Saturday Night Links!

* The only writing I’ve seen on Rusty Brown so far is this rather sour review from Slate on Ware’s “miserablism.” While I do concede the book feels a little redundant to some of Ware’s earlier work, especially its first section, I still like the book rather more than the reviewer — and it’s good to remember it’s only Vol. 1. A lot of my fondness for the book has to do with the transcendent Joycean section on the Jordan “Jason” Lint character that the review discusses near the end, which I think truly ranks among the best stuff Ware has ever produced. UPDATE: This review from io9 gets the book and what it’s doing a little bit better, I think. More people, get on this so we can talk about it.

* A great little SF flash fiction I ran across a few months late.

* Good tweets abound.

* Moving fast: Ukraine envoy resigns amid scandal consuming Trump’s presidency. (Broken by a student newspaper!) White House restricted access to Trump’s calls with Putin and Saudi crown prince. Sources close to the vice president confirm none of this is his fault. Politics of Impeachment Now Favor Democrats. The 4 possible crimes in the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower scandal, explained. The Left Needs to Seize Impeachment From Centrist Elites. The case for a maximal impeachment.

* Meanwhile.

* I Wrote About the Bidens and Ukraine Years Ago. Then the Right-Wing Spin Machine Turned the Story Upside Down.

* Hunter Biden’s Perfectly Legal, Socially Acceptable Corruption.

* Migrant detention ruling: Judge blocks government effort to indefinitely detain migrant families.

* Manufactured Misery at the Tijuana Border Crossing.

* Resisting Bolsonaro.

* This month, in the journal Nature: Human Behaviour, Kunst and Dovidio examined fusion specifically involving Donald Trump. In a series of seven studies using various surveys, including Swann and Gomez’s “identity fusion scale,” the Yale and Oslo team found that Americans who fused with Trump—as opposed to simply agreeing with or supporting him—were more willing to engage in various extreme behaviors, such as personally fighting to protect the U.S. border from an “immigrant caravan,” persecuting Muslims, or violently challenging election results.

The fusion might explain some apparent contradictions in ideology, Dovidio says. Even people who typically identify as advocates of small or no government might endorse acts of extreme authoritarianism if they have fused with Trump. In fusion, those inconsistencies simply don’t exist, according to Dovidio: Value systems are only contradictory if they’re both activated, and “once you step into the fusion mind-set, there is no contradiction.”

* Relatedly: Why Republicans Aren’t Turning on Trump.

* The Intercept on the Hofeller memos. More in cheating to win, and more.

* Shot: NRA Was ‘Foreign Asset’ To Russia Ahead of 2016, New Senate Report Reveals. Chaser: N.R.A.’s LaPierre Asks Trump to ‘Stop the Games‘ Over Gun Legislation in Discussion About Its Support.

* Why Bernie Sanders Matters.

* Ocasio-Cortez Calls for Bailout for Taxi Drivers.

* The Cuban roots of rock n roll.

* Climate change more than doubled the odds of Houston’s most recent deluge, study finds.

* Mass shooting levels up.

* Tesla tweets break the law, again.

* This DoorDash data breach feels like karmic retribution for my sins.

* Still the best there is.

* And This Video Game Fulfills Your Fantasy of Being a Horrible Goose. It’s fun!