As 2020 Draws to A Close, We Contemplate Our Year of Madness

Just needed to wrap up this year as drunkenly as possible:

By the way, Julie from 2020, there's still 10 days left before the year officially ends. ANYTHING could happen in those days, this year should have taught us that for God's sake. (I should blog about that monolith thingee as a year's end wrap-up)

As for getting drunk, you might recall I tried doing that with hard cider a few years ago. I did not enjoy the taste of it, and had stayed sober since. This year brought back that urge to get drunk because DAMMIT WE ALL NEEDED TO AFTER THIS 2020 so I considered the possibility the cider I had gotten was too spicy with cinnamon. So I went and got a standard cider, no extra flavoring, just straight from the bottle...

And I still hated the taste of it. Ugh. I couldn't finish it, poured it down the kitchen sink. I got five bottles of it now sitting in my fridge looking for a new home. I'm sure someone can quarantine the bottles for 5-14 days before finishing them off, if anyone's interested... 

My Two Cents On Kavanaugh's Performance

With regards to Mrs. Ford, I think she did the best she could and will still get pummeled by the Far Right for - seriously, going after her fear of flying as a character flaw??? - what she said today.

What really mattered was Kavanaugh's response, which Vox.com summarizes pretty well here. My two key takeaways from him was:

1) When finally confronted with personal failings, Kavanaugh lashed out with unprofessional rage and poor temperament. Exposing himself as the kind of Angry Guy who WOULD lash out at women and others who would question his behavior or try to hold him to account. I posted a Twitter thread starting here about it.

It is the kind of temperament we dare not risk having on the highest court in the land. On that alone, Kavanaugh has disqualified himself.

2) I have to seriously ask, given how quickly he turned into a yelling and almost incoherent tyro, was Kavanaugh drunk at the beginning of this hearing?

I've seen angry drunks in action. I've had someone close to me get five beers into him and pretty much turn into a rage monster yelling at me about a slight still remembered from years before. He was still high-functioning enough to drive home without me.

This is who the Republicans on the Judiciary Hearing are going to vote for tomorrow.

Gods help us.

What Matters Anymore?

Saturday Night Live finally nailed it on the head:

As the sketch with guest host Jessica Chastain reveals, the last two weeks - of trump dumping on non-Eurowhite nations as "shitholes", of trump getting caught paying off a porn star he had an affair with less than a year after his third wife Melania gave birth to their son, of trump destabilizing government to where nobody in Congress could avoid the #trumpShutdown of 2018 - would otherwise have devastated any other Presidency, shamed the political party of that President into action to rein in such abuses and scandal, or driven most of the nation into rioting in the streets.

But nope. Nada. As Chastain rightly points out, the crazier and reckless trump behaves and the worse he does at the job as Commander-in-Chief, the more his rabid voting base will approve of him.

And the rest of us are stuck because the Rule of Law is relying on the other half of government - the Legislative branch - to do something about it. But the Republicans control the Legislative branch and they are not going to do anything that threatens their chances of getting re-elected by that rabid pro-trump base they rely on as well.

We've entered into the realm of political nihilism, where nothing matters because the ones in power don't fucking care what ethics or rules really mean. The ghosts of 19th Century Anarchists must be roiling in their graves in sheer envy.

And when Chastain raised that bottle of wine to drink it straight, I sympathized. I know that sentiment. Alas, I am unable to drink hard cider as I had hoped. I am stone cold sober. I am so depressed.

We are so royally fucked.

All I Want for Saturnalia Is for Sanity And Goddamn Common Sense to Return

Tis the season to be drinking more hard cider to chase away the blues.

By the by, my twin brother recommends Redds over Angry Orchard.

This has been a year of madness and despair, against which only the slimmest slivers of hope have endured.

But we're getting to the edge of the cliff where everything and everyone goes over.

Congress is dead set on passing a deficit-heavy tax cut for the rich doomed to wipe out the social safety net and cause the same economic mess we had in the mid-2000s.

Republicans are about to elect a publicly confirmed sexual predator for US Senator from Alabama, lying to themselves about Moore's "spiritual pureness" all because they cannot abide a Democrat winning at all.

And trump. Gods help us. trump.

If it's not selling the whole nation out to Russia, it's his open racism and hostility towards diplomacy along with his immeasurable incompetency about to condemn the entire world to war.

His current push to formally recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capitol and moving the US Embassy there would spark hostile reaction across the entire Muslim community of the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. It would seem the ultimate provocation against any peaceful solution to a problem that has vexed humanity for 2000 years.

Street protests by Palestinians would be the LEAST of our worries. Terror groups would use the move to rally more recruits. Allied nations like Turkey and Egypt and Jordan and even Saudi Arabia would cut off diplomatic relations or undermine all other US interests in their regions.

And I wouldn't doubt trump WANTS this. The Shitgibbon WANTS a war to prove his mettle as President Loser of the Popular Vote (and use the war powers of a Presidency to impose some twisted forms of martial law to make him Dictator). And getting the Muslims to react in violence would fit his Narrative.

This is supposed to be a time of Christian peace and goodwill. Instead we are roiling against evangelical hypocrisy, and un-Christian hatred and greed.

If ever we needed to return to the Pagan ways of Saturnalia - where you got drunk and gambled dice - now is the time.

This Place Has Gotten The Better of Me: November 20, 2017

So I've been dealing with THIS particular bullshit since morning:

Appearing on a CNN panel of Trump voters Monday morning, (pest control company owner) Mark Lee claimed that the president is standing up for the "little guy" and that no amount of negative press will change his mind.

"If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, 'Hold on a second. I need to check with the president if it's true,'" Lee said as his fellow panelists reacted with shock.

I've been in a goddamn rage since seeing this.

I know how bad it is. How the trump voter sees the world in a Fox-Not-News induced haze of ignorance that flips reality on its head. That the ill-informed GOP base - buying into the lies of the culture war, selling out for tax cuts to the rich that will kill their own jobs just because they've bought into the trickle-down hype - accept every statement from a confirmed liar as Gospel while the fact-checkers and reporters are demeaned as "fake".

But I've never seen it THIS bad before.

We're at the point the Far Right voters are so into the goddamn Kool Aid that they'll accept the word of a con artist over the WORD OF JESUS (straight off the Cross, for God's sake).

It has come to this.

For 47 years of my life. Me: Sober. Never wanting a drop of alcohol. Barely trying stuff like rum to see what it was like and shaking my head at it. Never understanding the urge or need to get a buzz going with booze in my system.

Well, you broke me, trump voters. You've driven me over the edge. You've FINALLY REALLY DID IT. You got me to say this in all seriousness.

OH GOD I NEED A DRINK.

Now I'm not crazy enough (always sober never sane was my motto. WAS) to go jumping straight into the super-heavy stuff. But I think apple cider has an alcoholic content of five percent, right?

I checked the local Publix. There were several brands but one stood out. ANGRY ORCHARD. Perfect. I WAS IN THAT KIND OF MOOD.

So a toast, to you damn muthafuckas who voted a lying bankrupt con artist into the White House.

Bottoms up.

This is all your fault, trump voters. You blew it up. Damn You. Damn you ALL TO HELL.