An Adrienne Rich Poem for These Dire Days:
One of the Rude Pundit's favorite poets (and, truly, one of the best American poets ever) died this week. Get yourself a collection of Adrienne Rich's work for the weekend. Go beyond "Diving Into the Wreck" or "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," which you might have read in an undergraduate lit class. The Rude Pundit recommends Dreams of a Common Language, with a sweep of words and undercurrent of the political that would have made old Walt Whitman proud. Rich was one of the first poets to tap into so many of the issues that drove Second Wave feminism, and she was down in the literary and activist trenches of Third Wave feminism, too. Mostly, though, Rich was simply one of those poets whose works make you wonder at the breadth of feeling and depth of thought created by such simple, quotidian language.
Here is an early work, from 1951, "Storm Warnings":
The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.
Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.
I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.
3/29/2012
Early Mourning for the Soon-To-Be Late Affordable Care Act:
Oh, sweet liberals, allow the Rude Pundit to embrace you in this time of crisis, allow him to cradle you and offer succor, let him give you gentle rubs and tender tugs. Yes, the scales of blind justice are tilting right these days, and it seems as if our precious Affordable Care Act is not long for this world.
It was always going to be so because we didn't love it enough. The Obama administration failed, so incredibly, in showing the nation that what the law accomplished with its passage came out of the deeply Christian (and other faiths and just plainly human) idea of care of one's fellow men and women. It failed, so amazingly, to demonstrate on an ongoing basis, how, as each part was implemented, life was improving. And even those who voted for it failed, so sadly, to teach their constituents about how their lives would improve, with many losing their seats for running away like whipped dogs. Yes, liberal media figures did highlight tales: the family that got insurance for their kids, despite pre-existing conditions; the college student who was put back on her mother's insurance. Simply put, though, we lost the propaganda battle and thus we will probably lose the war. No, no, enough regret. Enough recrimination. Enough woulda and the hell with shoulda.
But admit it, oh, sweet liberals, to yourself first and then to all others: you hate the individual mandate. It was the ultimate capitulation to the very forces whose insatiable greed has harmed Americans, even those who have health insurance. This Republican idea, proposed by the Cato Institute, supported by Bob Dole back in the health care battles of the early 1990s, is government at the service of capitalism and obeisance to health insurance companies. We know that this was the wrong approach. We accepted it only because of all the other things that were accomplished because of its inclusion.
One thought, though: if we really, truly believe in President Obama as the master of ten-dimensional chess, then he had to know this was coming. Even back in 1994, conservative members of Congress were talking about challenging the constitutionality of any federally prescribed individual mandate. He had to know that, by front-loading so many of the real benefits for Americans in the bill, he would make it impossible for people to want to give it up wholesale. When the first story of a dying child having his health care taken away comes out if the Supreme Court declares the act unconstitutional, the fickle, idiot public will vote the opposite of 2010.
So, in the most optimistic reading of this series of events that led to the Supreme Court's three days of hearings, Obama knew that a conservative court would overturn the individual mandate. And that an eventual outcry would force Congress to either create Medicare for all or a public option.
But, no, no, these are not optimistic times. These are days where, in the name of freedom of the individual, the individual is crushed.
Oh, sweet liberals, allow the Rude Pundit to embrace you in this time of crisis, allow him to cradle you and offer succor, let him give you gentle rubs and tender tugs. Yes, the scales of blind justice are tilting right these days, and it seems as if our precious Affordable Care Act is not long for this world.
It was always going to be so because we didn't love it enough. The Obama administration failed, so incredibly, in showing the nation that what the law accomplished with its passage came out of the deeply Christian (and other faiths and just plainly human) idea of care of one's fellow men and women. It failed, so amazingly, to demonstrate on an ongoing basis, how, as each part was implemented, life was improving. And even those who voted for it failed, so sadly, to teach their constituents about how their lives would improve, with many losing their seats for running away like whipped dogs. Yes, liberal media figures did highlight tales: the family that got insurance for their kids, despite pre-existing conditions; the college student who was put back on her mother's insurance. Simply put, though, we lost the propaganda battle and thus we will probably lose the war. No, no, enough regret. Enough recrimination. Enough woulda and the hell with shoulda.
But admit it, oh, sweet liberals, to yourself first and then to all others: you hate the individual mandate. It was the ultimate capitulation to the very forces whose insatiable greed has harmed Americans, even those who have health insurance. This Republican idea, proposed by the Cato Institute, supported by Bob Dole back in the health care battles of the early 1990s, is government at the service of capitalism and obeisance to health insurance companies. We know that this was the wrong approach. We accepted it only because of all the other things that were accomplished because of its inclusion.
One thought, though: if we really, truly believe in President Obama as the master of ten-dimensional chess, then he had to know this was coming. Even back in 1994, conservative members of Congress were talking about challenging the constitutionality of any federally prescribed individual mandate. He had to know that, by front-loading so many of the real benefits for Americans in the bill, he would make it impossible for people to want to give it up wholesale. When the first story of a dying child having his health care taken away comes out if the Supreme Court declares the act unconstitutional, the fickle, idiot public will vote the opposite of 2010.
So, in the most optimistic reading of this series of events that led to the Supreme Court's three days of hearings, Obama knew that a conservative court would overturn the individual mandate. And that an eventual outcry would force Congress to either create Medicare for all or a public option.
But, no, no, these are not optimistic times. These are days where, in the name of freedom of the individual, the individual is crushed.
3/28/2012
In Brief: Five Ways Broccoli Is Not Like Health Insurance:
In honor Justices Antonin Scalia and John Roberts for reducing the debate over whether or not Americans must buy health insurance to a question of whether or not the government can force Americans to buy a vegetable. It's good to know the conservative Supreme Court justices get the rhetoric memos from Frank Luntz. But just in case they're not sure how broccoli and health insurance differ, here's some tips:
1. Broccoli is a nutritious vegetable. Health insurance is a guarantee that medical care will be paid for by the individuals receiving it through their insurance companies and not by you and all of us.
2. Broccoli is delicious in American Chinese food. Health insurance allows people to get preventive care so that they do not just end up in emergency rooms when their medical conditions get too awful to tolerate.
3. Broccoli is grown in California and has a shelf life of 3-5 days. People with health insurance generally live longer than people without health insurance.
4. If overcooked, broccoli gets unpalatable and mushy, and it loses its nutritional value. Health insurance will also pay for prescription drugs that people need in order to stay, you know, healthy.
5. The best, easiest broccoli recipe: Hot pan, olive oil, garlic. Toast garlic. Toss in broccoli florets, salt, and pepper. Saute'. Add a bit of water. Cover pan. Let steam for a couple of minutes. Open. Let water boil away. Add butter. Toss. Serve. Health insurance pays for tests in order to detect diseases early so that you don't die, no matter how much broccoli you eat.
In honor Justices Antonin Scalia and John Roberts for reducing the debate over whether or not Americans must buy health insurance to a question of whether or not the government can force Americans to buy a vegetable. It's good to know the conservative Supreme Court justices get the rhetoric memos from Frank Luntz. But just in case they're not sure how broccoli and health insurance differ, here's some tips:
1. Broccoli is a nutritious vegetable. Health insurance is a guarantee that medical care will be paid for by the individuals receiving it through their insurance companies and not by you and all of us.
2. Broccoli is delicious in American Chinese food. Health insurance allows people to get preventive care so that they do not just end up in emergency rooms when their medical conditions get too awful to tolerate.
3. Broccoli is grown in California and has a shelf life of 3-5 days. People with health insurance generally live longer than people without health insurance.
4. If overcooked, broccoli gets unpalatable and mushy, and it loses its nutritional value. Health insurance will also pay for prescription drugs that people need in order to stay, you know, healthy.
5. The best, easiest broccoli recipe: Hot pan, olive oil, garlic. Toast garlic. Toss in broccoli florets, salt, and pepper. Saute'. Add a bit of water. Cover pan. Let steam for a couple of minutes. Open. Let water boil away. Add butter. Toss. Serve. Health insurance pays for tests in order to detect diseases early so that you don't die, no matter how much broccoli you eat.
3/27/2012
The Niggering of Trayvon Martin:
We see this again and again. A black male who captures the imagination of the nation must be degraded by the right. He must be turned into something else, some Other. President Obama can't simply be an educated black man from a lower middle-class background with whom they disagree ideologically. No, he's got to be an enemy, a foreigner, a nigger. It's hard to denigrate someone who might be like you, conservatives. But it's easy to attack a nigger because he's just a nigger. Or a coon.
When 17 year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead, the process of transforming him from an average middle-class high school student to a dangerous thug who was asking for it began almost immediately (putting aside the profiling that George Zimmerman did the second he started stalking Martin around their gated community in his SUV). News reports say his body was tagged "John Doe" and held in the morgue for three days. Sorry, race apologists, but if that had been a white child, especially the white child of, say, a Tea Party member, there'd have been a fucking riot. Or, more likely, it just wouldn't have happened.
Now, the niggering of Martin is in full swing as fake photos, school records, Facebook postings, and even his tweets are put under the microscope. A police report that portrays Martin as the initiator of violence has been leaked. And the news media is going along with the victim-blaming that is being spun out by authorities and the right, allowing that it's in any way relevant that Martin was suspended from school once, for instance.
The niggering of Trayvon Martin works as every niggering does. It gives conservatives cover for their belief in the innate goodness of guns and the innate badness of anyone non-white who just dresses vaguely gangsta. It gives racists, open and closeted, a reason not to care. It allows them to see him as deserving of some punishment in general: if Zimmerman hadn't killed him, this narrative goes, well, fuck, chances are Martin would have been a criminal and better to get it over with now than pay for his incarceration.
The Rude Pundit read over Martin's "No_Limit_Nigga" Twitter postings, although he felt skeevy about it (and he's sure that Tucker Carlson didn't feel any skeevier than usual). It's pretty much a journey through retweets and responses and sexual shit that all fall into the category of "stupid shit teenagers say."
Then, on page 25, is this: "Retweet if your biggest fear is losing your Mom." Martin did so. Twice.
Yeah, reality is way more complicated. Or simple, really. If you take "nigger" out of the equation, you're left with "child."
We see this again and again. A black male who captures the imagination of the nation must be degraded by the right. He must be turned into something else, some Other. President Obama can't simply be an educated black man from a lower middle-class background with whom they disagree ideologically. No, he's got to be an enemy, a foreigner, a nigger. It's hard to denigrate someone who might be like you, conservatives. But it's easy to attack a nigger because he's just a nigger. Or a coon.
When 17 year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead, the process of transforming him from an average middle-class high school student to a dangerous thug who was asking for it began almost immediately (putting aside the profiling that George Zimmerman did the second he started stalking Martin around their gated community in his SUV). News reports say his body was tagged "John Doe" and held in the morgue for three days. Sorry, race apologists, but if that had been a white child, especially the white child of, say, a Tea Party member, there'd have been a fucking riot. Or, more likely, it just wouldn't have happened.
Now, the niggering of Martin is in full swing as fake photos, school records, Facebook postings, and even his tweets are put under the microscope. A police report that portrays Martin as the initiator of violence has been leaked. And the news media is going along with the victim-blaming that is being spun out by authorities and the right, allowing that it's in any way relevant that Martin was suspended from school once, for instance.
The niggering of Trayvon Martin works as every niggering does. It gives conservatives cover for their belief in the innate goodness of guns and the innate badness of anyone non-white who just dresses vaguely gangsta. It gives racists, open and closeted, a reason not to care. It allows them to see him as deserving of some punishment in general: if Zimmerman hadn't killed him, this narrative goes, well, fuck, chances are Martin would have been a criminal and better to get it over with now than pay for his incarceration.
The Rude Pundit read over Martin's "No_Limit_Nigga" Twitter postings, although he felt skeevy about it (and he's sure that Tucker Carlson didn't feel any skeevier than usual). It's pretty much a journey through retweets and responses and sexual shit that all fall into the category of "stupid shit teenagers say."
Then, on page 25, is this: "Retweet if your biggest fear is losing your Mom." Martin did so. Twice.
Yeah, reality is way more complicated. Or simple, really. If you take "nigger" out of the equation, you're left with "child."
3/26/2012
Conservatives Shouldn't Make Videos:
Rick Santorum is losing his shit. Between agreeing to be Mitt Romney's bitch and saying to a New York Times reporter, "Quit distorting my words. It's bullshit," it's pretty obvious that Santorum is in the desperate end days of his unlikely long run as the last non-Romney standing, or "Le Fin du Douche," as the French call him.
One of the things it has always been easy to admire (yes, admire) about Santorum is that the motherfucker may be crazy as a shit fight in a monkey house, but he believes what he's saying. He's all-in. If you're gonna base your candidacy on your belief that Satan wins if you don't, own that shit. And nothing says nutzoid like Santorum's latest video from his campaign, not a Super PAC, wherein he imagines the color-drained hellscape that America will become if Barack Obama wins a second term. Because apparently you can put anything after the President's last name, it's called, "Obamaville":
That's right. Obama will force your children off playgrounds and take away one of their shoes. Hot women with whore-red lips will tell you to be quiet. You and your spouse will have nothing to chop on the butcher block but a bowl of grapefruit. Grapefruit, goddamnit. Little girls will dress in rags and sit in wooden rooms. Doctors will have long lines, says the narrator, but somehow hospital beds will remain empty. And all of a sudden gasoline will have the ability to pierce your skull. Old people will sit or stand quietly, knowingly. TV will mix up Mahmoud Ahmadenijad with the President in showing us our "enemies." Wall Street executives will toast each other at expensive restaurants. Wait, what? Oh, yeah, that's right. Santorum is the populist in this race so he must support regulating Wall Street. Right? No, didn't think so.
There's a word for this video, one that Santorum himself used.
However, for sheer bugfuckery, no one can top Herman Cain's newest new thing and its new video. You gotta watch and then think that he was once the GOP frontrunner:
Yes, the little girl sets up the cute bunny for catapulting and death by exploding bullets shot by a man who looks like the despicable spawn of Paul Ryan and Stephen Colbert. Yes, that's Herman Cain standing on a cliff at the end, looking for all the world like a man who is about to dive into the chasm and end it.
What's it about? Oh, small business regulation or some such shit that the Chamber of Commerce is forcing everyone to believe. Cain, though, is like the John Waters of the internet ad. There is no place too low for him.
Rick Santorum is losing his shit. Between agreeing to be Mitt Romney's bitch and saying to a New York Times reporter, "Quit distorting my words. It's bullshit," it's pretty obvious that Santorum is in the desperate end days of his unlikely long run as the last non-Romney standing, or "Le Fin du Douche," as the French call him.
One of the things it has always been easy to admire (yes, admire) about Santorum is that the motherfucker may be crazy as a shit fight in a monkey house, but he believes what he's saying. He's all-in. If you're gonna base your candidacy on your belief that Satan wins if you don't, own that shit. And nothing says nutzoid like Santorum's latest video from his campaign, not a Super PAC, wherein he imagines the color-drained hellscape that America will become if Barack Obama wins a second term. Because apparently you can put anything after the President's last name, it's called, "Obamaville":
That's right. Obama will force your children off playgrounds and take away one of their shoes. Hot women with whore-red lips will tell you to be quiet. You and your spouse will have nothing to chop on the butcher block but a bowl of grapefruit. Grapefruit, goddamnit. Little girls will dress in rags and sit in wooden rooms. Doctors will have long lines, says the narrator, but somehow hospital beds will remain empty. And all of a sudden gasoline will have the ability to pierce your skull. Old people will sit or stand quietly, knowingly. TV will mix up Mahmoud Ahmadenijad with the President in showing us our "enemies." Wall Street executives will toast each other at expensive restaurants. Wait, what? Oh, yeah, that's right. Santorum is the populist in this race so he must support regulating Wall Street. Right? No, didn't think so.
There's a word for this video, one that Santorum himself used.
However, for sheer bugfuckery, no one can top Herman Cain's newest new thing and its new video. You gotta watch and then think that he was once the GOP frontrunner:
Yes, the little girl sets up the cute bunny for catapulting and death by exploding bullets shot by a man who looks like the despicable spawn of Paul Ryan and Stephen Colbert. Yes, that's Herman Cain standing on a cliff at the end, looking for all the world like a man who is about to dive into the chasm and end it.
What's it about? Oh, small business regulation or some such shit that the Chamber of Commerce is forcing everyone to believe. Cain, though, is like the John Waters of the internet ad. There is no place too low for him.
3/23/2012
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Break Out the Old Jackson Browne LPs:
That's the roughly 1000 people marching this week that didn't involve Trayvon Martin. It was more Birkenstock than hoodie, an old school protest against an old school enemy, nuclear power.
See, the Vermont Yankee plant's 40-year operating license expired Wednesday. Yesterday, protesters demanded that the collapsing, leaking facility be shut down. The problem, see, wasn't just the generating of electricity. The problem was the storage of radioactive waste at Vermont Yankee. It's actually against the law in Vermont. Entergy, the big damn energy conglomerate that bought the plant in 2002, sued to prevent the plant from being shut down and to stop the enforcement of the law. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Entergy a 20-year license for the plant. But the state's Public Service Board still gets to decide if it will license Vermont Yankee, as a federal judge ruled. Entergy, which really is just a corporation of lying, money-sucking bastards, is appealing, saying that it will sell electricity outside of the state and thus federal law should trump state. Ahh, what a sweet bind for conservatives. Nuclear power or federalism?
Meanwhile, Green Mountaineers protested yesterday, and they tried to get onto the grounds of Vermont Yankee. 130 people were arrested. More were arrested at Entergy's corporate offices in White Plains, NY, and down at its home office in New Orleans. Passions run high when a giant company is trying to profit off poisoning your air and ground and water.
Back on March 31, 1980, almost 32 years ago to the date, 75 people were arrested when another 1000 people marched on Vermont Yankee. It was the one-year anniversary of Three Mile Island, the "No Nukes" era. That accident was child's play compared to a protest in the wake of Fukushima.
Between this protest and the ones for the Trayvon Martin killing, it's depressing sometimes to think of how often we must fight the same fights.
That's the roughly 1000 people marching this week that didn't involve Trayvon Martin. It was more Birkenstock than hoodie, an old school protest against an old school enemy, nuclear power.
See, the Vermont Yankee plant's 40-year operating license expired Wednesday. Yesterday, protesters demanded that the collapsing, leaking facility be shut down. The problem, see, wasn't just the generating of electricity. The problem was the storage of radioactive waste at Vermont Yankee. It's actually against the law in Vermont. Entergy, the big damn energy conglomerate that bought the plant in 2002, sued to prevent the plant from being shut down and to stop the enforcement of the law. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Entergy a 20-year license for the plant. But the state's Public Service Board still gets to decide if it will license Vermont Yankee, as a federal judge ruled. Entergy, which really is just a corporation of lying, money-sucking bastards, is appealing, saying that it will sell electricity outside of the state and thus federal law should trump state. Ahh, what a sweet bind for conservatives. Nuclear power or federalism?
Meanwhile, Green Mountaineers protested yesterday, and they tried to get onto the grounds of Vermont Yankee. 130 people were arrested. More were arrested at Entergy's corporate offices in White Plains, NY, and down at its home office in New Orleans. Passions run high when a giant company is trying to profit off poisoning your air and ground and water.
Back on March 31, 1980, almost 32 years ago to the date, 75 people were arrested when another 1000 people marched on Vermont Yankee. It was the one-year anniversary of Three Mile Island, the "No Nukes" era. That accident was child's play compared to a protest in the wake of Fukushima.
Between this protest and the ones for the Trayvon Martin killing, it's depressing sometimes to think of how often we must fight the same fights.
3/22/2012
The NRA and Florida Legislators Killed Trayvon Martin as Surely as a Gun Did:
Well, what the fuck did you expect, Florida, you limp, useless cock of the diseased body America? You make guns as easy to get as a package from Amazon (regular shipping), you pass concealed carry laws, and you pass a law that says that if people "have a reasonable belief that they are in danger of death or great bodily harm" they can kill the fuck out of someone out in public. No need to run away. No need to call the cops first. Just Spidey senses a-tingling. Did you not expect that at some point, some creepy vigilante wouldn't get the chance to live out his Batman fantasies? Of course, George Zimmerman, not being in the physical shape of Batman, was just a stupid asshole who shot a skinny, unarmed teenager because he felt threatened by black guys in hoodies walking through his 'hood.
Back on April 13, 2005, when the "Stand Your Ground" bill had just passed the Florida legislature, Bo Dietl, the former cop who appears on TV constantly to support law enforcement in his deranged goombah way (thus leading him to be a regular Daily Show and Colbert Report punchline interview subject), said on MSNBC's Scarborough Country that the new law was "idiotic" and a "ludicrous and ridiculous law. And Jeb Bush must be smoking a crack pipe...If you have a feeling, if you have a belief or that you are threatened, that you can react and react first, then you open up a whole Pandora's box here."
Anybody with a fucking brain, and even a few without, knew what was going to happen. In early 2005, when the bill was quickly debated and savagely passed, State Senator Steve Geller, a Democrat, warned, "I don't think you ought to be able to kill people that are walking toward you on the street because of this subjective belief that you're worried that they may get in a fight with you." The street, he said, is not your castle. (Note: Pat Buchanan said in 2005 on The McLaughlin Group that the law's passage was a "Great victory for Bush and for America." Is he dead yet?)
Politicians, on the right and in the middle, are to blame for Trayvon Martin's execution. All over the nation, but especially in Florida, the National Rifle Association threatens to destroy any legislator who refuses to bend over and let it shove cash into their assholes. The NRA wants an exception to the 3-day waiting period for people with concealed carry licenses, as they did in the Sunshine State? The Republicans in Tallahassee line up and open their asses for that cash to be shoveled in, along with the promise that the almighty motherfucking NRA will support them in a primary. And then, their asses full to their lower intestines with filthy money, the legislators get on their knees in front of NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer as she holds a pistol between her legs and they suck on it until the barrel has rubbed her kooz to orgasm. Then they pass every idiotarded law the gun nuts want under the umbrella of "rights." That's how the NRA works, motherfuckers, and then they tell us it's to keep us safe.
Seriously, if the ACLU were as deranged in defending the First Amendment as the NRA is in defending its distorted version of the Second, you'd be able to walk up to a crucifixion statue in the middle of St. Boyrape's Cathedral, shit on Christ's face, and claim "freedom of expression," and the laws would back you up and how dare anyone be such a pussy as to claim that shitting on Christ's face isn't free speech.
Trayvon Martin was killed by a gun. No, guns alone don't kill people. People with guns do, though. And, chances are, if George Zimmerman wasn't carrying one, he wouldn't have pursued Martin. He wouldn't have ignored the 911 operator's call for him to stand down. And Martin would still be alive.
Well, what the fuck did you expect, Florida, you limp, useless cock of the diseased body America? You make guns as easy to get as a package from Amazon (regular shipping), you pass concealed carry laws, and you pass a law that says that if people "have a reasonable belief that they are in danger of death or great bodily harm" they can kill the fuck out of someone out in public. No need to run away. No need to call the cops first. Just Spidey senses a-tingling. Did you not expect that at some point, some creepy vigilante wouldn't get the chance to live out his Batman fantasies? Of course, George Zimmerman, not being in the physical shape of Batman, was just a stupid asshole who shot a skinny, unarmed teenager because he felt threatened by black guys in hoodies walking through his 'hood.
Back on April 13, 2005, when the "Stand Your Ground" bill had just passed the Florida legislature, Bo Dietl, the former cop who appears on TV constantly to support law enforcement in his deranged goombah way (thus leading him to be a regular Daily Show and Colbert Report punchline interview subject), said on MSNBC's Scarborough Country that the new law was "idiotic" and a "ludicrous and ridiculous law. And Jeb Bush must be smoking a crack pipe...If you have a feeling, if you have a belief or that you are threatened, that you can react and react first, then you open up a whole Pandora's box here."
Anybody with a fucking brain, and even a few without, knew what was going to happen. In early 2005, when the bill was quickly debated and savagely passed, State Senator Steve Geller, a Democrat, warned, "I don't think you ought to be able to kill people that are walking toward you on the street because of this subjective belief that you're worried that they may get in a fight with you." The street, he said, is not your castle. (Note: Pat Buchanan said in 2005 on The McLaughlin Group that the law's passage was a "Great victory for Bush and for America." Is he dead yet?)
Politicians, on the right and in the middle, are to blame for Trayvon Martin's execution. All over the nation, but especially in Florida, the National Rifle Association threatens to destroy any legislator who refuses to bend over and let it shove cash into their assholes. The NRA wants an exception to the 3-day waiting period for people with concealed carry licenses, as they did in the Sunshine State? The Republicans in Tallahassee line up and open their asses for that cash to be shoveled in, along with the promise that the almighty motherfucking NRA will support them in a primary. And then, their asses full to their lower intestines with filthy money, the legislators get on their knees in front of NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer as she holds a pistol between her legs and they suck on it until the barrel has rubbed her kooz to orgasm. Then they pass every idiotarded law the gun nuts want under the umbrella of "rights." That's how the NRA works, motherfuckers, and then they tell us it's to keep us safe.
Seriously, if the ACLU were as deranged in defending the First Amendment as the NRA is in defending its distorted version of the Second, you'd be able to walk up to a crucifixion statue in the middle of St. Boyrape's Cathedral, shit on Christ's face, and claim "freedom of expression," and the laws would back you up and how dare anyone be such a pussy as to claim that shitting on Christ's face isn't free speech.
Trayvon Martin was killed by a gun. No, guns alone don't kill people. People with guns do, though. And, chances are, if George Zimmerman wasn't carrying one, he wouldn't have pursued Martin. He wouldn't have ignored the 911 operator's call for him to stand down. And Martin would still be alive.
3/21/2012
Ten Other Toys Mitt Romney Is Like:
In honor of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, who said this morning on CNN that after the primaries, "Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again," thus making his candidate's beliefs seem as ephemeral as a child's knob-drawn puppy, here's a few other toys Romney can use as analogies for himself:
1. Hugo: The Man of a Thousand Faces
2. Pet Rock
3. Big Loo (no, sorry, not a giant toilet, but that'd work, too)
4. See 'N Say
5. Mr. Machine
6. Crackers, the Parrot
7. Magic Window
8. Magic 8-Ball
9. Pie Face Game
10. Silly Putty
In honor of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, who said this morning on CNN that after the primaries, "Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again," thus making his candidate's beliefs seem as ephemeral as a child's knob-drawn puppy, here's a few other toys Romney can use as analogies for himself:
1. Hugo: The Man of a Thousand Faces
2. Pet Rock
3. Big Loo (no, sorry, not a giant toilet, but that'd work, too)
4. See 'N Say
5. Mr. Machine
6. Crackers, the Parrot
7. Magic Window
8. Magic 8-Ball
9. Pie Face Game
10. Silly Putty
3/20/2012
The Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show (and a Correction):
Yesterday, on the soon-to-be-on-Current-TV Stephanie Miller Show, among other issues, the Rude Pundit mocked Rick Santorum's belief in acts of God. And then he and Stephanie Miller got all disgusted and confused about the GOP's war on women.
Correction: Like many a person writing about Mike Daisey and This American Life, the Rude Pundit said the Ira Glass program was from NPR. That's wrong. It's produced by Chicago Public Media and distributed by PRI. NPR stations just buy it and play it. And if you can tell the difference, more power to you. The Rude Pundit apologizes, but would like to say that he made the error only for the sake of the dramatic point of the blog post and he stands by the truth of it, even if it was totally wrong. (Tip o' the hat to rude reader S.L., who has become kind of the unofficial fact checker/grammar goon of this blog.)
Yesterday, on the soon-to-be-on-Current-TV Stephanie Miller Show, among other issues, the Rude Pundit mocked Rick Santorum's belief in acts of God. And then he and Stephanie Miller got all disgusted and confused about the GOP's war on women.
Correction: Like many a person writing about Mike Daisey and This American Life, the Rude Pundit said the Ira Glass program was from NPR. That's wrong. It's produced by Chicago Public Media and distributed by PRI. NPR stations just buy it and play it. And if you can tell the difference, more power to you. The Rude Pundit apologizes, but would like to say that he made the error only for the sake of the dramatic point of the blog post and he stands by the truth of it, even if it was totally wrong. (Tip o' the hat to rude reader S.L., who has become kind of the unofficial fact checker/grammar goon of this blog.)
Justice for the Orange-Shirted Employees:
So here's the alleged story. It's a seemingly simple one, but it gets complicated later. A group of fourteen employees, paralegals, assistants, others, at the law office of Elizabeth R. Wellborn in Deerfield Beach, Florida, wanted to show their pride and unity for a payday night out last Friday. It had become a tradition, four of them said, to wear orange shirts on Fridays, when the happy hours of local bars called them to celebration. They were all going to go out together. They wore orange, in Florida, by the way, which grows a shitload of, well, you know, because they wanted the other happy hour party people to know they were together: a large group of workers who actually enjoyed each other's company at the start of the weekend.
Apparently, an executive at the firm was told or believed that the orange shirting was a protest of some kind. And he called all 14 so-shirted employees to a conference room, asked what the shirts meant, was told it didn't mean protest, and fired them on the spot. For wearing the shirts. Said one fired paralegal, "There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing."
Funny thing is that if they had been whistleblowers, they would have had protection. And if they were all part of a religious group that demanded the adorning of the self with orange on the fifth day, they could not have been fired, according to Florida law. But because they were just regular people who did something that annoyed some lawyer or executive at the Wellborn offices, they have no recourse. That's because Florida is an at-will state with regard to employment. And that means that any employer can fire any employee for any reason at any time, with limited exceptions (like contracts or adherence to federal laws). And the employer never has to tell you why you were fired because it doesn't fucking matter. Your boss could dislike the smell of your farts and fire you. Your boss could dislike it if you don't like the smell of his farts and fire you. Fart-related firing is rampant, in case you didn't know.
And you wouldn't. Because, again, in at-will states, ones that don't have good faith covenants, you can get a phone call that says, "You're fired," and you never have to be told why. Essentially, it could be called "Joseph K's law" because of how Kafkaesque it is. Labor lawyers in Florida are saying that there is nothing that can be done about the Orange Shirted 14, that nothing in the firing violates the law.
How do you like that freedom, America? The freedom from government interference in the ability of a capricious boss to fuck up your life? And if you tried to change the law to prevent firing without cause, businesspeople, allied with conservatives, would get the outrage machine a-running because, you see, any time the government does anything to protect labor, it's socialism run amok. Any time the government does anything to protect capital, it's just, you know, good ol' fashioned capitalism.
Want an extra kick in the nuts with this story? That'd be what exactly the firm of Elizabeth R. Wellborn does. It's a bunch of cocks and cunts representing banks and mortgage firms. Well, here's how the website describes what they do: "We are proud to represent institutional and private lenders in the reclamation of titled assets. We maintain attorneys who are well versed in replevin, attachment and foreclosure. In fact, the foreclosure department represents the lender in the reacquisition of real estate assets, resale of those assets in it's 'REO' department and pursues deficiency judgments in effort to make our clients whole." Business must be mighty damn good, too, because foreclosure rates remain high for that area of the state, in the sweet spot between Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale.
Oh, and Wellborn goes that extra mile: "Our Post-Sale and Eviction Departments manage the steps necessary to move a foreclosed property, occupied or not, out onto the market." Don't worry, though, homeowner, because of Wellborn's loss mitigation people who are ready to help you: "This department assists our clients in providing alternatives to foreclosure; promoting home retention and protecting the interest of our clients." Now, what do you think the firm has a greater stake in doing?
Goddamn, how this complicates our story, does it not? Sure, one of the fired people said, "I’m a single mom with four kids, and I’m out of a job just because I wore orange today." How easy it would be to say, "Fuck you. You worked for the motherfuckers, the bad guys. You were one of Mr. Potter's goons, asshole. Reap what you've sown."
But even assholes don't deserve to lose their jobs working for motherfuckers just because they wore orange shirts one day. If you want justice to rain on the righteous, you have to let it drip all the way down.
So here's the alleged story. It's a seemingly simple one, but it gets complicated later. A group of fourteen employees, paralegals, assistants, others, at the law office of Elizabeth R. Wellborn in Deerfield Beach, Florida, wanted to show their pride and unity for a payday night out last Friday. It had become a tradition, four of them said, to wear orange shirts on Fridays, when the happy hours of local bars called them to celebration. They were all going to go out together. They wore orange, in Florida, by the way, which grows a shitload of, well, you know, because they wanted the other happy hour party people to know they were together: a large group of workers who actually enjoyed each other's company at the start of the weekend.
Apparently, an executive at the firm was told or believed that the orange shirting was a protest of some kind. And he called all 14 so-shirted employees to a conference room, asked what the shirts meant, was told it didn't mean protest, and fired them on the spot. For wearing the shirts. Said one fired paralegal, "There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing."
Funny thing is that if they had been whistleblowers, they would have had protection. And if they were all part of a religious group that demanded the adorning of the self with orange on the fifth day, they could not have been fired, according to Florida law. But because they were just regular people who did something that annoyed some lawyer or executive at the Wellborn offices, they have no recourse. That's because Florida is an at-will state with regard to employment. And that means that any employer can fire any employee for any reason at any time, with limited exceptions (like contracts or adherence to federal laws). And the employer never has to tell you why you were fired because it doesn't fucking matter. Your boss could dislike the smell of your farts and fire you. Your boss could dislike it if you don't like the smell of his farts and fire you. Fart-related firing is rampant, in case you didn't know.
And you wouldn't. Because, again, in at-will states, ones that don't have good faith covenants, you can get a phone call that says, "You're fired," and you never have to be told why. Essentially, it could be called "Joseph K's law" because of how Kafkaesque it is. Labor lawyers in Florida are saying that there is nothing that can be done about the Orange Shirted 14, that nothing in the firing violates the law.
How do you like that freedom, America? The freedom from government interference in the ability of a capricious boss to fuck up your life? And if you tried to change the law to prevent firing without cause, businesspeople, allied with conservatives, would get the outrage machine a-running because, you see, any time the government does anything to protect labor, it's socialism run amok. Any time the government does anything to protect capital, it's just, you know, good ol' fashioned capitalism.
Want an extra kick in the nuts with this story? That'd be what exactly the firm of Elizabeth R. Wellborn does. It's a bunch of cocks and cunts representing banks and mortgage firms. Well, here's how the website describes what they do: "We are proud to represent institutional and private lenders in the reclamation of titled assets. We maintain attorneys who are well versed in replevin, attachment and foreclosure. In fact, the foreclosure department represents the lender in the reacquisition of real estate assets, resale of those assets in it's 'REO' department and pursues deficiency judgments in effort to make our clients whole." Business must be mighty damn good, too, because foreclosure rates remain high for that area of the state, in the sweet spot between Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale.
Oh, and Wellborn goes that extra mile: "Our Post-Sale and Eviction Departments manage the steps necessary to move a foreclosed property, occupied or not, out onto the market." Don't worry, though, homeowner, because of Wellborn's loss mitigation people who are ready to help you: "This department assists our clients in providing alternatives to foreclosure; promoting home retention and protecting the interest of our clients." Now, what do you think the firm has a greater stake in doing?
Goddamn, how this complicates our story, does it not? Sure, one of the fired people said, "I’m a single mom with four kids, and I’m out of a job just because I wore orange today." How easy it would be to say, "Fuck you. You worked for the motherfuckers, the bad guys. You were one of Mr. Potter's goons, asshole. Reap what you've sown."
But even assholes don't deserve to lose their jobs working for motherfuckers just because they wore orange shirts one day. If you want justice to rain on the righteous, you have to let it drip all the way down.
3/19/2012
Mike Daisey, Foxconn, and the Art of the Theatrical Lie:
I saw Mike Daisey perform his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Public Theater in New York about a month ago. It was fine, like watching Spalding Gray channel Sam Kinison, but nothing special beyond what Daisey revealed he had seen. (He totally blew the comic possibilities of the moment when Apple phoned Jobs to offer him his old job back.) Now, the Rude Pundit's not gonna say he had suspicions about Daisey's story of his visit to Shenzhen, China, and the Foxconn factory where many Apple products are made. But the Rude Pundit did occasionally think throughout the piece, "Damn, that's convenient and coincidental." Still, he didn't doubt the veracity of the tale. He has been in situations where the number of experiences he had in a short timespan seemed downright miraculous. Daisey has performed the show for tens of thousands of people over the last couple of years.
Daisey was featured on an episode of This American Life, which led to his appearance on MSNBC shows, on Real Time with Bill Maher, in the New York Times. He was a performance artist who was having a moment in the sun, and, really, who could blame him after over a decade of doing one-man plays? Did you go to China? Did you talk to Foxconn workers after you heard about the spate of suicides in 2010? Did you pretend you were a businessman so you could get inside the factories? No, you didn't. You thought about it for a moment, you got outraged briefly, and then you waited until the Joseph Kony video came out to care about something else. (No, not you, dear reader, but a more general "you.") Daisey, though, became the de facto spokesperson for the outraged Apple product buyer who wants iShit made without liberal guilt.
Now that it's come out that Daisey outright lied about details of his experience, about people he met, about meetings he had, about places he went, he was called back to Chicago Public Media's This American Life for an episode about his fabrications and the show's retraction of its original episode, during which Daisey lied to producers who were fact-checking the story. You do not fuck with Ira Glass. That bespectacled motherfucker does an NPR version of pimp-slapping in one of the more uncomfortable interviews you'll ever hear. The transcript is available, but you gotta hear it to get the full agony of Mike Daisey.
As a writer who likes to fuck around with reality (see: any blog post regarding a certain leather slave or ones subtitled "A Fantasia"), the Rude Pundit is sympathetic to Daisey's defense that he was using artistic license for the sake of theatrical effect. Or, as Daisey tells Glass, "I don’t know that I would say in a theatrical context that it isn’t true. I believe that when I perform it in a theatrical context in the theater that when people hear the story in those terms that we have different languages for what the truth means." One way to justify this is that Mike Daisey was performing "Mike Daisey," and that "Mike Daisey" did have all these experiences, like meeting workers with shaking, gnarled hands or poisoned by chemicals used at a plant. It's the difference between Stephen Colbert and "Stephen Colbert." And, in Daisey's theatrical world, that works.
Except not this time. See, Daisey was the beneficiary of amazing timing. Steve Jobs died just before his show opened. And many, many people who might not have seen it did so. And because they did, he was dealing with audiences who didn't get that "Mike Daisey" might be a fabrication, a combination of various people and their experiences. But what happened was that Mike Daisey was enjoying attention that a downtown, unknown-outside-of-theatrical-circles artist was getting, and he was becoming something else. And he allowed everyone to believe that "Mike Daisey" was real. Hell, he might have started believing it. Or maybe he thought he was extending his performance to a different type of performance space. Either way, he was fucking with real feelings. He was fucking with real lives. Even as he was fudging the facts.
What's most aggravating is that Daisey didn't have to embellish the details and allegations of the treatment of workers in China. He could have referenced them as things he was told by activists. One part of the monologue that doesn't get much discussion is the part the Rude Pundit enjoyed most: the story of the life of Steve Jobs. Daisey stuck to the real story. He didn't make up a meeting with Jobs. It's storytelling at its most compelling. And it was an easily verifiable tale.
The most disappointing thing about Daisey's justification for lying to Glass, to all the other news sources, and to his theatre audiences is that he didn't just admit the real, honest-to-fuck truth: Daisey thought he could get away with it. He didn't because of the oldest tragic flaw in theatre: hubris. He saw a chance to be more than what he had been. He went for it. And he fucked it up. It's kind of a slap in the face to all the theatre artists who say they are giving you facts and do not lie. Daisey's refusal to call "bullshit" on himself is weak, and a weak man can't lead a movement.
As for Apple, China, Foxconn, and the workers, well, to be cynical, welcome to the world. This is how your shit is made. It ain't just your electronics, but almost all of it. Do you like your shit? Do you like what you pay for your shit? Then what the fuck are you gonna do about it other than complain. Daisey himself says his goal is just to "spread the virus" of the knowledge germs he's spitting at you. That's setting a pretty low bar for global workers' rights.
Oh, one other thing about Daisey's show that bugged the hell out of the Rude Pundit. Daisey presents himself as a lifelong Apple product fetishist. But after everything he saw and heard, he never says he gave up his Macbook Air or his iPad or his iPhone or his desktop. In fact, he tells us at various times that he still uses them. It is probably the most honest, truthful part of the play.
I saw Mike Daisey perform his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Public Theater in New York about a month ago. It was fine, like watching Spalding Gray channel Sam Kinison, but nothing special beyond what Daisey revealed he had seen. (He totally blew the comic possibilities of the moment when Apple phoned Jobs to offer him his old job back.) Now, the Rude Pundit's not gonna say he had suspicions about Daisey's story of his visit to Shenzhen, China, and the Foxconn factory where many Apple products are made. But the Rude Pundit did occasionally think throughout the piece, "Damn, that's convenient and coincidental." Still, he didn't doubt the veracity of the tale. He has been in situations where the number of experiences he had in a short timespan seemed downright miraculous. Daisey has performed the show for tens of thousands of people over the last couple of years.
Daisey was featured on an episode of This American Life, which led to his appearance on MSNBC shows, on Real Time with Bill Maher, in the New York Times. He was a performance artist who was having a moment in the sun, and, really, who could blame him after over a decade of doing one-man plays? Did you go to China? Did you talk to Foxconn workers after you heard about the spate of suicides in 2010? Did you pretend you were a businessman so you could get inside the factories? No, you didn't. You thought about it for a moment, you got outraged briefly, and then you waited until the Joseph Kony video came out to care about something else. (No, not you, dear reader, but a more general "you.") Daisey, though, became the de facto spokesperson for the outraged Apple product buyer who wants iShit made without liberal guilt.
Now that it's come out that Daisey outright lied about details of his experience, about people he met, about meetings he had, about places he went, he was called back to Chicago Public Media's This American Life for an episode about his fabrications and the show's retraction of its original episode, during which Daisey lied to producers who were fact-checking the story. You do not fuck with Ira Glass. That bespectacled motherfucker does an NPR version of pimp-slapping in one of the more uncomfortable interviews you'll ever hear. The transcript is available, but you gotta hear it to get the full agony of Mike Daisey.
As a writer who likes to fuck around with reality (see: any blog post regarding a certain leather slave or ones subtitled "A Fantasia"), the Rude Pundit is sympathetic to Daisey's defense that he was using artistic license for the sake of theatrical effect. Or, as Daisey tells Glass, "I don’t know that I would say in a theatrical context that it isn’t true. I believe that when I perform it in a theatrical context in the theater that when people hear the story in those terms that we have different languages for what the truth means." One way to justify this is that Mike Daisey was performing "Mike Daisey," and that "Mike Daisey" did have all these experiences, like meeting workers with shaking, gnarled hands or poisoned by chemicals used at a plant. It's the difference between Stephen Colbert and "Stephen Colbert." And, in Daisey's theatrical world, that works.
Except not this time. See, Daisey was the beneficiary of amazing timing. Steve Jobs died just before his show opened. And many, many people who might not have seen it did so. And because they did, he was dealing with audiences who didn't get that "Mike Daisey" might be a fabrication, a combination of various people and their experiences. But what happened was that Mike Daisey was enjoying attention that a downtown, unknown-outside-of-theatrical-circles artist was getting, and he was becoming something else. And he allowed everyone to believe that "Mike Daisey" was real. Hell, he might have started believing it. Or maybe he thought he was extending his performance to a different type of performance space. Either way, he was fucking with real feelings. He was fucking with real lives. Even as he was fudging the facts.
What's most aggravating is that Daisey didn't have to embellish the details and allegations of the treatment of workers in China. He could have referenced them as things he was told by activists. One part of the monologue that doesn't get much discussion is the part the Rude Pundit enjoyed most: the story of the life of Steve Jobs. Daisey stuck to the real story. He didn't make up a meeting with Jobs. It's storytelling at its most compelling. And it was an easily verifiable tale.
The most disappointing thing about Daisey's justification for lying to Glass, to all the other news sources, and to his theatre audiences is that he didn't just admit the real, honest-to-fuck truth: Daisey thought he could get away with it. He didn't because of the oldest tragic flaw in theatre: hubris. He saw a chance to be more than what he had been. He went for it. And he fucked it up. It's kind of a slap in the face to all the theatre artists who say they are giving you facts and do not lie. Daisey's refusal to call "bullshit" on himself is weak, and a weak man can't lead a movement.
As for Apple, China, Foxconn, and the workers, well, to be cynical, welcome to the world. This is how your shit is made. It ain't just your electronics, but almost all of it. Do you like your shit? Do you like what you pay for your shit? Then what the fuck are you gonna do about it other than complain. Daisey himself says his goal is just to "spread the virus" of the knowledge germs he's spitting at you. That's setting a pretty low bar for global workers' rights.
Oh, one other thing about Daisey's show that bugged the hell out of the Rude Pundit. Daisey presents himself as a lifelong Apple product fetishist. But after everything he saw and heard, he never says he gave up his Macbook Air or his iPad or his iPhone or his desktop. In fact, he tells us at various times that he still uses them. It is probably the most honest, truthful part of the play.
3/16/2012
Conservatives Are More Concerned With Twats Than Vaginas:
According to almighty Nexis, Fox "news" has mentioned the word "ultrasound" once in the last month, and that was from Juan Williams, in his role as Fox's designated not-insane-sort-of-moderate guy, talking about "invasive ultrasounds" to Bill O'Reilly. However, the name "Bill Maher" appears on 48 different segments, sometimes multiple times, more than once a day, every time being some reference or other to that time a year ago when Maher called Sarah Palin a "dumb twat" on his HBO show and a "cunt" during his stage show. Maher donated a million dollars to President Obama's Super PAC, which allows Republicans to tie Maher to Obama. Mostly, though, it's meant as a kind of sexist equivalence to Rush Limbaugh's sustained, mulit-day verbal assault on Sandra Fluke, who, according to conservatives, was a total cunt for wanting to express an opinion on contraceptive coverage. It was a way to draw fire away from Limbaugh.
By the way, the phrase "t-word" appears nine times on Fox. It was not short for "transvaginal."
In other words, the right-wing commentariat is way more concerned about assaultive words for "vagina" than actual, physical assaults on them. It's so absurd that Peggy Noonan, in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "laughably earnest stupid shit"), says that the real "war on women" is not all this silly discussion about abortion limitations and contraception coverage. Oh, no, it's really liberal men saying mean things about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. Noonan might wanna check with Hillary Clinton while you're talking about comedians and pundits being sexist dickheads to a woman who happens to be a public figure.
And Noonan and Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity and every other right-wing woman who has jumped on the "dumb twat" train might want to talk to women who are forced, by laws that are proliferating around the country, to endure a kind of mental and physical torture in order to get a legal abortion, performed by doctors who don't want to do the torture, but must under penalty of loss of license. They might wonder what's more sexist: saying that Michelle Bachmann is a "bimbo" or the governor of Pennsylvania saying that women forced to have an ultrasound "just have to close your eyes" if doing so is a burden. But they won't.
When women on the left complain about sexism in words, written and spoken, sometimes about this very blog you are reading now, you pigs, they are doing it from a consistent position of defending women's rights. When women on the right do so, it's done as a way to discredit the left. "See," they say, as Noonan does, "Bill Maher may say he supports feminist causes, but he said, 'Cunt.'"
Meanwhile, they'll use it as a way of negating the words of Limbaugh and Dennis Miller and other conservatives. But, more importantly, they'll use it as way of pretending to care about the place of women in America while saying not a peep about government-mandated medical procedures. They'll condemn the "twat," but not defend vaginas or the women who own them.
According to almighty Nexis, Fox "news" has mentioned the word "ultrasound" once in the last month, and that was from Juan Williams, in his role as Fox's designated not-insane-sort-of-moderate guy, talking about "invasive ultrasounds" to Bill O'Reilly. However, the name "Bill Maher" appears on 48 different segments, sometimes multiple times, more than once a day, every time being some reference or other to that time a year ago when Maher called Sarah Palin a "dumb twat" on his HBO show and a "cunt" during his stage show. Maher donated a million dollars to President Obama's Super PAC, which allows Republicans to tie Maher to Obama. Mostly, though, it's meant as a kind of sexist equivalence to Rush Limbaugh's sustained, mulit-day verbal assault on Sandra Fluke, who, according to conservatives, was a total cunt for wanting to express an opinion on contraceptive coverage. It was a way to draw fire away from Limbaugh.
By the way, the phrase "t-word" appears nine times on Fox. It was not short for "transvaginal."
In other words, the right-wing commentariat is way more concerned about assaultive words for "vagina" than actual, physical assaults on them. It's so absurd that Peggy Noonan, in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "laughably earnest stupid shit"), says that the real "war on women" is not all this silly discussion about abortion limitations and contraception coverage. Oh, no, it's really liberal men saying mean things about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. Noonan might wanna check with Hillary Clinton while you're talking about comedians and pundits being sexist dickheads to a woman who happens to be a public figure.
And Noonan and Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity and every other right-wing woman who has jumped on the "dumb twat" train might want to talk to women who are forced, by laws that are proliferating around the country, to endure a kind of mental and physical torture in order to get a legal abortion, performed by doctors who don't want to do the torture, but must under penalty of loss of license. They might wonder what's more sexist: saying that Michelle Bachmann is a "bimbo" or the governor of Pennsylvania saying that women forced to have an ultrasound "just have to close your eyes" if doing so is a burden. But they won't.
When women on the left complain about sexism in words, written and spoken, sometimes about this very blog you are reading now, you pigs, they are doing it from a consistent position of defending women's rights. When women on the right do so, it's done as a way to discredit the left. "See," they say, as Noonan does, "Bill Maher may say he supports feminist causes, but he said, 'Cunt.'"
Meanwhile, they'll use it as a way of negating the words of Limbaugh and Dennis Miller and other conservatives. But, more importantly, they'll use it as way of pretending to care about the place of women in America while saying not a peep about government-mandated medical procedures. They'll condemn the "twat," but not defend vaginas or the women who own them.
3/15/2012
Syria and Afghanistan: The Endless Shadow of Bush and Cheney (Part 1):
It was stated as plain fact, a mere detail, in a Fox "news" online article about al-Qaeda supposedly taking advantage of the uprising in Syria to expand its influence in the region. Mentioning the release of another supposed terrorist, the article says he "was captured in Pakistan 2005 and was in CIA custody until he was sent back to Syria as part of the controversial rendition program." There you are. It's just something we're supposed to accept and move on about: the United States sent people to Syria because we knew they'd be tortured there.
And that's not even getting into the story of Maher Arar, which is an awful and disgusting tale.
Now, with constant streams of torture videos coming out of Syria, with the savage crackdown on the uprising there, hearing President Obama condemning the "outrageous bloodshed" and demanding Bashar al-Assad to step down just makes the Rude Pundit's feel like he's gotten a gut punch. Because all he can think is, "Now, where did the Syrians get the idea that they could just go on with torturing and killing innocent people with only ongoing financial sanctions imposed?" And, of course, that'd be us when we gave them prisoners and said, "Oh, hey, you know that torture thing you're good at? I mean, I know we hate each other and shit, but can you do a bro a solid and break out the electric nut prod for these dudes?"
Sure, yeah, fine, that was the Bush administration, all the goons and ghouls that led us into the dark ride into the dark side for so long. And we want to say that we've emerged, but we haven't. The policy continues, with the added fun of no-trial execution. Time and again, one thing is going to come back to haunt this country and that's the failure of our government to hold anyone accountable for crimes, like knowingly giving people over to psychopaths because we wanted their hands to be bloody while ours were just wet with waterboarding.
So Obama and Pelosi and Reid gave 'em all a pass, all the Bush criminals. And, now, once again, one of our monstrous minions has gone rogue and we are in the position of having no fucking high ground. Jesus Christ, at least Canadians know how to treat war criminals: you drive them out, you make them cower and shit themselves in corners, you spit out their presence like a diseased cock you were forced to put in your mouth at gunpoint. Dick Cheney was supposed to speak in Toronto, but, because there might have been a fucking riot (and maybe an attempt to arrest him), he canceled. Would that America would treat its depraved ex-leaders as pariahs.
Here, unless you are some poor fucker who looks vaguely Middle Easterny and suspicious, you're allowed to live your life, with the imprimatur of innocence consecrating your several homes and big money speaking engagements.
Until we are willing to face our crimes, we will be a lost nation. Until we are willing to end our crimes, we deserve to be lost. The Bush administration is an ongoing eclipse of a mythical moral authority, so much so that when President Obama speaks out against torture and murder, all we can think is that it must be degrees of bloodshed, not the acts themselves, that get condemned.
It was stated as plain fact, a mere detail, in a Fox "news" online article about al-Qaeda supposedly taking advantage of the uprising in Syria to expand its influence in the region. Mentioning the release of another supposed terrorist, the article says he "was captured in Pakistan 2005 and was in CIA custody until he was sent back to Syria as part of the controversial rendition program." There you are. It's just something we're supposed to accept and move on about: the United States sent people to Syria because we knew they'd be tortured there.
And that's not even getting into the story of Maher Arar, which is an awful and disgusting tale.
Now, with constant streams of torture videos coming out of Syria, with the savage crackdown on the uprising there, hearing President Obama condemning the "outrageous bloodshed" and demanding Bashar al-Assad to step down just makes the Rude Pundit's feel like he's gotten a gut punch. Because all he can think is, "Now, where did the Syrians get the idea that they could just go on with torturing and killing innocent people with only ongoing financial sanctions imposed?" And, of course, that'd be us when we gave them prisoners and said, "Oh, hey, you know that torture thing you're good at? I mean, I know we hate each other and shit, but can you do a bro a solid and break out the electric nut prod for these dudes?"
Sure, yeah, fine, that was the Bush administration, all the goons and ghouls that led us into the dark ride into the dark side for so long. And we want to say that we've emerged, but we haven't. The policy continues, with the added fun of no-trial execution. Time and again, one thing is going to come back to haunt this country and that's the failure of our government to hold anyone accountable for crimes, like knowingly giving people over to psychopaths because we wanted their hands to be bloody while ours were just wet with waterboarding.
So Obama and Pelosi and Reid gave 'em all a pass, all the Bush criminals. And, now, once again, one of our monstrous minions has gone rogue and we are in the position of having no fucking high ground. Jesus Christ, at least Canadians know how to treat war criminals: you drive them out, you make them cower and shit themselves in corners, you spit out their presence like a diseased cock you were forced to put in your mouth at gunpoint. Dick Cheney was supposed to speak in Toronto, but, because there might have been a fucking riot (and maybe an attempt to arrest him), he canceled. Would that America would treat its depraved ex-leaders as pariahs.
Here, unless you are some poor fucker who looks vaguely Middle Easterny and suspicious, you're allowed to live your life, with the imprimatur of innocence consecrating your several homes and big money speaking engagements.
Until we are willing to face our crimes, we will be a lost nation. Until we are willing to end our crimes, we deserve to be lost. The Bush administration is an ongoing eclipse of a mythical moral authority, so much so that when President Obama speaks out against torture and murder, all we can think is that it must be degrees of bloodshed, not the acts themselves, that get condemned.
3/14/2012
The Ultra-Christian Family Research Council Thinks We're All Slaves to Planned Parenthood:
The Rude Pundit belongs to a special group, if by "special," you mean, "Don't give them sharp utensils." That is the Super-Duper Prayer Team of the Family Research Council (motto: "Come for the gay-bashing idiocy; stay for the anti-contraception craziness"). Every week, we loyal, longtime SDPT superfriends are given our orders on what for and how to offer supplication to God and God, Jr. Usually it goes like this: "Stop the gays, stop abortion, stop the gays, stop abortion, fuck the Muslims, save Israel, stop the gays."
Sometimes, though, the strange focus is goddamned weird and amazing. Like this week. We're supposed to fall on our knees and offer our pretty mouths up for some prayllatio because of an eeevil organization that is destroying us all. Referencing discredited videos by a James O'Keefe wannabe (but why?) that supposedly show Planned Parenthood helping a pimp get medical care for his child prostitutes, the FRC tells us, "No wonder several states have decided to end aid for the criminal abortion operation."
We are told, really, "Pray the states, one by one, will break free from Planned Parenthood. May the next President and Congress (House AND Senate), demolish the unholy yoke that has bound American federal taxpayers to the abortion holocaust and the criminal activities of the nation's largest abortion enterprise." Man, that's some scary shit. And luckily, the FRC SDPT is provided with Bible verses that give us the proper perspective. Where is abortion and taxpayer funding of family planning in the good book, you ask?
You are an unbelieving fuckbag, you fuckbag. Why it's in 1 Corinthinans, chapter 7, verse 21, according to our prayer letter: "For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant." Exactly. Wait, what the fuck does that mean?
Never mind. Surely it's about aborting Jesus or something.
The Rude Pundit belongs to a special group, if by "special," you mean, "Don't give them sharp utensils." That is the Super-Duper Prayer Team of the Family Research Council (motto: "Come for the gay-bashing idiocy; stay for the anti-contraception craziness"). Every week, we loyal, longtime SDPT superfriends are given our orders on what for and how to offer supplication to God and God, Jr. Usually it goes like this: "Stop the gays, stop abortion, stop the gays, stop abortion, fuck the Muslims, save Israel, stop the gays."
Sometimes, though, the strange focus is goddamned weird and amazing. Like this week. We're supposed to fall on our knees and offer our pretty mouths up for some prayllatio because of an eeevil organization that is destroying us all. Referencing discredited videos by a James O'Keefe wannabe (but why?) that supposedly show Planned Parenthood helping a pimp get medical care for his child prostitutes, the FRC tells us, "No wonder several states have decided to end aid for the criminal abortion operation."
We are told, really, "Pray the states, one by one, will break free from Planned Parenthood. May the next President and Congress (House AND Senate), demolish the unholy yoke that has bound American federal taxpayers to the abortion holocaust and the criminal activities of the nation's largest abortion enterprise." Man, that's some scary shit. And luckily, the FRC SDPT is provided with Bible verses that give us the proper perspective. Where is abortion and taxpayer funding of family planning in the good book, you ask?
You are an unbelieving fuckbag, you fuckbag. Why it's in 1 Corinthinans, chapter 7, verse 21, according to our prayer letter: "For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant." Exactly. Wait, what the fuck does that mean?
Never mind. Surely it's about aborting Jesus or something.
3/13/2012
The Right Can't Stop Attacking Sandra Fluke:
"Sandra Fluke is the model Welfare Queen for the 21st Century," writes American Spectator contributing editor Jed Babbin. "Welfare Queen Fluke will never produce anything of value to society. She will fit easily into the industry of regulation, bigger government, and reduced personal freedoms. She believes everything she wants -- birth control, abortion, whatever -- is an entitlement for which the government must pay."
The basic issue surrounding Fluke is "that a society in which middle-aged children of privilege testify before the most powerful figures in the land to demand state-enforced funding for their sex lives at a time when their government owes more money than anyone has ever owed in the history of the planet is quite simply nuts. As stark staring nuts as the court of Ranavalona, the deranged nymphomaniac queen of Madagascar at whose funeral the powder keg literally went up, killing dozens and burning down three royal palaces," writes Mark Steyn in the National Review. (Note: The Rude Pundit has no idea what any of that means.)
"If Ms. Fluke wants to have sex, then take the personal responsibility to pay for it. It's called growing up," intones Jeffrey Kuhner in the Washington Times. "She is saying that having sex without getting pregnant is more important than the conscience rights of the Catholic Church. This is progressive tyranny, a form of liberal bigotry against Christians who abide by the teachings of their faith."
"Ms. Fluke's crusade for reproductive justice is simply a demand that a Catholic institution pay for drugs that make it possible for her to have sex without getting pregnant," says Cathy Ruse in the Wall Street Journal.
So many, so wrong. All irrationally angry because one woman was asked to speak to a congressional committee regarding a rule clarification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
(Note: The Rude Pundit is having a serious case of the writer's block when it comes to bloggery. Hopefully, he'll drink his way through it. If not, he may need to call in the pill guy. If that doesn't work, he'll call the powder guy. If that doesn't work, he'll call the virgin sacrifice guy. One way or another, he'll deal with it.)
"Sandra Fluke is the model Welfare Queen for the 21st Century," writes American Spectator contributing editor Jed Babbin. "Welfare Queen Fluke will never produce anything of value to society. She will fit easily into the industry of regulation, bigger government, and reduced personal freedoms. She believes everything she wants -- birth control, abortion, whatever -- is an entitlement for which the government must pay."
The basic issue surrounding Fluke is "that a society in which middle-aged children of privilege testify before the most powerful figures in the land to demand state-enforced funding for their sex lives at a time when their government owes more money than anyone has ever owed in the history of the planet is quite simply nuts. As stark staring nuts as the court of Ranavalona, the deranged nymphomaniac queen of Madagascar at whose funeral the powder keg literally went up, killing dozens and burning down three royal palaces," writes Mark Steyn in the National Review. (Note: The Rude Pundit has no idea what any of that means.)
"If Ms. Fluke wants to have sex, then take the personal responsibility to pay for it. It's called growing up," intones Jeffrey Kuhner in the Washington Times. "She is saying that having sex without getting pregnant is more important than the conscience rights of the Catholic Church. This is progressive tyranny, a form of liberal bigotry against Christians who abide by the teachings of their faith."
"Ms. Fluke's crusade for reproductive justice is simply a demand that a Catholic institution pay for drugs that make it possible for her to have sex without getting pregnant," says Cathy Ruse in the Wall Street Journal.
So many, so wrong. All irrationally angry because one woman was asked to speak to a congressional committee regarding a rule clarification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
(Note: The Rude Pundit is having a serious case of the writer's block when it comes to bloggery. Hopefully, he'll drink his way through it. If not, he may need to call in the pill guy. If that doesn't work, he'll call the powder guy. If that doesn't work, he'll call the virgin sacrifice guy. One way or another, he'll deal with it.)
3/12/2012
On a Day When You've Got Nothing to Say, Sometimes You Just Say Nothing:
Yeah, it'd be fine to write about what backwards ass yahoos the Republicans are in Mississippi and Alabama, since a majority either believe Barack Obama is a Muslim or don't know and 2/3 don't believe in evolution, but why? Is it a surprise? Is there a spin to put on it other than "Goddamn, them's some backwards ass motherfuckers"? So, nope, not that.
Or perhaps it'd be fun to write about Mitt Romney's pathetic attempts to act Southern. At this point, would you be surprised if he said, "Well, I've hired darkies, too"? Or Rick Santorum's patheticer attempts to seem tough? Or Newt Gingrich's patheticest attempts to stay relevant to anyone other than Newt Gingrich?
And the Rude Pundit can't write about the flick Game Change because he didn't watch it and who the fuck cares? Woody Harrelson is bald? Julianne Moore does a great Sarah Palin? Jesus, he'd rather dangle his balls over a bear trap than have to relive the 2008 election from the losing side.
No, no, and fuck no. And you know what? Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh can say whatever the fuck they want. And the people who protest them can say whatever the fuck they want, whether that's through nasty blogging or phone calls to sponsors. That's free speech, sloppy and joyful and hurtful, as it should be.
Tomorrow, there will be time, there will be time for more. But for now, enjoy a few minutes of the one-year anniversary episode of Cheater and the Rude, the Rude Pundit's online radio concern (with Jeff Kreisler, too). This one features a thoroughly filthy appearance by Stephanie Miller, whose radio show will be simulcast on Current TV.
Yeah, it'd be fine to write about what backwards ass yahoos the Republicans are in Mississippi and Alabama, since a majority either believe Barack Obama is a Muslim or don't know and 2/3 don't believe in evolution, but why? Is it a surprise? Is there a spin to put on it other than "Goddamn, them's some backwards ass motherfuckers"? So, nope, not that.
Or perhaps it'd be fun to write about Mitt Romney's pathetic attempts to act Southern. At this point, would you be surprised if he said, "Well, I've hired darkies, too"? Or Rick Santorum's patheticer attempts to seem tough? Or Newt Gingrich's patheticest attempts to stay relevant to anyone other than Newt Gingrich?
And the Rude Pundit can't write about the flick Game Change because he didn't watch it and who the fuck cares? Woody Harrelson is bald? Julianne Moore does a great Sarah Palin? Jesus, he'd rather dangle his balls over a bear trap than have to relive the 2008 election from the losing side.
No, no, and fuck no. And you know what? Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh can say whatever the fuck they want. And the people who protest them can say whatever the fuck they want, whether that's through nasty blogging or phone calls to sponsors. That's free speech, sloppy and joyful and hurtful, as it should be.
Tomorrow, there will be time, there will be time for more. But for now, enjoy a few minutes of the one-year anniversary episode of Cheater and the Rude, the Rude Pundit's online radio concern (with Jeff Kreisler, too). This one features a thoroughly filthy appearance by Stephanie Miller, whose radio show will be simulcast on Current TV.
3/09/2012
Texas to Poor Women: Your Health Is Subject to Our Politics:
That is not, despite its look, a Taco Bell that served its last chalupa. No, that is one of the two Planned Parenthood clinics in Brownsville, Texas, which is on the border with Mexico. It closed last October as Texas started gutting funding for any program that provided money for women's health because money went to Planned Parenthood. The roughly 1000 patients' records, almost all low-income women, were moved to the last Planned Parenthood office in town. That clinic, while providing the morning-after pill, does not offer abortion services. If you want that, you can go to Mexico. It's closer than the nearest town in Texas where Brownsville women can get help, and you're not forced to look at a sonogram and wait a day.
But because some Planned Parenthoods do offer abortions, the Texas legislature and Governor Rick Perry have decided to stop accepting the $35 million in the federal aid from the Medicaid Women's Health Program because Planned Parenthood cannot be barred from receiving funds. Perry has now said the the state will provide funding for clinics that are not Planned Parenthood, in response to a general outcry, but he has not said how Texas will get the money.
One clinic that is funded directly by the federal government is the Brownsville Community Health Center. Its women's health branch serves 7,700 women with just two doctors on staff. Women that relied on the Texas Medicaid Women's Health Program often went to Planned Parenthood. With that option off the table, the BCHC is expecting an influx of thousands of new patients, and it can't take them, even if Texas fully funds the program without the federal government's help. There's only so many people a clinic can see, you know.
Which means, quite clearly and explicitly, that women will suffer for the crime of being poor in Texas. Everything's bigger there, even the dickishness.
That is not, despite its look, a Taco Bell that served its last chalupa. No, that is one of the two Planned Parenthood clinics in Brownsville, Texas, which is on the border with Mexico. It closed last October as Texas started gutting funding for any program that provided money for women's health because money went to Planned Parenthood. The roughly 1000 patients' records, almost all low-income women, were moved to the last Planned Parenthood office in town. That clinic, while providing the morning-after pill, does not offer abortion services. If you want that, you can go to Mexico. It's closer than the nearest town in Texas where Brownsville women can get help, and you're not forced to look at a sonogram and wait a day.But because some Planned Parenthoods do offer abortions, the Texas legislature and Governor Rick Perry have decided to stop accepting the $35 million in the federal aid from the Medicaid Women's Health Program because Planned Parenthood cannot be barred from receiving funds. Perry has now said the the state will provide funding for clinics that are not Planned Parenthood, in response to a general outcry, but he has not said how Texas will get the money.
One clinic that is funded directly by the federal government is the Brownsville Community Health Center. Its women's health branch serves 7,700 women with just two doctors on staff. Women that relied on the Texas Medicaid Women's Health Program often went to Planned Parenthood. With that option off the table, the BCHC is expecting an influx of thousands of new patients, and it can't take them, even if Texas fully funds the program without the federal government's help. There's only so many people a clinic can see, you know.
Which means, quite clearly and explicitly, that women will suffer for the crime of being poor in Texas. Everything's bigger there, even the dickishness.
3/08/2012
What the GOP Is Really Saying: This Isn't That Important of a Presidential Election:
You've heard it repeatedly, no? How this year is the most importantest presidential election in the history of electin' elections ever electified. Bestial New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said as much when he endorsed Mitt Romney last October: "This is the most important election in generations." RNC Chair Reince "Yes, We All Know What His Name Is Without the Vowels" Priebus has said the same thing since at least last May, even comparing it to the battle fought for the founding of the nation itself. Grandma-kicking Republican Congressman Paul Ryan said in September, "This election this is going to be the most important election in our generation."
Oh, the warnings are dire, too. Sad accountant-looking Governor Mitch Daniels said, in the GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union, "So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality." Damn, we are on a fuckin' precipice, people. Don't you get it?
You can't read or listen or watch most conservative commentators without hearing, as Bill O'Reilly said back in December, "2012 will be the most important election in our lifetimes." Or some variation. In a generation. In, like, forever. Sean Hannity's said it. Ann Coulter's said it. The columnists at the conservative toilet known as "Townhall.com" wear the phrase "most important election" like the entrails of a goat in order to create some voodoo that makes what they say real.
And it's a big fucking lie, as it almost always is. How do we know it's a big fucking lie in 2012? Because if it was such an all-consuming, nation-changing, do-or-die, end of hope presidential election, then Republicans who might actually win would get step up to prevent American armageddon. So, we can conclude, pretty goddamn easily, that either it ain't all that important or that Christie, Bush, Ryan, Daniels, and whatever other GOP savior candidates you wanna toss into that heap are a bunch of selfish pussies. Well, that last part is no doubt true, but it's a special kind of pussification that they've got if they're gonna let their country go down the drain rather than run.
No, instead, what the smart Republicans know at this point is simple:
1. Obama is going to win.
2. And, really, that ain't so bad for the country.
So, you know, why bother? Let Mitt waste a chunk of change on this one. See you in 2016, motherfuckers. (By the way, it's frightening that the Rude Pundit and George Will agree on this point.)
Anyone with their heads out of their asses knows that Obama governs as a moderate, with some inclinations left and some inclinations right. And he's obviously been very, very good for rich people. What's a Republican going to do differently? Just outright force poor people to find their local Mr. Burns and hand him their wallets and purses?
At this point, Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum have all played the "most important election" card. But they're just pathetically trying to get people even vaguely interested in voting. If you're a guy, you know that point where you've done so much coke and tequila that, no matter how much Viagra you take, your dick ain't getting hard? And instead of giving up and telling the hot dude you're with you're just gonna call it a night, you sit there, yelling at your cock and yanking on it until it's chafed and sore, but that little bastard is done? Yeah, that's where we are right now in the primary process.
Sure, yes, in the abstract, all presidential elections are really, really important because the person we put in there can blow up the world. The only way you know if something is the most important election is from what happens after. 2000 was actually the most important in our lives, but most of the country didn't realize that until sometime in about 2005. And what the GOP's strongest stars know, even though they say the opposite, is that it's more important that they stay home than risk their brand to a losing race.
So you have to believe that Chris Christie wants the nation to collapse into ruin, which automatically disqualifies him as a viable candidate, or he knows that the drama queens of the right are actually pawns to be sacrificed in a bigger game, which will continue just fine.
You've heard it repeatedly, no? How this year is the most importantest presidential election in the history of electin' elections ever electified. Bestial New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said as much when he endorsed Mitt Romney last October: "This is the most important election in generations." RNC Chair Reince "Yes, We All Know What His Name Is Without the Vowels" Priebus has said the same thing since at least last May, even comparing it to the battle fought for the founding of the nation itself. Grandma-kicking Republican Congressman Paul Ryan said in September, "This election this is going to be the most important election in our generation."
Oh, the warnings are dire, too. Sad accountant-looking Governor Mitch Daniels said, in the GOP response to President Obama's State of the Union, "So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality." Damn, we are on a fuckin' precipice, people. Don't you get it?
You can't read or listen or watch most conservative commentators without hearing, as Bill O'Reilly said back in December, "2012 will be the most important election in our lifetimes." Or some variation. In a generation. In, like, forever. Sean Hannity's said it. Ann Coulter's said it. The columnists at the conservative toilet known as "Townhall.com" wear the phrase "most important election" like the entrails of a goat in order to create some voodoo that makes what they say real.
And it's a big fucking lie, as it almost always is. How do we know it's a big fucking lie in 2012? Because if it was such an all-consuming, nation-changing, do-or-die, end of hope presidential election, then Republicans who might actually win would get step up to prevent American armageddon. So, we can conclude, pretty goddamn easily, that either it ain't all that important or that Christie, Bush, Ryan, Daniels, and whatever other GOP savior candidates you wanna toss into that heap are a bunch of selfish pussies. Well, that last part is no doubt true, but it's a special kind of pussification that they've got if they're gonna let their country go down the drain rather than run.
No, instead, what the smart Republicans know at this point is simple:
1. Obama is going to win.
2. And, really, that ain't so bad for the country.
So, you know, why bother? Let Mitt waste a chunk of change on this one. See you in 2016, motherfuckers. (By the way, it's frightening that the Rude Pundit and George Will agree on this point.)
Anyone with their heads out of their asses knows that Obama governs as a moderate, with some inclinations left and some inclinations right. And he's obviously been very, very good for rich people. What's a Republican going to do differently? Just outright force poor people to find their local Mr. Burns and hand him their wallets and purses?
At this point, Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum have all played the "most important election" card. But they're just pathetically trying to get people even vaguely interested in voting. If you're a guy, you know that point where you've done so much coke and tequila that, no matter how much Viagra you take, your dick ain't getting hard? And instead of giving up and telling the hot dude you're with you're just gonna call it a night, you sit there, yelling at your cock and yanking on it until it's chafed and sore, but that little bastard is done? Yeah, that's where we are right now in the primary process.
Sure, yes, in the abstract, all presidential elections are really, really important because the person we put in there can blow up the world. The only way you know if something is the most important election is from what happens after. 2000 was actually the most important in our lives, but most of the country didn't realize that until sometime in about 2005. And what the GOP's strongest stars know, even though they say the opposite, is that it's more important that they stay home than risk their brand to a losing race.
So you have to believe that Chris Christie wants the nation to collapse into ruin, which automatically disqualifies him as a viable candidate, or he knows that the drama queens of the right are actually pawns to be sacrificed in a bigger game, which will continue just fine.
3/07/2012
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Snort Tang Off the Bridge of Callista's Nose:
That's GOP presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday at Huntsville, Alabama's U.S. Space and Rocket Center. It's also the home of Space Camp. And that's a big damn rocket he's standing in front of, welcoming it with open arms, like it's God's cock and he's just so happy to suck it. A merry stop on the way to Atlanta.
Of course, Gingrich talked up the space program, and symbolically referenced his campaign, with "This is the launching pad for the next phase of excitement in invention." And, bizarrely, he brought up Saturday Night Live, which still wasn't as bad as his even more bizarre victory speech after the results of the Super Tuesday Georgia primary. Said Newt, "Far from backing off, I invite Saturday Night Live to come to Huntsville to tape one of their skits. They can tape it at the Space Camp. Because I want to restate: America has a destiny in space. That’s who we are." And that's some thin skin on a big boy.
As egotistical as the bloated avatar for all things craven and awful in American politics was, it was hard to top Gingrich's spokesman, R.C. Hammond, for pure, unadulterated batshittery while supporting his man: "The same folks who mocked Newt Gingrich are the same people who don’t want to cure cancer, who don’t want to cure Alzheimer’s, who don’t want to fix our public school system." You got that? If you think Gingrich is a ludicrous shit dumpling who should be tossed out in the garbage of history, you want old people to have Alzheimer's. Ahh, logic.
Back at Space Camp, Gingrich turned around and bent over, ready for the rocket to give him the full force of its next phase of excitement.
That's GOP presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday at Huntsville, Alabama's U.S. Space and Rocket Center. It's also the home of Space Camp. And that's a big damn rocket he's standing in front of, welcoming it with open arms, like it's God's cock and he's just so happy to suck it. A merry stop on the way to Atlanta.
Of course, Gingrich talked up the space program, and symbolically referenced his campaign, with "This is the launching pad for the next phase of excitement in invention." And, bizarrely, he brought up Saturday Night Live, which still wasn't as bad as his even more bizarre victory speech after the results of the Super Tuesday Georgia primary. Said Newt, "Far from backing off, I invite Saturday Night Live to come to Huntsville to tape one of their skits. They can tape it at the Space Camp. Because I want to restate: America has a destiny in space. That’s who we are." And that's some thin skin on a big boy.
As egotistical as the bloated avatar for all things craven and awful in American politics was, it was hard to top Gingrich's spokesman, R.C. Hammond, for pure, unadulterated batshittery while supporting his man: "The same folks who mocked Newt Gingrich are the same people who don’t want to cure cancer, who don’t want to cure Alzheimer’s, who don’t want to fix our public school system." You got that? If you think Gingrich is a ludicrous shit dumpling who should be tossed out in the garbage of history, you want old people to have Alzheimer's. Ahh, logic.
Back at Space Camp, Gingrich turned around and bent over, ready for the rocket to give him the full force of its next phase of excitement.
3/06/2012
American Attorney General Says It's Cool for America to Kill Americans:
So, not to veer from our happy dance over the impending doom of rotund junkie Rush Limbaugh (not quite so epically Breitbartian, but it'll do), but the Rude Pundit must say a thing or two about Attorney General Eric Holder's sanctimonious, bullshit speech justifying warrantless surveillance, military tribunals, and the murder of American citizens abroad at Northwestern University law school yesterday. If this had been Alberto Gonzales or Michael Mukasey, the cacophony of outrage on the left would have been loud and sustained. Some Democrats would have campaigned on their anger about the executive branch being judge, jury, and executioner. Instead, we'll get a few blog posts and maybe a New York Times editorial, if they're in the mood.
After offering support for military commissions and trials, Holder veered into what ought to be the most controversial aspect of the Obama administration's continuation and expansion of Bush administration policies, the constitutionality of targeted killings, whether on the technical battlefield of Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world, especially whether or not that can include Americans. Said the AG, "Now, it is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that some of the threats we face come from a small number of United States citizens who have decided to commit violent attacks against their own country from abroad...the government must take into account all relevant constitutional considerations with respect to United States citizens – even those who are leading efforts to kill innocent Americans. Of these, the most relevant is the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which says that the government may not deprive a citizen of his or her life without due process of law." And then he followed with the chilling statement that "due process" can mean, in essence, that the President has determined an American should be killed, with no judicial review, not even FISA, and that what we've always understood "due process" to mean as Americans is, in fact, worthless. Jesus, that's an expansive, breathtaking, frightening thought because, one day, President Trig Palin might have that power, too.
Holder kept coming back to the question of violent acts. In determining who is worthy of a drone missile in their face, Holder said that one of the principles must be that "the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States." And what does that mean? "The evaluation of whether an individual presents an 'imminent threat' incorporates considerations of the relevant window of opportunity to act, the possible harm that missing the window would cause to civilians, and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks against the United States...the Constitution does not require the President to delay action until some theoretical end-stage of planning – when the precise time, place, and manner of an attack become clear. Such a requirement would create an unacceptably high risk that our efforts would fail, and that Americans would be killed."
Yet when the U.S. blew the shit out of Anwar al-Awlaki, he had not been charged with killing or plotting to kill anyone. And post-shit-blown, there wasn't even a half-hearted effort to paint him as actively involved in violence. He was a propagandist who occasionally hung out with people who did bad shit. Simply put, al-Awlaki's case fails Holder's first test. That renders everything else Holder said the simpering, mollifying lies of the powerful.
The biggest lie, among a pile of Yoo-worthy lies, is that everything is justified because this is a war we're in, goddamnit, and do you want to die? Do you? Hell, Holder even gave an example from the last "good" war: "[D]uring World War II, the United States tracked the plane flying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto – the commander of Japanese forces in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway – and shot it down specifically because he was on board." Yeah, and?
The effort to stop terrorism is not a war. Hell, our actual war, the one in Afghanistan, is barely one. We can keep calling the fight against a few hundred, disorganized, widespread asshole zealots with guns a war. But it ain't one. "War," in this case, is just a legalistic term of art that frees the hand of the Executive to do whatever the fuck he wants, which, if the Rude Pundit recalls, we kind of hated under Bush and Cheney. If Holder or Obama said we were just pursuing criminals, which is what we're doing, they'd have to follow niceties, like civil rights and protections. But we can't have that, now, can we, or we'd just seem weak?
Oh, good, sweet people of the left, this is less about bashing Obama and more about holding to a principle. What Holder's saying is pretty much the exact opposite of what the country was founded on, since the King being able to get all killy without trial was one of the problems mentioned in, you know, the Declaration of Independence. So it's curious that there's so much silence about this on our side, as curious as it is that non-Ron Paul Republicans who can't stand the idea of the government making you have health insurance have no problem with the government just outright blowing you up where you stand.
Don't worry, though. As Holder said, "In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out – and we will not. This is an indicator of our times – not a departure from our laws and our values." See? We're murdering Americans in accordance with our values. Of course, Holder also said, just a moment earlier, that "it is important to note that the legal requirements I have described may not apply in every situation." So, you know, there's always an out.
So, not to veer from our happy dance over the impending doom of rotund junkie Rush Limbaugh (not quite so epically Breitbartian, but it'll do), but the Rude Pundit must say a thing or two about Attorney General Eric Holder's sanctimonious, bullshit speech justifying warrantless surveillance, military tribunals, and the murder of American citizens abroad at Northwestern University law school yesterday. If this had been Alberto Gonzales or Michael Mukasey, the cacophony of outrage on the left would have been loud and sustained. Some Democrats would have campaigned on their anger about the executive branch being judge, jury, and executioner. Instead, we'll get a few blog posts and maybe a New York Times editorial, if they're in the mood.
After offering support for military commissions and trials, Holder veered into what ought to be the most controversial aspect of the Obama administration's continuation and expansion of Bush administration policies, the constitutionality of targeted killings, whether on the technical battlefield of Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world, especially whether or not that can include Americans. Said the AG, "Now, it is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that some of the threats we face come from a small number of United States citizens who have decided to commit violent attacks against their own country from abroad...the government must take into account all relevant constitutional considerations with respect to United States citizens – even those who are leading efforts to kill innocent Americans. Of these, the most relevant is the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which says that the government may not deprive a citizen of his or her life without due process of law." And then he followed with the chilling statement that "due process" can mean, in essence, that the President has determined an American should be killed, with no judicial review, not even FISA, and that what we've always understood "due process" to mean as Americans is, in fact, worthless. Jesus, that's an expansive, breathtaking, frightening thought because, one day, President Trig Palin might have that power, too.
Holder kept coming back to the question of violent acts. In determining who is worthy of a drone missile in their face, Holder said that one of the principles must be that "the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States." And what does that mean? "The evaluation of whether an individual presents an 'imminent threat' incorporates considerations of the relevant window of opportunity to act, the possible harm that missing the window would cause to civilians, and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks against the United States...the Constitution does not require the President to delay action until some theoretical end-stage of planning – when the precise time, place, and manner of an attack become clear. Such a requirement would create an unacceptably high risk that our efforts would fail, and that Americans would be killed."
Yet when the U.S. blew the shit out of Anwar al-Awlaki, he had not been charged with killing or plotting to kill anyone. And post-shit-blown, there wasn't even a half-hearted effort to paint him as actively involved in violence. He was a propagandist who occasionally hung out with people who did bad shit. Simply put, al-Awlaki's case fails Holder's first test. That renders everything else Holder said the simpering, mollifying lies of the powerful.
The biggest lie, among a pile of Yoo-worthy lies, is that everything is justified because this is a war we're in, goddamnit, and do you want to die? Do you? Hell, Holder even gave an example from the last "good" war: "[D]uring World War II, the United States tracked the plane flying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto – the commander of Japanese forces in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway – and shot it down specifically because he was on board." Yeah, and?
The effort to stop terrorism is not a war. Hell, our actual war, the one in Afghanistan, is barely one. We can keep calling the fight against a few hundred, disorganized, widespread asshole zealots with guns a war. But it ain't one. "War," in this case, is just a legalistic term of art that frees the hand of the Executive to do whatever the fuck he wants, which, if the Rude Pundit recalls, we kind of hated under Bush and Cheney. If Holder or Obama said we were just pursuing criminals, which is what we're doing, they'd have to follow niceties, like civil rights and protections. But we can't have that, now, can we, or we'd just seem weak?
Oh, good, sweet people of the left, this is less about bashing Obama and more about holding to a principle. What Holder's saying is pretty much the exact opposite of what the country was founded on, since the King being able to get all killy without trial was one of the problems mentioned in, you know, the Declaration of Independence. So it's curious that there's so much silence about this on our side, as curious as it is that non-Ron Paul Republicans who can't stand the idea of the government making you have health insurance have no problem with the government just outright blowing you up where you stand.
Don't worry, though. As Holder said, "In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out – and we will not. This is an indicator of our times – not a departure from our laws and our values." See? We're murdering Americans in accordance with our values. Of course, Holder also said, just a moment earlier, that "it is important to note that the legal requirements I have described may not apply in every situation." So, you know, there's always an out.
3/05/2012
In Brief: Limbaugh Knows He's Better Than You Are (Despite All Evidence to the Contrary):
Our story so far: torpid talk slob Rush Limbaugh spent three days last week calling 30 year-old Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" who wants to fuck as often as her vagina can take it while the government pays for her birth control because she can't afford it. In the course of the three days, Limbaugh said he wanted Fluke and other women to send him videos of their intercourse. He talked about the "babes" fucking around. He said, repeatedly, that Sandra Fluke wants to be paid for having sex. He equated contraceptive pill coverage with a requirement to buy everyone a car if they like having sex in the back seat.
In the wake of the understandable uproar, sponsors began to flee Limbaugh's show this weekend. On Saturday, Limbaugh released a statement where he once again decided that the issue was about what women do with their leisure time and asked if the government should provide running shoes to those who want to exercise (meaning "Not Limbaugh"). He offered, "I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation," by which he meant "slut" and "prostitute," although one could certainly read that as saying, "I should have said 'whore' and 'cunt.'" And, after days of personally attacking Fluke, by name, Limbaugh said, "I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke...in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir." It's like a mugger taking your wallet and beating your face in, but saying that it's nothing personal. It's just business.
Today, on his show, Limbaugh went further. He insisted that his offense boiled down to the aforementioned two words, which is pretty much the definition of "doesn't get it" or "doesn't give a shit." Oh, he was sincere in apologizing, saying that he had become like people on the left, that he "ended up descending to their level."
That's right. The man who used to get rid of callers he didn't like with "caller abortions," complete with a vacuum sound and a baby crying, the man who mocked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease with exaggerated shaking, said that "I've always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity" on his show. Because he's so fucking noble.
Oh, he also admitted that he slanted the story about Fluke's testimony (well, really, he outright lied, but still...). Yes, he blamed the CNS story, "Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate," which he had cited repeatedly last week. Said Limbaugh today, "I focused on that because I was simply trying to persuade people, change people's minds." Screw facts. Screw the whole story. All that matters is that dittoheads know what to ditto.
And thus Limbaugh will go on, damaged, but unbowed. He's now tainted, but you can bet that all of his listeners see him as the victim here and that, six months, a year from now, nearly all of those sponsors will be back. But maybe, just maybe, he will be poisonous enough to be nothing more than a deranged cult leader, a deaf and dumb and dying dinosaur in the tar pit of his fading career.
Our story so far: torpid talk slob Rush Limbaugh spent three days last week calling 30 year-old Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" who wants to fuck as often as her vagina can take it while the government pays for her birth control because she can't afford it. In the course of the three days, Limbaugh said he wanted Fluke and other women to send him videos of their intercourse. He talked about the "babes" fucking around. He said, repeatedly, that Sandra Fluke wants to be paid for having sex. He equated contraceptive pill coverage with a requirement to buy everyone a car if they like having sex in the back seat.
In the wake of the understandable uproar, sponsors began to flee Limbaugh's show this weekend. On Saturday, Limbaugh released a statement where he once again decided that the issue was about what women do with their leisure time and asked if the government should provide running shoes to those who want to exercise (meaning "Not Limbaugh"). He offered, "I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation," by which he meant "slut" and "prostitute," although one could certainly read that as saying, "I should have said 'whore' and 'cunt.'" And, after days of personally attacking Fluke, by name, Limbaugh said, "I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke...in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir." It's like a mugger taking your wallet and beating your face in, but saying that it's nothing personal. It's just business.
Today, on his show, Limbaugh went further. He insisted that his offense boiled down to the aforementioned two words, which is pretty much the definition of "doesn't get it" or "doesn't give a shit." Oh, he was sincere in apologizing, saying that he had become like people on the left, that he "ended up descending to their level."
That's right. The man who used to get rid of callers he didn't like with "caller abortions," complete with a vacuum sound and a baby crying, the man who mocked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease with exaggerated shaking, said that "I've always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity" on his show. Because he's so fucking noble.
Oh, he also admitted that he slanted the story about Fluke's testimony (well, really, he outright lied, but still...). Yes, he blamed the CNS story, "Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate," which he had cited repeatedly last week. Said Limbaugh today, "I focused on that because I was simply trying to persuade people, change people's minds." Screw facts. Screw the whole story. All that matters is that dittoheads know what to ditto.
And thus Limbaugh will go on, damaged, but unbowed. He's now tainted, but you can bet that all of his listeners see him as the victim here and that, six months, a year from now, nearly all of those sponsors will be back. But maybe, just maybe, he will be poisonous enough to be nothing more than a deranged cult leader, a deaf and dumb and dying dinosaur in the tar pit of his fading career.
3/03/2012
Brief Weekend Bonus: Rush Limbaugh Has Become the Rude Pundit's 1994 Parody of Him:
Back in the early-mid-1990s, as he's discussed here before, a young Rude Pundit ran a weekly radio show on Knoxville, Tennessee's WUTK-FM called Radio Free Theatre. Once a month, we'd feature a parody of Rush Limbaugh called, oh-so-cleverly, "The Rich Flemball Show." The Rude Pundit wrote the monologues and an actor, Mark Creter, would portray Flemball, taking calls from unsuspecting listeners (along with some set-ups).
Without getting into a big story, here's a quote from a 1994 episode, where, discussing his new book, See, I Told You I'd Eat It, Flemball mocks Jesse Jackson: "Take, for instance, my chapter on crime in this country. I quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson saying, 'The government has a responsibility to provide people with hope, hope in their schools, hope in their communities, hope in their homes. Only through hope will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential.' And then he went on and on, talking about personal responsibility. But, as I show in the book, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's axiom fails completely. Simple change the word 'hope' with 'souped up white Cadillac' and you'll see what I mean. 'The government has a responsibility to provide people with souped up white Cadillacs, souped up white Cadillacs in their schools, souped up white Cadillacs in their communities, souped up white Cadillacs in their homes. Only through souped up white Cadillacs will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential.'"
Oh, how funny. It's an analogy so inane, meaningless, and ludicrous that no one who said it could possibly be taken seriously. Flemball was meant to be an extreme version of the rotund radio host.
Now, here's Limbaugh this week, talking about the contraception coverage debate: "You know, folks, millions of women enjoy sex in the back of a car. You have some women that can't afford a car. What are we to do? What is our solution to women who prefer sex in the backseat of a car but can't afford a car?"
Limbaugh has become, in the most literal sense, his own parody.
Back in the early-mid-1990s, as he's discussed here before, a young Rude Pundit ran a weekly radio show on Knoxville, Tennessee's WUTK-FM called Radio Free Theatre. Once a month, we'd feature a parody of Rush Limbaugh called, oh-so-cleverly, "The Rich Flemball Show." The Rude Pundit wrote the monologues and an actor, Mark Creter, would portray Flemball, taking calls from unsuspecting listeners (along with some set-ups).
Without getting into a big story, here's a quote from a 1994 episode, where, discussing his new book, See, I Told You I'd Eat It, Flemball mocks Jesse Jackson: "Take, for instance, my chapter on crime in this country. I quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson saying, 'The government has a responsibility to provide people with hope, hope in their schools, hope in their communities, hope in their homes. Only through hope will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential.' And then he went on and on, talking about personal responsibility. But, as I show in the book, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's axiom fails completely. Simple change the word 'hope' with 'souped up white Cadillac' and you'll see what I mean. 'The government has a responsibility to provide people with souped up white Cadillacs, souped up white Cadillacs in their schools, souped up white Cadillacs in their communities, souped up white Cadillacs in their homes. Only through souped up white Cadillacs will the minority community be able to achieve its greatest potential.'"
Oh, how funny. It's an analogy so inane, meaningless, and ludicrous that no one who said it could possibly be taken seriously. Flemball was meant to be an extreme version of the rotund radio host.
Now, here's Limbaugh this week, talking about the contraception coverage debate: "You know, folks, millions of women enjoy sex in the back of a car. You have some women that can't afford a car. What are we to do? What is our solution to women who prefer sex in the backseat of a car but can't afford a car?"
Limbaugh has become, in the most literal sense, his own parody.
3/02/2012
The Most Bizarrely Offensive Shit Rush Limbaugh Said About Sandra Fluke:
It has truly been one of the more bizarro episodes in the entire sad life of sad fat man Rush Limbaugh. The radio talk show host (and let's be clear: that's what he is and that's all he is) took it on himself to go after Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke for her testimony to a Democratic congressional committee on a mandate that religious-connected institutions and businesses provide contraception coverage for women (which was put together after Darrell Issa's awesome sausage-fest hearing). Eminently reasonable and rational, Fluke offered medical reasons beyond stopping pregnancy for providing a drug that keeps many women just plain healthy. This is not to mention the simple fact that, in order for contraceptive pills to work, they have to be taken daily, and it's not one pill per coitus session.
Limbaugh and others on the right decided that this meant Fluke wanted to fuck all the time. And for two days now (and probably today), Limbaugh has been going on about how much Fluke must want to fuck constantly. And, truly, it's weird, creepy, offensive and even creepier than you might imagine. The intense rape mentality that fills Limbaugh's attacks on a woman who just testified on an issue she has been involved in for a decade is kind of frightening and pathetic and desperate:
"Sandra Fluke [is] the Georgetown student who went before a congressional committee and said she's having so much sex, she's going broke buying contraceptives and wants us to buy them."
"That woman goes up to congressional committee and is asking for her contraception to be paid for so she can have unlimited, no-consequences sex...If this woman wants to have sex ten times a day for three years, fine and dandy...Why go before a congressional committee and demand that all of us -- because they want to have sex any time, as many times and as often as they want, with as many partners as they want -- should pay for it?"
(Quoting a misleading CNS article) "'Apparently, four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it's hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception, Fluke's research shows.' And of course what's sex if the ends aren't meeting?" (Um, does Limbaugh know how to have sex?)
"So she earns enough money in just one summer to pay for three full years of sex, and they're full years because she and her co-ed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently...And what about these deadbeat boyfriends or random hookups that these babes are encountering here, having sex with nearly three times a day? While in law school."
"Okay, so this is a law student at a congressional committee asking for us ... to ... pay ... for ... the ... things ... that ... make ... it ... possible ... for ... her ... to ... have ... sex.
Therefore we are paying her to have sex.
Therefore we are paying her for having sex.
We are getting screwed even though we don't meet her personally!"
"So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch...if we're gonna sit here, and if we're gonna have a part in this, then we want something in return, Ms. Fluke: And that would be the videos of all this sex posted online so we can see what we are getting for our money."
"You know, folks, millions of women enjoy sex in the back of a car. You have some women that can't afford a car. What are we to do? What is our solution to women who prefer sex in the backseat of a car but can't afford a car?"
"Did you notice in that sound bite Sheila Jackson Lee or Maria Cantwell or one of them talked about the strength that Sandra Fluke had to go before Congress, which is amazing. She's having so much sex it's amazing she can still walk, but she made it up there...Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex? Have you ever heard of not having sex so often?"
Oh, and the Rude Pundit's favorite new creepiest Limbaugh moment:
"We assume they're having sex with guys. (interruption) Well, we're talking about birth control, Snerdley. So you gotta assume having sex with guys. So, do they not have some responsibility? (interruption) Well, two women... I have to ask sex expert Snerdley on this, but I'm not aware that two women without another device can get pregnant on their own using naturally endowed accoutrements. I don't think times have changed that much. (chuckles)"
Followed very quickly by:
"She wants us to buy her sex. She wants us to pay for her sex, and she went to a congressional committee to close the sale. It's the right place to do that. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
There you go. It's so funny. Ha-ha, send Rush sex videos, you whores, or shut your fucking legs and, especially, your fucking mouths.
(By the way, this is all from yesterday. It leaves out the original, classic: "What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps. (interruption) The johns? We would be the johns? No! We're not the johns. (interruption) Yeah, that's right. Pimp's not the right word. Okay, so she's not a slut. She's 'round heeled.' I take it back.")
It has truly been one of the more bizarro episodes in the entire sad life of sad fat man Rush Limbaugh. The radio talk show host (and let's be clear: that's what he is and that's all he is) took it on himself to go after Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke for her testimony to a Democratic congressional committee on a mandate that religious-connected institutions and businesses provide contraception coverage for women (which was put together after Darrell Issa's awesome sausage-fest hearing). Eminently reasonable and rational, Fluke offered medical reasons beyond stopping pregnancy for providing a drug that keeps many women just plain healthy. This is not to mention the simple fact that, in order for contraceptive pills to work, they have to be taken daily, and it's not one pill per coitus session.
Limbaugh and others on the right decided that this meant Fluke wanted to fuck all the time. And for two days now (and probably today), Limbaugh has been going on about how much Fluke must want to fuck constantly. And, truly, it's weird, creepy, offensive and even creepier than you might imagine. The intense rape mentality that fills Limbaugh's attacks on a woman who just testified on an issue she has been involved in for a decade is kind of frightening and pathetic and desperate:
"Sandra Fluke [is] the Georgetown student who went before a congressional committee and said she's having so much sex, she's going broke buying contraceptives and wants us to buy them."
"That woman goes up to congressional committee and is asking for her contraception to be paid for so she can have unlimited, no-consequences sex...If this woman wants to have sex ten times a day for three years, fine and dandy...Why go before a congressional committee and demand that all of us -- because they want to have sex any time, as many times and as often as they want, with as many partners as they want -- should pay for it?"
(Quoting a misleading CNS article) "'Apparently, four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it's hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception, Fluke's research shows.' And of course what's sex if the ends aren't meeting?" (Um, does Limbaugh know how to have sex?)
"So she earns enough money in just one summer to pay for three full years of sex, and they're full years because she and her co-ed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently...And what about these deadbeat boyfriends or random hookups that these babes are encountering here, having sex with nearly three times a day? While in law school."
"Okay, so this is a law student at a congressional committee asking for us ... to ... pay ... for ... the ... things ... that ... make ... it ... possible ... for ... her ... to ... have ... sex.
Therefore we are paying her to have sex.
Therefore we are paying her for having sex.
We are getting screwed even though we don't meet her personally!"
"So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch...if we're gonna sit here, and if we're gonna have a part in this, then we want something in return, Ms. Fluke: And that would be the videos of all this sex posted online so we can see what we are getting for our money."
"You know, folks, millions of women enjoy sex in the back of a car. You have some women that can't afford a car. What are we to do? What is our solution to women who prefer sex in the backseat of a car but can't afford a car?"
"Did you notice in that sound bite Sheila Jackson Lee or Maria Cantwell or one of them talked about the strength that Sandra Fluke had to go before Congress, which is amazing. She's having so much sex it's amazing she can still walk, but she made it up there...Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex? Have you ever heard of not having sex so often?"
Oh, and the Rude Pundit's favorite new creepiest Limbaugh moment:
"We assume they're having sex with guys. (interruption) Well, we're talking about birth control, Snerdley. So you gotta assume having sex with guys. So, do they not have some responsibility? (interruption) Well, two women... I have to ask sex expert Snerdley on this, but I'm not aware that two women without another device can get pregnant on their own using naturally endowed accoutrements. I don't think times have changed that much. (chuckles)"
Followed very quickly by:
"She wants us to buy her sex. She wants us to pay for her sex, and she went to a congressional committee to close the sale. It's the right place to do that. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
There you go. It's so funny. Ha-ha, send Rush sex videos, you whores, or shut your fucking legs and, especially, your fucking mouths.
(By the way, this is all from yesterday. It leaves out the original, classic: "What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps. (interruption) The johns? We would be the johns? No! We're not the johns. (interruption) Yeah, that's right. Pimp's not the right word. Okay, so she's not a slut. She's 'round heeled.' I take it back.")
3/01/2012
Andrew Breitbart in Hell: A Fantasia:
"Well," thought Andrew Breitbart in soul form as he descended while he watched Davy Jones ascend, "this is surprising." No, he wasn't a religious man on Earth, as he himself admitted, but surely, he thought, there was a chance for some reward at the end. In a moment of self-reflection, he pondered, "Arrogance. Pride. Yeah, those are sins, but they're kind of pussy sins."
Breitbart had been as surprised as anyone that he died. He had been retweeting every Twitter slight that crossed his feed, calling everyone he could a "putz," masochistically masturbating by slamming his dick with his iPad every time he answered one, when he had gone out to get some air and his heart just exploded. At first, he thought he was on an drug trip, it happened so fast; his soul popped out of him like a cork on a shaken champagne bottle. He saw his corporeal form on the ground and thought it was a wacky out of body experience, perhaps some flashback from the time he licked LSD off Michelle Malkin's ass cheeks, perhaps some residual peyote dream from that Western walkabout he did with Sean Hannity, when they got naked and rubbed each other with red dirt until they howled out that they wanted to kill the Indians again. Those thoughts quickly pushed out of his head as he arced and began to descend from the air and into the filthy ground below. "Fuck, I had a post to finish where I called the President a rape-enabler" was his last thought as he went underground.
As he headed deeper and deeper, Breitbart wondered what awaited him. He steeled himself to everything: barb-dicked demons raping his ass for eternity; the corpses of Reagan and Joseph McCarthy tearing off his balls and forcing him to swallow them, only to have them grow back again, with a row of dead right-wingers stretching as far as the eye could see, from Nixon to Attila the Hun, all waiting their turns to do the same; being made to exist in some liberal fantasyland, where Ted Kennedy reigned as god and everyone's wealth was shared and everyone was, oh, fuck, equal; or perhaps he'd just be fed shit, day in and day out, by the shovelful, as some kind of karmic retribution.
It was easy for Breitbart to think of such things for he had spoken ill of the dead on the day of their deaths before, like Kennedy and Michael Jackson. "Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death?" he had said about Kennedy, ha-ha. Fuck, he'd hoped he'd at least get to see what the fucking liberal bloggers were tweeting about. He'd love to tweet them back, and he was pretty sure his Blackberry would have reception in Hell. He'd love to find out how much loathing he inspired. He'd love to read the rants about Shirley Sherrod and ACORN, about New Black Panthers and James O'Keefe.
A man can do a lot of damage in 43 years, he knows, and he smiled about all the people he had fucked with, all the lives he had fucked up, all in the name of an ideology he saw as more important than compassion for anyone different from himself. "Shit," he thought, "better be careful. That's more pride."
And, almost as much, he'd love to hear all the leftists tie themselves in knots to say something nice about him, about his family, about who he was a "person." That's even more awesome than the tears the right was no doubt shedding. Goddamn, he needed a drink. Goddamn, he wished he could mock them for their goodness as he had so many others.
Suddenly, he entered into a light and found himself on the floor of a cold, brightly lit, all-white room with no doors or windows. He opened his mouth to call out, but no voice came out, not even a whisper or rasp. It was as if he had no vocal cords, no lungs, no means of making a sound. He didn't let himself freak out. He calmly walked the room to find an exit or crack. There were none. It was a solid box. Slowly, it began to dawn on him.
"Not this," his lips formed. "Anything but this." Bring on the rape demons, bring on the zombie conservatives, the shit, Kennedy, any fate would be better. He beat on the walls. No sound. He stomped. No sound. He slammed his head into the wall. Not only was there no noise, but he didn't even feel pain. If he could have gotten sick, he would have vomited. He collapsed and waited.
Eternity, it seemed, was going to be a long time.
"Well," thought Andrew Breitbart in soul form as he descended while he watched Davy Jones ascend, "this is surprising." No, he wasn't a religious man on Earth, as he himself admitted, but surely, he thought, there was a chance for some reward at the end. In a moment of self-reflection, he pondered, "Arrogance. Pride. Yeah, those are sins, but they're kind of pussy sins."
Breitbart had been as surprised as anyone that he died. He had been retweeting every Twitter slight that crossed his feed, calling everyone he could a "putz," masochistically masturbating by slamming his dick with his iPad every time he answered one, when he had gone out to get some air and his heart just exploded. At first, he thought he was on an drug trip, it happened so fast; his soul popped out of him like a cork on a shaken champagne bottle. He saw his corporeal form on the ground and thought it was a wacky out of body experience, perhaps some flashback from the time he licked LSD off Michelle Malkin's ass cheeks, perhaps some residual peyote dream from that Western walkabout he did with Sean Hannity, when they got naked and rubbed each other with red dirt until they howled out that they wanted to kill the Indians again. Those thoughts quickly pushed out of his head as he arced and began to descend from the air and into the filthy ground below. "Fuck, I had a post to finish where I called the President a rape-enabler" was his last thought as he went underground.
As he headed deeper and deeper, Breitbart wondered what awaited him. He steeled himself to everything: barb-dicked demons raping his ass for eternity; the corpses of Reagan and Joseph McCarthy tearing off his balls and forcing him to swallow them, only to have them grow back again, with a row of dead right-wingers stretching as far as the eye could see, from Nixon to Attila the Hun, all waiting their turns to do the same; being made to exist in some liberal fantasyland, where Ted Kennedy reigned as god and everyone's wealth was shared and everyone was, oh, fuck, equal; or perhaps he'd just be fed shit, day in and day out, by the shovelful, as some kind of karmic retribution.
It was easy for Breitbart to think of such things for he had spoken ill of the dead on the day of their deaths before, like Kennedy and Michael Jackson. "Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death?" he had said about Kennedy, ha-ha. Fuck, he'd hoped he'd at least get to see what the fucking liberal bloggers were tweeting about. He'd love to tweet them back, and he was pretty sure his Blackberry would have reception in Hell. He'd love to find out how much loathing he inspired. He'd love to read the rants about Shirley Sherrod and ACORN, about New Black Panthers and James O'Keefe.
A man can do a lot of damage in 43 years, he knows, and he smiled about all the people he had fucked with, all the lives he had fucked up, all in the name of an ideology he saw as more important than compassion for anyone different from himself. "Shit," he thought, "better be careful. That's more pride."
And, almost as much, he'd love to hear all the leftists tie themselves in knots to say something nice about him, about his family, about who he was a "person." That's even more awesome than the tears the right was no doubt shedding. Goddamn, he needed a drink. Goddamn, he wished he could mock them for their goodness as he had so many others.
Suddenly, he entered into a light and found himself on the floor of a cold, brightly lit, all-white room with no doors or windows. He opened his mouth to call out, but no voice came out, not even a whisper or rasp. It was as if he had no vocal cords, no lungs, no means of making a sound. He didn't let himself freak out. He calmly walked the room to find an exit or crack. There were none. It was a solid box. Slowly, it began to dawn on him.
"Not this," his lips formed. "Anything but this." Bring on the rape demons, bring on the zombie conservatives, the shit, Kennedy, any fate would be better. He beat on the walls. No sound. He stomped. No sound. He slammed his head into the wall. Not only was there no noise, but he didn't even feel pain. If he could have gotten sick, he would have vomited. He collapsed and waited.
Eternity, it seemed, was going to be a long time.
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