Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Stand up, dammit!

“But what about the lurkers?”

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

This blog will pay for itself.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Petty moves from a petty man.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Let me file that under fuck it.

This really is a full service blog.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

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Foreign Office Briefing: The Super-Special Relationship Lurches Onward

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[ETA: Events, dear boy, events! See the discussion of the rapidly developing fallout from today’s disgraceful WH meeting with President Zelensky in the comments. And also this cartoon:]

Foreign Office Briefing: The Super-Special Relationship Lurches Onward 1

Sir Keir Starmer has returned from his first visit to the U.S. following Trump’s re-election. He was attempting to shore up what Churchill called the “Special Relationship” between the two countries (a Special Relationship that seems to matter a lot more over here). His meeting seems to have gone better than most people expected, even after Starmer decided to correct the president (and then later the vice president) to his face in front of the press. “Whatever they pay him over there,” said Trump, “he earned it.”

Starmer isn’t a charmer—he’s a stiff, timid lawyer who really is only capable of standing up to people in his own party—but it probably helped that he came bearing one of the things Trump loves best: an invitation to hang out with Actual Royalty.

Robert Hutton, writing in The Critic, recapped this exchange in an article titled “Visiting Great-Uncle Don”:

You may have sat with an aged grandparent, listening to them rambling on trying to pick the right moment to interject. Perhaps there was something you needed to persuade them to agree to: a visit to the doctor, a signature on a power of attorney, or Article Five of the Nato Treaty.

The prime minister was the latest in a queue of visitors to the president’s study, so tastefully decorated in the style I think of as “School of Fredo Corleone”. Like grandchildren who have heard that the house is about to be signed over to some Russian toyboy, European leaders have been reminding the president who his real friends are. Of course, you can’t just come out and say that. You have to be patient and flatter him. Starmer had brought along a gift that no one else could offer: “A letter from the king!”

The president was as thrilled as any centenarian receiving their royal telegram. “Am I supposed to read it right now?” he asked. Usually, these moments happen behind closed doors. But then usually, the recipient can remember what happened last week. “I’ve got to tell him what your reaction is!” the prime minister replied, bedside manner fully engaged.

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News You Can Use Open Thread

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Ah, British society. So sophisticated:

News You Can Use Open Thread 1

Never fear, Daily Star: I wouldn’t touch one with yours.

Working on a post about Labour’s big policy announcement from Monday, but I get so overwhelmed by the idiocy of it I keep stopping. Basically, they are going all in on AI. Sometimes I think I should just retreat into the woods, you know?

Whilst that’s brewing, here’s an open thread.

 

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Developing Situation: South Korea’s President Declares Martial Law

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Breaking, via the BBC:

“In the last half hour, the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, has declared martial law.

In an unannounced late night television address he says the move is necessary to protect the country from North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements.

Yoon said the decision was made to remove pro-North Korea forces from the country and to protect the liberal constitutional order.

Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to martial law, but did not say in the address what specific measures will be taken.

The Yonhap News Agency is reporting that the leader of South Korean opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, has said the declaration of martial law is unconstitutional.

Yonhap is also reporting that Han Dong-hoon, the head of the ruling People Power Party – of which President Yoon Suk Yeol is a member – has also vowed to block the declaration, describing it as ‘wrong’.”

I don’t follow Korean politics, but various international relations academics on Bluesky seem to agree with the reporting above – Yoon is going rogue here, but it’s not yet clear why. Feels like yet more bad news for democracy.

If any of our Jackals in Asia are still awake and can shed light on this situation (or if you’re up to speed on Korea), please chime in below.

ETA: Baud found a subject-matter expert on Bluesky, one Karl Friedhoff of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. He appears to be providing a credible explainer about the background of the situation here, which will sound very familiar to us all: right-wing president elected on a narrow margin with an administration facing corruption investigations goes for a desperate move to hold onto power. All very ominous.

Link to one of the more hopeful posts in Friedhoff’s otherwise quite bleak thread:

Prepare for MASSIVE protests. I’d venture the coming protests will outdo those that saw Park Geun-Hye removed from power. One thing about Koreans: they will absolutely not be cowed. They’ve overthrown dictatorship and removed a president from power, all with largely peaceful protests.

— Karl Friedhoff (@kfriedhoff.bsky.social) December 3, 2024 at 2:28 PM

You know they’re taking notes down at Mar-a-Lago. Americans opposed to this kind of thing should be taking notes, too.

ETA 11:35 a.m. EST: Further reports indicate that 190 members of the 300-member SK National Assembly were able to convene in spite of an apparent blockade of the building. Everyone present voted to lift the martial law, and Yoon must, by law, comply. Protesters have gathered in the streets. Whether this actually resolves the situation remains to be seen, but it’s very inspiring to see a legislative body immediately smack this shit down. Best of luck to the Koreans.

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WTF

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Riddle me this? Why the fuck did a mentally unstable 21 year old air national guardsman have access to the fucking crown jewels? Why were phones allowed in an area where this material exists? What kind of opsec did these fuckers practice.

I mean fuck this kid- he will get what he deserves. But the entire god damned chain of command needs to have their asses handed to them for this.

We had more security on a pair of night vision goggles when I was on active duty than they did national security secrets.

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How Is This Even Possible in 2021?

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So apparently if you get drunk in Minnesota, and someone rapes you, they can’t be charged with rape. How can this possibly be the law in the year 2021?  And MN is apparently not the only state where this is the law.

I was enraged when I read about this last night, and I am still enraged this morning.  How can a person possibly give consent if they are drunk?

A Minnesota man can’t be charged with rape, because the woman chose to drink beforehand, court rules.

After a 20-year-old woman took five shots of vodka and a prescription pill, she said she was standing outside a Minneapolis bar in May 2017 when a man invited her and a friend to a party. She agreed but soon found out there was no gathering, she later testified.

She “blacked out” instead, waking up on a couch and found that the man she had just met was allegedly sexually assaulting her, according to court records.

Almost four years later, the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously ruled this week that Francios Momolu Khalil, 24, cannot be found guilty of rape because the woman got drunk voluntarily beforehand. The decision Wednesday overturned Khalil’s prior conviction of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, which had been upheld by an appeals court, and granted him the right to a new trial.

Un-fucking believable.

Under the existing statute, Khalil’s case could be charged as fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a gross misdemeanor, according to the court ruling.

Well, I agree with them on one thing.  That is really fucking gross.

Open thread.

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You hate to see it…

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In several ways, this clip of former NSC official Fiona Hill being questioned by House GOP Counsel Stephen Castor is the perfect microcosm of our national political moment:

Castor opens by trying to get Hill to deny that she was upset with Bolton and “the way things were going.” Hill gives a forthright account of her anger at Sondland, owns up to being “a bit rude” to him and talks about how commonly women’s anger is misunderstood in professional situations.

Hill then throws the flaming bag of shit right back at Castor, noting that Sondland’s testimony convinced her she was angry at Sondland for the wrong reason. Sondland was following Trump’s orders on a “domestic political errand,” which put his actions at odds with those of Hill and the rest of the State Department’s Ukraine team, who were executing “national security foreign policy” at the moment its objectives diverged from Trump’s political goals.

It was a remarkable moment, but it won’t matter. As I’ve complained in this space before, having a leering misogynist like Trump in the White House is a daily insult to women, a constant reminder of our second-class citizenship that is made even more painful by the complicity of so many (mostly white) women who elevated that buffoon to the office. But it’s not just Trump.

It’s the brisk, no-nonsense, intelligent competence of Fiona Hill vs. the smirking and mugging of large check-writer Gordon Sondland. It’s the bravery of Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony contrasted with the angry public tantrum thrown by Brett Kavanaugh. It’s Nancy Pelosi’s resolve to follow the Constitution juxtaposed with Mitch McConnell’s bottomless cynicism.

And the worthy, competent, intelligent women might win the battle, but they lose the war because that’s the way the game is rigged. I’m pretty goddamned sick of it. That is all.

Open thread.

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