gasoline.

Ain't that a kick in the pants. But what can you do? The Dignity of Hallowed Senate Traditions must be maintained at all costs.