An introductory penalty for mass folly

Josh Marshall's observation on the national shit show tickled my curiosity. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, and the Republican Congressional majority are giving the American people an early taste for this Christmas of what it is like to flunk governing. Marshall, grounded in history as usual, observes:

Trump has sewn himself into a sack with Elon Musk, a few billion dollars, a cat and a snake, and had the sack tossed into the Tiber [river]. That’s the story here. And it will go on for a while.

I had a dim notion of the ancient execution practice Marshall is referencing here, but it seemed worth a little superficial research. Fortunately, Wikipedia is strong on this one; it's the sort of topic on which some devoted volunteer editor produces extensive, probably reasonably accurate, history.

Apparently the Poena cullei  (Latin, 'penalty of the sack') was a punishment  for parricide, murder of the father, in the Roman-influenced world. A variant was still practiced all the way up until the mid-18th in a few German city states

The punishment consisted of being sewn up in a leather sack, with an assortment of live animals including a dog, snake, monkey, and a chicken or rooster, and then being thrown into water. 

The variation that included a cat seems a late addition; the viper and a chicken seems to have been a more prominent early version. 

Hell of a way to go and possessed of a dramatic cruelty that suits the cruelty of these men who are playing at being a government. 

Meanwhile, somehow, funding for children needing cancer treatment got stripped from the pending legislation. Thanks Elon.