Titty Flattening and Baby Murdering: A Day in Congress

Yesterday's House Oversight Committee bullshit hearing on Planned Parenthood took a different tactic than the previous House Judiciary Committee bullshit hearing. While the Judiciary Committee was all about baby parts, the Oversight Committee was looking into the funding of Planned Parenthood by the federal government, searching for some non-video related reason to justify the GOPs blind rage towards the women's health and family planning clinics. So Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards, was forced to sit for hours, listening to Republican cunt after Republican cunt disparage, attack, and condemn her.

Basically, though, it went something like this:
GOP Cunt: You make shit-tons of moola murderin' the babies, right?

Richards: We--

GOP Cunt: Shut up, kooz. A man is talkin' here. My rhetorical questions are actually statements. I only have limited time!

Richards: But--

GOP Cunt: Does Planned Parenthood flatten the titties?

Richards: No, we--

GOP Cunt: Ah-ha! So you don't flatten titties?

Richards: We direct--

GOP Cunt: You are such liars. You said you flatten titties. If you don't pancake the boobies, you must not give a shit about women's health. Boobies!

Richards: There is more--

GOP Cunt: Let the record show that Planned Parenthood only murders babies and it does not flatten titties. Take away their money so we can kill babies in Yemen with bombs instead. Whose got two thumbs and a dick and just won the argument? This guy. (High fives female Republican committee member who hates her own sex.)

More or less, that was pretty much all that happened. Throw in an attack on Richards' salary, which is less than the football coaches at 90 universities, which receive a whole bunch of federal funding, and you've got the makings of an old-fashioned asshole-off, where one member of Congress tries to out-asshole the others.

There were wonderfully ridiculous sights, like Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz's bitch face when confronted with the fact that his supposedly ironclad chart proving that PPFA was doing many more abortions and far fewer cancer screenings was actually just anti-choice propaganda.  Really, the graphic itself is so disproportionate to the real numbers that it may as well have been created by a baboon who tried to do Excel.

Others will fact check the many lies and exaggerations and fallacies in the Republican case. But about those flattened titties, the Republicans on the committee made a big damn deal about whether or not Planned Parenthood did mammograms, practically jumping up and whooping when Richards said that the organization's clinics does not do them. People outside of PPFA have misspoken and said the clinics performed them. Most recently, Martin O'Malley did so, including mammograms in a list of services that Planned Parenthood provides. He was wrong.

But you know who was right? Planned Parenthood. From their website:

Right there, it says that Planned Parenthood will refer you to a place to get the mammogram. This wasn't some hidden, secret plot to disguise what they do. PPFA can't control if politicians, even those who support it, get the info wrong.

What a pathetic waste of time. The desperation with which Republicans are trying to discredit Planned Parenthood would be a joke if only women's bodies weren't on the line.

(Note: Yes, the Rude Pundit considered other words besides "cunt." None of them quite captured the cuntistry of the GOP.)

In Brief: Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Shoot Up Heroin in the Middle of a Wheat Field

No. No. Fuck you, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. You don't get to play touchy-feely with zombie women. You can suck a bucket of disembodied zombie dicks before you get to declare, as you did, that October is "Zombie Preparedness Month" in your sad state. Sure, your Christian extremist views make you believe in people coming back from the dead more than a voodoo priestess does, but you don't get to do this shit.

Not after all the threats of school budget cuts and actual cuts to actual things that actual people actually use. Not after almost destroying Kansas in pursuit of a brain-damaged dream of conservatopia that failed so miserably that you had to fucking beg and blackmail the legislature into raising some taxes. No, you don't get to spend a red fucking cent on this fake quirky, fake fun, fake zombie bullshit. Not for the paper you signed for the proclamation. Not on the time the staff spent putting it together. Not for the electricity in the fucking offices where this fuckery took place.

Goddamnit, why aren't those things real up there so that Brownback can learn the cost of denying his state's poor expanded Medicaid? Oh, wait. He'd have to be human in order for them to want to eat him.

12th Anniversary Today: The Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraiser Was a Total Blowout Success

The Rude Pundit says, "Big, huge thanks to the literally hundreds of people who donated through PayPal and other means to this old, old blog. Twelve blog years feels like 150 in human years, and the generosity and support of the last week has been overwhelming. You gals and guys blew the roof off what I had hoped to raise and ascended right into the sky. Goddamn, it was beautiful. While you can't read too much into one donate-a-thon, the Obama economy has been doing pretty friggin' great for people."

"I already ordered the new computer, gonna get that whiskey, and am arranging for going to Los Angeles to totally do Stephanie Miller. I'll let you know when that's gonna happen so maybe we can book another thing or two for the time out on the left coast.

"Now, I promise no more begging for cash for another couple of years. But during the Trump/Cruz administration, we'll need all the help we can get."

Back later with more ludicrous rudeness.

Carly Fiorina Is a Lying Piece of Shit, Too

Destroyer of American jobs and GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina insists, with the kind of fervent madness that you get in someone who believes Jesus appears in tree bark and water stains on concrete, that she has viewed a scene in one of the anti-Planned Parenthood videos where one can "Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.'" This supposedly happens, according to people who have seen all the videos, in the seventh one.

So the Rude Pundit watched it. It is disturbing as fucking hell. Of course it is. It's talking about medical procedures. Of course the doctors and lab technicians are inured to how gross it is and speak in blase', clinical tones about it. They have to or they couldn't do their jobs. And, technically, you do witness what Fiorina says. Except, as so many have pointed out, the fetus shown is a stillborn having some nerve reactions, and "fully-formed" is really a bit of a stretch.

The rest of the video relies on an interview with Holly O'Donnell, someone who didn't work at Planned Parenthood, who didn't witness any abortions, who heard a couple of things and said she saw an email. When the fetus is shown, we hear O'Donnell quoting a colleague at the lab where she worked, saying, "This is a really good fetus and it looks like we can procure a lot from it. We're going to procure brain." So they have to cut open the head, O'Donnell says. Again, it's disgusting, it's unpleasant, but it's not illegal and it's not the scene that Fiorina said she saw. Fiorina could have reasonably said that the Planned Parenthood videos had an emotional impact on her, but that, being a thinking, rational adult, she'd like more information.

Except she didn't do that. Confronted time and again with the fact, the indisputable, actual fact, that the scene she described doesn't exist, Fiorina has insisted that everyone else is a liar but her. On Facebook yesterday, she said, "[I]t's clear the video is of an aborted baby left to die in a metal tray kicking for life." Her source for this is a conservative website that is quoting a radical anti-choice group on what the footage is, although the group refuses to say where it got the images. Not only is it most definitely not "clear," even Fiorina admits that the words and the video are not of the same thing. We don't know what happened to the fetus that's shown.

If the footage was real, if Planned Parenthood was doing anything wrong, then perhaps, just maybe, one of the investigations of PPFA would have turned something up. Maybe there would be a document or two. Maybe there would be more witnesses willing to step forward. Because to believe Fiorina means that there would have to be a major conspiracy of silence going on among people who would have every financial and moral motive in the world not to stay silent. If a Planned Parenthood employee came forward with a stack of files and personally-witnessed testimony, that person would be treated like a Roman emperor by the anti-choice movement. The riches of the world and all the pussy and/or dick they wanted would be laid at their feet.

Instead, we get the pathetic sight of Fiorina's campaign scraping through the internet's sphincter to find something to justify the boss's lies. And that must be a shitty job for her staff. They already have to pretend that Fiorina did anything other than nearly destroy Hewlett-Packard. Besides her lies, she's just another odious conservative, crapping into the eager ears of the bullshit seekers. Today, she declared that waterboarding was just great and that NSA warrantless spying is dandy.

The New York Times has an article about the supposed "conflicted feelings" that feminist women are having about Fiorina, as if just her lack of a penis was enough to make her electable and that women are so stupid that they would think for a second about voting for her. On that count, let's give the final word here to Gloria Steinem, also on Facebook, who wrote after the GOP debate, "If you thought Republicans could find no woman more damaging to the diversity and needs of the female half of this country than Sarah Palin, take a good look at Carly Fiorina and what she stands for."

In Brief: Boehned

Okay, conservative fucknuts, yahoos, ass-scratchers, and ball-lickers, now that Speaker of the House John Boehner will be out of the way, your fondest dreams can come true. Bring it, you putrid little bitches.

It's time to get this shit over with. It's time for the rest of the nation to understand what we that dwell in this land of political overload already understand: there are dangerous radicals trying to destroy the federal government from the inside. The pathetic part is that, motherfucker that he was, Boehner was the last wall standing before the Huns got inside and fucked everything up.

Oh, they won't get anything passed into law, these misanthropic fake Christians and doofus supply-siders and closeted women haters. The Senate will see to that. But the nation is changing, not fast enough, but it is moving fast to, finally, push these ignorant hordes aside, so they are doing what desperate people always do when faced with the end: blow shit up. See how many people they can take with them.

Yes, we will pine for the days of Boehner's retro-cuntishness. At least there was some style. At least there was an acknowledgement that, on some level, if you're in the legislative branch, you have to motherfuckin' legislate.

For fuck's sake, let's have this fight already. Let's see which America is left standing.

Note: It's the last few hours of the Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraiser. Let's squeeze one last drop of love out of the rudiverse tonight. Click on over and contribute.

Very Late Post Today

Pope traffic. 

Back later with more Boehning. 

Twelve Years of Accurate Analysis and Anal Sex References: The Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraising-Ilingus

Oh, man, oh, man, the events just keep coming, every day seemingly more strange and absurd than the last. A pope delivers a speech that, if given by a Democrat, he'd be accused of being a wild and woolly socialist. The Speaker of the House resigns. Rats become far more ambitious about their dining choices. And the Rude Pundit is here to mock, deride, and, occasionally, sympathize, as he has been for the last 12 goddamn years. He doesn't know if he's got another 12 in him, but he's going strong right now after a long time in the despairing woods.

So every other year, he hosts this little way for rude readers, who truly are about as generous a bunch as he could ask for, to chunk some cash into his cup and give him some walking around money. All he wants is a new computer, maybe a case of Kentucky bourbon, and a plane ticket to Los Angeles so that fans of The Stephanie Miller Show can hear him uncensored and untethered on her Happy Hour podcast.

Today is the final day of the fundraiser, so let's put it over the top by clicking that PayPal button below or on the side.

And the Rude Pundit's taking your questions, which you can send to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com."

You can be just like reader Stacey, who wants to know, "Do you think the papal visit will remind all those conservative fucks of the Christ part of Christian?" Oh, Stacey, modern conservatives, almost in full, gave up on the "Christ" part ages ago. Right now, they're about as Christian as blood-orgy-having, baby-sacrificing Mammon worshipers. If Christ came back, he'd kick their asses left and right, saying, "What the fuck did I tell you about this shit?"

Pope Speaks, Boehner Weeps, Nothing Changes

The Rude Pundit could not find it in himself to give a single rat's ass about Pope Francis's visit to the United States, other than a desire to find some "Viva El Papa" merchandise because it makes him giggle. Atheism is funny that way. Sure, sure, he understands the importance of the Pope doing papal things, he understands that Francis is far less of an asshole than some other popes who shall remain nameless (lookin' at you, Benny), and he gets that a lot of people do, in fact, give the asses of many rats about the Pope.

One of those people is devout Catholic alcoholic and Speaker of the House John Boehner. Here he is, crying like someone told him he's pregnant, just because he's close enough to sniff the Pope's skullcap:

Seriously, Boehner wept so often and so openly that even teething babies were telling him, "Dude, take it down a notch."

Which part of Francis's speech do you think had the greatest effect on Boehner? Was it the part where he said, "I call for a courageous and responsible effort to 'redirect our steps,' and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play."

Maybe Boehner can reconcile that with his statement about climate change: "I'll let the scientists debate the sources in their opinion of that change. But I think the real question is that every proposal we see out of the administration with regard to climate change means killing American jobs." Wasn't there something about washing one's hands of something in that there New Testament?

Or maybe Boehner was moved to tears by Francis's words on immigrants and refugees: "[W]hen the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our 'neighbors' and everything around us."

Perhaps Boehner was thinking just that when he said, through a spokesperson, nothing about the refugees and just that "the president has failed to put forward a broad, overarching strategy to defeat ISIL and promote stability in the Middle East. This tragedy is just one of the consequences." Yes, blaming Obama for everything while taking no action is the same as reaching out to help people.

Or was it the anti-death penalty part, which Francis was passionate about? Or wealth redistribution? Or anti-militarism? Some conservatives are upset that the Pope didn't really get into abortion or same sex marriage. Maybe Boehner was crying because, if you're a Catholic who has clung to the hateful language the church has put out for decades, Francis just fucked your shit up. And if anyone thinks that all of a sudden, Boehner is gonna tell his caucus to get to work on these problems, you're as delusional as a street prophet.

Every conservative Catholic Republican listening to the Pope today reminds the Rude Pundit of Chris Christie proclaiming his love for the music of Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, you can rock out to the guitars and sax, but if you don't listen to the words, your love and your tears are worthless.

Note: Speaking of collection plates, the Rude Pundit is still passing one around as part of his biennial fundraiser. Click on over and give to the Church of the Most Sacred Rudeness. It won't heal your soul, but you'll make sure the whiskey and invective keeps on rolling. And, as ever, mucho thankos to everyone who has donated so far.

Twelve Years of Caustic Insults and Rough Porn: The Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraising-Gasm

We are counting down, together, holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes, until Tuesday's 12th anniversary of this blog that is really a daily descent into the dark crevasses of deranged mind. Or maybe it's just funny except when it isn't. Either way, no matter where you joined this journey, if you remember Karl Rove's sex slave and gay couple Ron and Dave or you just got on the path in the last year, we are having a time, right?

So, like you'd tip your tour guide or your concierge or maybe just your bartender, the Rude Pundit is asking, as he does every other year, for readers to reach into their piggy banks and give a little cash love through the PayPal link below or on the side. He's angling to buy a brand-new damn computer, a case or so of good bourbon, and a plane ticket to Los Angeles to take part in the Happy Hour podcast with Stephanie Miller.

Hey, if some bastard prankster can do a Kickstarter for potato salad and earn $55k, giving here is at least 90% less douchey than that.

Just two days left and you won't hear the Rude Pundit ask for a dime for another couple of years. The response has been over-fuckin'-whelming so far. You guys and gals are inspiring, truly. So if you wanna ask a question or two, email it on to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com."

Be like reader Mike, who asks, "Are you going to write another book?" The Rude Pundit is currently at work on a book and he's got a play or two he'd like to get produced (any theaters interested? Hit him up). But he's probably not gonna do a new edition of The Rude Pundit's Almanack this year because, frankly, most of what he wrote last time is still valid. Shit, he's even got profiles of Santorum, Huckabee, and Jeb! in there. Also, writing that one almost destroyed his liver and the mind of his assistant.

Meet the Filthy Prick Who Made the Planned Parenthood Video Lies

Check out David Daleiden, that smug, dick-nosed, jugheaded pissant, looking like what would happen if Ted Cruz knocked up a hairless rat. He's the guy behind the Planned Parenthood videos. You know, those totally lie-filled bullshit "stings" that prove that, with a little help from iMovie, you can make anyone obeying the law to the letter look like an evil live baby dissector. And, apparently, you can give craven conservative politicians another reason to try to shut down the government.

Daleiden was interviewed by Politico this week, and he's just as odious and self-righteous a little fuck as you'd expect him to be.  Talking about Deb Nucatola, PPFA's highly-regarded senior director of medical services who appears on the videos after being recorded secretly, Daleiden says, "Right before this project came out, I had a Mass said for her." You can be sure that will ease Nucatola's mind, especially since the woman who has spent her professional life caring for women and helping to advance medical research has been getting death threats in the wake of the videos' release.

Oh, wait. Cockknob has a response to all the people who want to see Planned Parenthood employees murdered: "I’d argue that nobody is actually more concerned for their safety and their future happiness than we are." And you can bet that this simpleton, this delusional shitstain who probably spends his evenings jacking off to gay crucifixion porn (yeah, that's a thing) meant that he's concerned about their immortal souls, not the fact that there are armed yahoos who would gun them down.

Daleiden insists he broke no laws by registering his totally fake organization as a non-profit and tricking people into being on the videos. "I’ve always said and I continue to maintain that the Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work," he says. We shall see, since two courts have ruled that Daleiden must turn over all his videos and documents in lawsuits against him and his "Center."

Of course, calling this "journalism" is a little like calling Santa Claus "real." Sure, you can tell the children Santa leaves presents, but kids are dumb and credulous creatures and we'd never let them be able to make decisions for us grown-ups.

Note: You know people gave that jerk over $100,000 to make his crap?  The Rude Pundit isn't asking for a twentieth of that. The biennial fundraiser has been an astounding success so far thanks to the generous hearts and wallets of the readers of this here blog. It's almost over, but you can click on over and toss a buck or two into the upturned bowler, if you're able.

Late Post Today

Stuck at garage circle of Hell. 

Back later with more lubed rudeness. 

Twelve Years of Cutting Commentary and Infantile Raspberries: The Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraising-Aganza

We're teetering on finishing twelve years of almost completely solo blogging at this here joint. From the vodka-filled days of the Bush administration through the whiskey-fueled evenings of the Obama presidency and the all tequila and ecstasy-driven all-nighters in-between, we've been through a lot together. And it's all been free for your reading pleasure, except for the cost of whatever device you're on and, you know, your internet bill.

That's why every other year or so, the Rude Pundit asks for a little scratch, a few bucks, from readers in the form of PayPal clicks of love. He's got few simple goals: a new laptop computing thingy, some more whiskey to survive this wretched political landscape, and, for fans of The Stephanie Miller Show, a plane ticket from sinful New York City to sinful Los Angeles so he can get crazy with Ms. Miller on her Happy Hour podcast, joining the likes of Margaret Cho and Lily Tomlin.

Don't donate out of pity. Donate below or over on the side there because writing that makes you happy and aroused oughta be supported. And, besides, those conservative assholes are totally giving cash to friggin' Erick "Erick" Erickson to keep his hate machine rolling. You want them to have all the fun?

The Rude Pundit cannot thank enough everyone who has contributed a buck, ten bucks, a c-note, whatever. You should totally feel free to ask any questions of the Rude Pundit, just like we met in a bar and you wondered, "Hey, what do you think about this shit?" You can email them to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com." You don't even have to buy him a drink to ask.

Reader Chuck asks, "Do you see any realistic chance for anything other than Hillary and Trump?" The Rude Pundit stands by his assertion that we are in a long-ass slog through mud and shit before we get to a Clinton and Bush election. Everything else is just the endless torture of our depressing campaign cycle. He'd love to see a Sanders vs. Trump face-off, but we'll have to leave that to Taiwanese animators to create.

Why Do GOP Candidates Hate the Constitution?

On The Late Show last night, Stephen Colbert was doing his usual slice-'em-so-they-don't-know-they've-been-diced interview with a Republican, in this case nattering, nasal-voiced,  Cubo-Canadian Texan, conservadouche Ted Cruz, who happens to be running for president. Talking about same-sex marriage, Colbert challenged Cruz on whether or not marriage-defining should be left to the states. Cruz said, as he often does when a Supreme Court decision goes against his dickish beliefs, "I don't think we should entrust governing our society to five unelected lawyers in Washington."

Cruz knows better. He has to know better. He clerked for Justice William Rehnquist, under whose leadership the Supreme Court invalidated dozens of state and federal laws, you know, the kind passed by elected legislators.

But apparently Cruz, like most of the Republican candidates, doesn't give a shit what's actually in the Constitution. They are living with some fantasy Constitution, one that apparently is merely toilet paper to whatever political whims some jack-off GOPer can come up with. 'Cause, see, Article 2, Section 2 of the real Constitution is pretty goddamn clear: The President "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law."

That right there means that it isn't some crazy notion that "unelected" lawyers (or, more precisely, judges) make the decisions on the laws. In fact, Article 3 of the real Constitution specifically empowers the Supreme Court to do that. If you have a problem with the Supreme Court being unelected and deciding the constitutionality of laws, then you have a problem with the very thing you proclaim you'll protect. And this shit's in the Articles, not in the bonus Amendments.

We've had Donald Trump, Chris Christie, and Rand Paul want to shitcan the 14th Amendment to end birthright citizenship because of all the Mexican babies clogging up the playgrounds or something.  We've had Ben Carson seeming to not understand that there is an Article 6 that specifically prohibits a religious test in order to hold any office in government anywhere in the United States. At what point will Lindsey Graham want to suspend the 3rd Amendment so that Marines can forcibly quarter themselves at his home ("Ya'll go ahead and use mah showah. I'll just stand heah and watch you a-scrubbin' your loins and pecs")? The candidates then say that they want to appoint to the court an "originalist" who doesn't view the Constitution as adaptable to the times, like Antonin Scalia, who, by the way, is an unelected judge.

This is not even getting into the right's high, hard love for the 10th Amendment above just about everything else in the Constitution.  Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal are all 10th Amendment in your face about same sex marriage or Common Core or whatever the federal government does that they think sucks.  Jeb Bush got himself into trouble with gun nuts because he said to Stephen Colbert that the 10th Amendment gave states the right to regulate the 2nd Amendment, something he quickly backtracked on because, hell, nobody says anything even vaguely sane about the completely misinterpreted 2nd Amendment and survives the GOP primary.

And yet, time and again, these candidates will proclaim that President Obama has destroyed or shit on or wiped his taint sweat with the Constitution. Yet their own words show, time and again, that, at best, they don't actually understand what's in it. At worst, except for the 2nd and 10th Amendments and the ability to use the military, they actually, actively hate it.

(The Rude Pundit believes in a living Constitution. Amend that bad girl. Get money out of elections. Revisit the 2nd Amendment.)

Note: The Rude Pundit's biennial fundraising has been an amazing success so far thanks to the bestest readers on the internets. It's awesome that this is all free, and he stopped taking ads a long time ago. But click on over if you can afford it and toss some monetary love in the PayPal pot. Think of it as a karmic subscription.

Twelve Years of Pithy Comments and Drunken Rage Rants: The Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraising-Palooza

Next Tuesday marks a dozen years of the Rude Pundit mucking up your weekdays with hellish visions of various orifices being abused by various implements, all in the name of trying to express our degraded political discourse with even more degradation. And, mostly, except for a book, an audio thing, and a show or two, it's all been free, gloriously free.

So every once in a while, generally every two years, the Rude Pundit asks for a little love in the form of donations through PayPal. He's angling for enough cash to buy a new computer, restock the whiskey shelf, and, for fans of The Stephanie Miller Show, a plane ticket from the moist NYC area to dry-ass Los Angeles so he can take part in her weekly Happy Hour podcast.

Mostly, though, donate below or on the side because, hell, you feel like this here bloggy thing should occasionally be supported. No, it ain't more important than food or refugee relief. But the Rude Pundit would like to think it's worth more than some asshole who won't bake a cake for a same sex couple.

Great, huge thanks to the dozens of people who have donated in amounts from single to triple digits. Frankly, it's been pretty damn inspiring.

Feel free to ask any questions of the Rude Pundit, things that have been burning a hole in your brain. You can email them to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com."

Here's one that several of you sent  (that gets asked every fundraising time): "Why does the Rude Pundit not allow comments on the blog?"

The short answer, well, the only answer is "You've read comment threads. How many of them have actually improved your mental health? If you want to anonymously call me a 'Jew fag' and threaten to rape my entire family going back several generations, you've got Twitter. You can also join the rude conversation at Facebook, where there's a good chance you'll have to put your name and face on the line. Also, there's a lot of love on the Facebook page, too, a shocking amount."

Fear of a Muslim Planet: Carson, Trump, and the Cowards of the Right

The Rude Pundit warned you. He told you repeatedly that Dr. Ben Carson is a fucking idiot, a self-aggrandizing buffoon whose hubristic reasoning for running for president is "I felt God's fingers on me." No, really, motherfucker said almost exactly that. So after admitting that he's getting finger-banged by an invisible sky wizard, Carson has the balls on Meet the Press to say that Muslims shouldn't be president because they don't have the same "values" as the rest of America.

How dimwitted and worthless is Carson's view? Here's what he said in a follow-up today: "Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution." Yet, in August, also on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked Carson if the Bible has authority over the Constitution. Carson's stumbling answer was "I think probably what you have to do is ask a very specific question about a specific passage of the Bible and a specific portion of the Constitution."

In other words, Carson thinks there are times when the Christian bible has authority over the Constitution. In otherer words, Carson feels that his religion is very much a part of his public life and what he'd do as a public official. Or, to put it simply, holy fuck, this guy is dumb. Why do people behave as if he's some kind of sage just because he talks nonsense in the placid tones of someone who stumbled out of an opium den?

All over the air this week, more so than in some others, people were going batshit over fear of some phantom, encroaching Muslimization of the United States, of the West, in general. Part of it is the refugee crisis going on between Syria and Europe, despite the fact that if Europe took in the millions of refugees, it would raise the Muslim population on the continent from 4% to 5%, roughly. Taking in 100,000 people here would effectively do nothing to raise the percentage of Muslims in America.

In the United States, we've reached the part of our confrontation with an enemy where reality isn't frightening anymore, so those who want everyone to be scared have to come up with phantom horrors. We saw it with the Soviet Union and Communism. The Soviets were almost never the existential threat they were made out to be, but especially in the post-Brezhnev era. Yet there was Ronald Reagan, telling us all to be terrified of the "Evil Empire," even as it was crumbling. That's how you get and keep power. That's how you turn into an enemy anyone who says, "Um, maybe we shouldn't be spending so much on defense."

In our war against, oh, hell, let's say violent, extremist Muslims, we're at the point where, chances are, shit's more or less done. Sure, there will still be small incidents here and there. But here, in the U.S., where the only "plots" to blow up something are started by bored FBI agents needing to justify a paycheck, we had our freak-out moment, we've lost our minds and stayed crazy, to a large extent, but, mostly, it's time to fuckin' move on to the next villain.

Instead, we get nutzoids on talk radio, online, on Fox "news," and in the Republican Party spewing endless bullshit about Muslims establishing a caliphate in Peoria or installing Sharia courts in Yonkers or some such shit. They all make bank on ensuring that they have a critical mass of American cowards ready to keep losing their goddamned minds whenever Omar al-Beardy shows up looking menacing. Of course, Donald Trump was asked by some numbnuts about "When can we get rid of 'em?" Of course, the numbnuts thinks Obama's Muslim. Of course, Donald Trump pandered to him. Pandering to stupid people is Trump's fuckin' bread and butter. Trump can be as tough as he likes to a threat that isn't real. It's easy: The Rude Pundit would kick Hitler's ass. Prove that he couldn't.

To admit that the threat is far less than Republicans tell us it is would be to admit that the Muslim president did his job and that the people under him are doing their jobs. It's way better to get all jittery and bugfuck insane about Muslim leaders than worry about real shit, like income inequality or, you know, Christians being assholes about the law and the Constitution.

The rule should be simple. Who the fuck cares what your religion is? As long as you aren't shoving your god in our faces, as long as you put the Constitution above your made-up beliefs, as long as you aren't judging people because they aren't Judeo-Christian (which, let's fuckin' face it, means "really fucking Christian, except I want people to think I'm good with the Jews"), then, fuck it, be president. But the second you start telling us that you need to do something because God-Jeebus-Allah told you to or your totally fictional book of faith said so, then you can go fuck yourself back to your house of worship and run a goddamn bake sale rather than have the existence of the world in your hands.

Fundraiser starts today: The Rude Pundit is having his biennial fundraiser for whiskey, a new computer, and more (not just more whiskey). Toss in a buck or two to show the love.

Twelve Years of Deep Insights and Sodomy Jokes: The Rude Pundit's Biennial Fundraising Extravaganza

Yep, yep, yep, we're coming up on the 12th anniversary of this here local stop on the bloggery subway. Some of you have been along for the ride from the beginning. Some of you have just gotten on at the last station. Most of you probably think this train metaphor has already been beaten into the ground.

Every other year, the Rude Pundit holds a little fundraiser, just a chance to show some love to inspire him to keep going on this lonely, brain-melting task. Mostly, he just wants more liquor and a new computer. So, good people of Left Blogsylvania, he is asking you to toss a buck or two into the open saxophone case on the floor. Or, you know, just click on the PayPal link here or on the side:

You can even use a credit card, if you want.

Bonus fundraising goal: If you're a fan of Stephanie Miller, on whose radio show the Rude Pundit appears most Monday mornings, you know that Steph has a weekly, uncensored podcast, where the likes of Margaret Cho and Lily Tomlin have appeared recently. It's sitting around, drinking, and getting filthy, filthy, filthy. The Rude Pundit has been invited to come out to Los Angeles and take part. But budgets are thin for radio these days. So your contribution will also go to paying for his flight out there to hang with Steph and the fellas to make friggin' entertaining pod magic.

Or, you know, just donate so he can keep the whiskey and the words on whiskey flowing.

Finally, as is the way on these fundraisers, the Rude Pundit is opening the floor for questions. Feel free to ask away at the email address on the upper right corner. Political, personal, whatever. He'll answer one or two a day. And, no, you don't need to donate to ask a question because the Rude Pundit may be a dick, but he's a not an asshole.

Karma Will Bite Your Ass Every Time: Jeb Bush's Michael Dukakis Moment

Listen closely, children, for this is a story from the Distant Past: Back in 1988, George H.W. Bush, the man whose loins poured forth the johnson juice that became the future king, George W., and the newest attempt at a restoration, Jeb (or, you know, John), was in a battle for the White House with the very capable governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis. In one of their debates, in October of that election year, Bernard Shaw of CNN asked Dukakis if he would support the death penalty if his wife was raped and murdered. Dukakis answered, calmly, sensibly, "No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life."

Obviously, if Dukakis had said, "Fuck yeah," he would have been accused of rank hypocrisy for turning his back on what he believed. Instead, he was accused of being a dispassionate man who wouldn't kill his wife's attacker with his bare hands. Bush jumped in and said, "Duh, kill that fucker" or words to that effect. It was one of the final nails in the coffin of Dukakis's campaign, some of which were self-hammered (like the tank photo) and some that were the skeevy Bush campaign's monstrous Lee Atwater's work (the Willie Horton ad).

Fast forward to the GOP Circus of Mutant Animals and Cannibalistic Clowns on Wednesday.There, another CNN reporter, Dana Bash, asked a Bush this time about his wife. Bash brought up Donald Trump's comment that because Jeb Bush's wife is from Mexico, the former governor of Florida might have a soft spot for immigrants. Bash wondered if Bush wanted an apology from Trump. Bush did, saying, "To subject my wife into the middle of a raucous political conversation was completely inappropriate and I hope you apologize for that."

Trump was having none of it. Not only did he not apologize, but he pretty much said, "And I'd also bang your wife real good."

Shockingly, Bush let it go, moving on to larger immigration policy questions the way Dukakis veered to capital punishment's effectiveness. Later, Bush went completely prone for Trump when he said his Secret Service nickname would be "Eveready" because it's so "high-energy." That should have been one of those "ha-ha," he laughs at himself moments. Instead, Trump offered his hand and Bush low-fived it, hard, a pissy little gesture.

It would be deliciously ironic if Bush's failure to fully defend his wife's honor, to come back at Trump stronger on the apology, to call Trump some kind of name, maybe, became a defining moment for him. It would be karma coming back around to bite the Bush family in the ass 27 years later. And, frankly, since Jeb Bush has all the enthusiasm of a 13 year-old told to clean his room or he can't play Xbox, it would be well-deserved.

Also, he's kind of an asshole. Let's not lose sight of that.

Random Observations on a Clusterfuck at the Reagan Library

1. Last night's GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Library and Whitewasheteria was the kind of sad spectacle you expect to see in a terrible film sequel. You know the ones, where some coked-up executive declares, "We made a metric shit-ton of money with one villain in that Spider-Man movie. In the next one, let's have three villains. No, no, fuck that. Let's have ten villains. They'll all fight each other, sometimes they'll team up, sometimes they'll die. It'll be crazy." And then you see the movie and it's just a worthless parade of nonsense threaded together by the lamest storyline ever, just an insult to you and anyone who gives a shit about films, about comic books, about life. Yet it still makes a metric shit-ton of money, which is just even sadder than the film on its own.

2. The eleven Republicans in the spotlight at the "main" debate were pathetic in their desperate pandering to the most extreme crazoids in their base. For instance, Chris Christie was talkin' about how much he loves the fetuses. And Mike Huckabee was shucking and jiving for Israel, not, as Ann Coulter said, because of all the fucking Jews. No, it's because Jeeezus says he needs Israel as Jewy as possible before he comes back to Rapture the living shit out of us. That's right. All Huck wants is for the Day of Reckoning to come and for the Lord to take away the righteous and damn the sinners and "Fuck all y'all, I'm headin' to Heaven."

3. Of course, there was the usual attempt to outgun each other on the use of the military.  Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, and Ted Cruz pretty much guaranteed to go to war with Iran, a fine use of the blood of soldiers and a responsible use of our tax dollars. Chris Christie took the Giuliani Prize for Gratuitous Over-Sharing About 9/11, lying again about how he was appointed U.S. Attorney on September 10, 2001.

4. Lies were the order of the night. Christie also blatantly lied about supporting medical marijuana in New Jersey. He opposed it except in the most limited of cases. He has said that it's back door "legalization." He fucked with the program as it exists, to the point where the New Jersey State Assembly formally rebuked him over it. He's a shitheel and a motherfucker about it and should stop pretending he's anything else.

5. Nobody lied more than Carly Fiorina. Nearly every fucking word out of her stupid fucking mouth was a fucking lie. She lied about what was in the Planned Parenthood videos. She lied about climate change. She lied about her record at Hewlett-Packard. She lied about the need for...fuck it, she just lied. But she lied with such confidence that everyone will mistake it for truth. So of course she's the winner of the debate.

6.  It's hilarious that some people feel like Fiorina took down Donald Trump. No one scratched him at all. He's impervious to any kind of criticism (and looks terrible in HD). It was like nearly all the candidates tried to rape Trump, only to discover that he had filled his ass with concrete to block penetration. They were just slamming their dicks and strap-ons into it, thinking they could chip it away. Nope.

7. What else? Rand Paul was the sanest sounding person on the stage, so of course his candidacy is dead. Ben Carson, who pissed off the Marines, was so heavily sedated it looked like he was going to start licking Donald Trump. Marco Rubio is adorable. John Kasich was there. Jeb Bush is the Incredible Disappearing Man. None of them seem to understand the nuclear deal with Iran, since everything they said wasn't in the actual agreement is in the actual agreement. None of them seem to have heard that Vladimir Putin is actively trying to get some kind of end to the fighting in Syria.

8. The Rude Pundit watched all three hours, a punishingly long debate (and he gave a running commentary that you can listen to in the creepy absence of the debate at Rabble.tv).  Drunk on whiskey and not nearly as sweaty as Scott Walker, he felt something akin to despair as 11 p.m. approached, as if the endless stream of deliberate misinformation (No, sorry, most Americans actually support Planned Parenthood), ludicrously dramatic rhetoric (No, sorry, Iran is not going to destroy the world), Hillary hatred, and Israel fellatio was just a plot to get us to stop giving a shit about the race at all.

The way we do our elections in the United States is like a prison sentence. We want it to end, but the only way to do it is to serve our time or escape. It is madness. At this point, we should just go back to conventions where filthy deals are made by filthy people in filthy rooms. It would still be more honorable than what we witnessed last night.

Cops Don't Deserve Your Anger, According to Cop Leader

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Listen to the Rude Pundit Snark All Over the GOP Debate Tonight

So these guys from this outfit, Rabble.tv, approached the Rude Pundit and asked, "How would you like to offer live commentary on the GOP presidential debate on Wednesday night?" It'd work, they told him, like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or RiffTrax, for the kids). While the debate is on, people could listen in online to the Rude Pundit saying truly awful and disgusting things, uncensored, about the candidates and the moderators, probably the crowd, too.

And the Rude Pundit agreed to do it, as long as he could drink all the way through.

The whole thing is free, motherfuckers, free. You can go to the website and just listen to your heart's content.You can also comment on the debate or, to get crazy-meta, on the Rude Pundit's blatherings if you sign up at Rabble (also free, and the guys promise they won't spam the shit out of you or anything). A plug they didn't ask me to make is that the whole setup is easy, even elegant.

This is a new approach to doing this kind of thing. It might be a disaster. The technology might fail. Or we could all laugh our asses off at what asses are on the stage at the Reagan Library (a joke in and of itself). No promises either way. But that kind of "what the hell is happening?" shit is fun.

Come on over at 8 p.m. Fuck the junior debate. Listen in while watching CNN and maybe we can all make it through this event without vomiting.

Government Shutdown: These Crazy Bastards Might Do It Again

The cries of "What about the babeeeez?" get louder and louder as the delusional dogs of the right and their opportunistic fleas demand that no more government tax dollars go to Planned Parenthood. Even as the fake organization that set up a fake sting to get fake videos to fake a scandal release yet another bullshit tape that purports to show skeevy activity, motherfuckin' true believers are takin' it to the motherfuckin' wall. Government shutdown, bitches, rather than give tax money to an organization that spends even a red cent on making baby jerky or whatever it is they're accused of.

In fact, if you don't support defunding Planned Parenthood, you are one of those no-good assholes who "care more about facilitating the harvesting of baby body parts than they do about the lives of those children and the conscience objections of the citizens they serve," says Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California and the Majority Leader in the House. McCarthy, it should be noted, voted several times against expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program so it could cover more kids. So maybe he should just calm the fuck down over who cares about the kiddies.

You know who won't calm the fuck down, even if you use a cattle prod and an elephant tranq gun? Erick "Erick" Erickson of the conservative baby wipe known as RedState. For Erickson, if you believe that aborted fetuses should be used for research in medical science, you're worse than an asshole. Oh, much, much worse: "This is a fight on principle over whether the Republican Party should stand by and let our tax dollars be used to subsidize the American Mengeles of Planned Parenthood or not. This is a fight about whether our tax dollars should be used to subsidize harvesting children’s brains and hearts and lungs and livers." Now, it might seem that American Mengele would be the worst reality competition show ever, but Erickson really believes that fetal tissue research with dead fetuses is the same as torturing live children to death.

Remember: almost all abortions are done before the second trimester. Almost no abortions are done in the third. We're not talking about stone-cold killing a ten year-old here.

But this is where the nutzoid wing of the conservative wing of the Republican Party is declaring, "You shall not pass." And with rational statements like "Children in the United States of America are being cut up and sold for scrap," you can bet that the debate is going to be as dignified as we've come to expect from the GOP.

One GOP "moderate" in Congress is offering a deal to try to head off the shutdown, saying, "Hey, let's just defund those few Planned Parenthoods that actually do provide fetal tissue to researchers." It's a measure of how degraded our politics has become that "moderate Republican" now means, "Wants to keep the government running." And this is putting the leadership in Congress, McConnell and Boehner, on a collision course with the fucking loons, like Ted Cruz, who needs to do something other than be a lamprey on Trump's ass in order to get attention to his presidential campaign.

It's like we're dealing with mad bombers, the kind who you think you can bargain with but who click the switch no matter how reasonable you think you sound.

Ben Carson: Proof That Good Doctors Can Be Fucking Idiots

You know, just because someone knows how to crack open a skull and mess around with the creamy middle doesn't mean he should be making policy on immigration. But don't tell that to people who are supporting Dr. Ben Carson for the Republican nomination for president. Oh, no. To them, his surgical prowess and his ability to tell Kellogg's what cereals to sell as a board member there are enough experience to put him in a room with world leaders and go at it. Mostly, though, what comes through in Carson's interviews and appearances is that he's a fucking idiot. He doesn't know shit about the world, and he's a dangerous fool who sounds calm and rational, even when he's saying the most batshit insane things.

Check out his interview in today's Wall Street Journal (motto: "Soulless capitalists and wannabes still strangely read us"). Whenever the reporter tries to pin Carson down to anything specific, the good doctor hedges, avoids, and defers. It's like boxing someone who only wants to dance, not throw a punch for fear of being punched back.

When it comes to abortion, Carson says, "I support the law that we have on the books but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try to change it." Asked how he would change it, he says, "I would try to appoint people who believe in the culture of life and not the culture of death. But you do it legally and through the process that we have in place." What the fuck does that even mean? It's like saying, "I want to fuck you, but I won't do it by raping you." Well, hey, that's great, Dr. Ben, that you want to do shit legally, which might be a requirement if you're the goddamn president.

On immigration, he's got one idea: "[N]othing else matters if you don’t seal the borders. You’ve got to seal the borders. And we’ve got the ability to do it, we just have not had the will to do it. In a Carson administration, the border would be sealed within a year." How he'd "seal" the border goes unexplained. Ben Carson is about concepts, man, and if you can't get down with the concept, then you just don't get it.

Carson envisions a guest worker program for the "good" immigrants, which you can tell, apparently, by some kind of fuckin' mind meld or something: "I would certainly encourage people to look at the lives that people have led and see whether they have led positive lives and are likely to be individuals who are going to strengthen our society rather than tear it down." As for who will choose who gets to stay, you gotta see this exchange:

"WSJ: Is there a panel or an element in the government that would make that decision?

"Mr. Carson: The criteria would be set with the immigration department.

"WSJ: Border control? ICE? What is the immigration department?

"Mr. Carson: There are many components to the immigration department. ICE is only one of them. The people who decide citizenship are another component."

In other words, Ben Carson doesn't even know how the immigration system of the United States government is set up.

And that means that Carson is a fucking idiot. He may talk as if he's taken too much klonopin, but what's dangerous is how many people take his fucking idiocy for some kind of zen wisdom.

Welcome to the 2016 election where Republicans hate their politicians so much that they can't stand to vote for anyone who has held office before.

9/11 Is Okay With You Forgetting

9/11 loves that she can walk around the memorial to the old World Trade Center without passing through all the security. She loves that it's a park at the new World Trade Center, where people picnic, laugh, goof off, all the things that everyone should do in a well-maintained plaza in the downtown of a giant city. Tourists should smile when they take pictures, extending their selfie sticks to full telescope to try to capture the entirety of one of the giant waterfall holes. 9/11 knows that some will be somber, especially those who knew the dead, who know the injured, who are themselves sickened or injured from the day. She's just so tired of everything being so grim, of the unrelenting, ongoing insanity that is associated with her name.

What 9/11 appreciates is that, even on this 14th anniversary, she is able to wander the grounds, watching people, occasionally brushing against them to get that electric rush of feeling like she belongs. She knows, though, that this is a brief respite, a year to breathe, before the election next year when she will be dragged around and bought and sold and beaten and bled and fucked roughly by all the candidates, all competing to see which one can use her worst, which one can exploit her and expose her and force her to be part of every perverted idea that sprouts in their mad brains, like dungeon pornographers who think they're making art when all they're doing is torturing people so others can get their rocks off.

Already, the signs are there. The odious Ted Cruz declared that 9/11 “should be an opportunity to resolve that we will not allow political correctness or complacency to lull us into the same false sense of security that al Qaida exploited fourteen years ago." The desperate Rick Santorum tweeted, "The fitting tribute to the 9/11 victims is to at least be truthful about the enemy we now face." The terrible Lindsey Graham hashtagged, "As we #NeverForget911, we must work to defeat the #RadicalIslam terrorist threats facing our nation today." Somehow, 9/11 thinks, it doesn't occur to anyone that "the enemy we now face" is not a result of the attacks 14 years ago but of the response by the United States. 9/11 is so tired of trying to explain that Iraq had nothing to do with her.

Most absurd was Jeb Bush, who proclaimed, "I'm proud of the president of the United States at the time who unified our country in a way that was desperately needed and created a strategy to keep us safe." 9/11 had to laugh when she heard that, ruefully, remembering all the times she was pushed to her knees by George W. Bush and told, "You better swallow." God, we are damned to repeat, aren't we, she thinks.

As usual, tonight, 9/11 will drink herself to sleep. In her darker moments, she wishes that another attack would happen on U.S. soil, not that bullshit Benghazi thing that it pains her to be associated with. She knows it's wrong to want another incident. She knows many people will be killed or hurt, but she wants another date to take her place, to be invoked whenever some leader wants to claim the mantle of toughest defender of the nation. She wants another date to have to be pushed into the spotlight, to be ass-fucked by whichever politician needs some of her flesh. She wants to be forgotten, even as a nation that conveniently forgets everything else keeps saying they will never forget this one goddamned thing.

She will be grateful when the night passes. She will be grateful when the memorial lights are turned off. 9/11 wants to lay low, gather some strength, get healthy, even, before this time next year when she will be made an election's designated whore once more.

The Planned Parenthood Hearing That Made America Dumber

One of the main things we learned at yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on the non-crimes that Planned Parenthood never committed was that 1977 was a really shitty year to get a late-term abortion. Two of the witnesses were "abortion survivors." That is, their mothers attempted to abort them sometime in their 7th-8th months of pregnancy in 1977, and, because they were so far along, they were given a saline solution so that an induction abortion could occur. Less than 1% of all abortions are done by this method, and, in fact, only 1.2% of all abortions take place after 20 weeks. The number after 30 or more weeks is almost none.

One of the women, Melissa Ohden, claimed that her mother was forced to have an abortion by her grandmother, which is the complete opposite of pro-choice. Her mother didn't have any procedures at a Planned Parenthood. But the induction caused Ohden to be born instead of being aborted. It's a sad story, really, one that involves family treachery and people who should have been prosecuted.

Both Gianna Jessen and Ohden want to be held up as the reason to stop all abortions. But, in actuality, all they demonstrate is the need for well-trained staff to take care of women who come to them for help. They think they're avatars of pro-life politics. Instead, their cases demonstrate the pro-choice position about as clearly as any. And medical science has advanced a little in the last 40 years, including abortion procedures, so calm down there about 1970s doctoring.

But "knowledge" and "facts" were hard to find in the three-and-a-half hour hearing, which was less about Planned Parenthood and more about how much most Republicans really, really hate them some abortion. For instance, you may have heard about evil pig/wildebeest hybrid Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin saying, "Could you please tell me why Planned Parenthood needs to get over half a billion dollars of federal funding every year when there are other pressing needs, such as feeding hungry children, that we maybe we should be putting that money into?"

The only pro-choice witness, Priscilla Smith, the director of the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School, calmly explained that federal money to Planned Parenthood doesn't go to abortions. This caused Sensenbrenner to scoff at that and press Smith further on why not feed hungry children with this half billion in free cash. Smith said that Planned Parenthood's services are equal to feeding children because of the services it provides to the mothers of children. And then Sensenbrenner, ignoring everything that is an actual fact about Planned Parenthood, exclaimed, "How can they be the mothers of the children when children are aborted by Planned Parenthood?" Smith shot back that if you oppose abortions, then "it's a no-brainer" to support the contraceptive services provided by Planned Parenthood.

"I don't think there's statistics that support that," Sensenbrenner said, before shutting down his questioning. He'd be totally right if there weren't, you know, a fuck-ton of statistics that support that.

That was one of the more intelligent exchanges in the hearing, which was given the idiotic title, "Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation's Largest Abortion Provider." In other words, it was a bundle of lies before the first gavel ever came down. No one from Planned Parenthood was there as a witness. Hell, they didn't even have the brave "journalists" who made the fake videos that started all this shit.  It was a parade of slouching bastards, dirt-eating shitheels, and plainly delusional motherfuckers, all from the House of Representatives.

Trent Franks, flat-faced dickhead from Arizona, got choked up talking about convicted killer Kermit Gosnell, the anti-choicers Hitler, even though he had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood. Anthropomorphic shaved testicle Louie Gohmert of Mulefuck, Texas, compared abortion to a biblical anecdote about boiling and eating a child (funny how Christians go Old Testament when they want to get all judgmental). And almost every conservative man on the committee wanted to talk about the details of various forms of abortion, almost all of which are second trimester or later, which only accounts for 8% of all abortions. Guess what? Medical procedures are icky.

It's some kind of miracle that Priscilla Smith at some point didn't look at each of the asshole men trying to insult her or cut her off or trip her up and tell them to kiss her ass and suck on her JD before walking out.

(Note: An earlier version of this story said that the other witness, Gianna Jessen, claimed she was nearly aborted at a Planned Parenthood. Her story, however, doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny.)

Republicans Will Not Govern Your Sinful, Socialist Country

In some ways, newly-free God shrieker Kim Davis is emblematic of the entire Republican governing apparatus right now. See, Davis simply wanted to stop something. She didn't want to do anything. She didn't want to create anything. She didn't want to compromise. She didn't care about a goddamn thing other than not allowing same sex couples to marry in her county, the one place where she has power. Driven by a religious madness that we would call "extremism" if she was Muslim, Davis saw her role as roadblock, not as bridge builder.

As goes the Republican Party, so goes its most devout.

See, you need to prepare yourself for a coming showdown in the GOP, and while it may be delicious to sit back and watch, if the nutsiest of the nutsy have their way, they will shut shit down again over the lie that Planned Parenthood is a baby parts trafficker. The Rude Pundit will spend more time on the actual hearing actually occurring right now in our actual Congress on whether or not to defund Planned Parenthood (spoiler: it's fucking pathetic). But the rumblings out in the bowels of the conservative movement have created a kind of motions towards a climactic moment here.

It can best be summed up by Rep. Mick Mulvaney of Fuckyermother, South Carolina: "In the House—I can only speak for the House—the amount of control we have is the power of the purse. If we’re not willing to talk about a lapse in appropriations over selling dead baby parts I doubt seriously we’ll have a discussion about a lapse in appropriations over a nuclear-powered Iran. We’re afraid to shut the government down. We gave up the power of the purse about four and a half years ago. If you’re not willing to go to the mat on defunding anything, then you are not willing to enforce the power of the purse.”

That's what it's coming down to for the pro-life wing. Either you stop giving money to rip up the babies for profit, even if it's not true, or you're an apostate who needs to be cast out. Here's Erick "Erick" Erickson of the right-wing outhouse known as RedState, saying essentially that in response to a Wall Street Journal editorial saying that it would be foolish for Republicans to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding: "I say there is too much at stake not to fight. There are thousands and thousands of children who are being ripped apart and sold for scrap...If the GOP is not prepared to fight on this issue, they will fight on no issue and we might as well go with Donald Trump and be done with it because at least, by God, at least he fights. The Wall Street Journal just wants the leviathan to continue funding the crony capitalists and their agenda the Journal editorial board supports. Damn the babies."

You can look at that and admire the dullard's purity of Erickson's sentiment. Or you can say that, again and again, Republicans have nothing left but obstruction. When it comes to same sex marriage, the fight is over. But you can still try to stop it with your jailed body. When it comes to Planned Parenthood, most Americans are actually smart enough to know that the good the organization does far, far outweighs the imagined bad. But you can still try to end it. On issue after issue, Obamacare, the Iran deal, whatever, the Republicans offer nothing but frantic handwaving and occasional speed bumps. A rational party might want to present logical alternatives or offer legislation that would prevent their false narrative from ever occurring in real life. Oh, wait, those laws already exist and Planned Parenthood is following them to the letter.

Now congressional Republicans are already attempting to cock-block President Obama when it comes to making a pact with other nations on climate change. Since Obama figures getting a treaty through a Senate filled with snowball-tossing fools is a non-starter, he's trying to negotiate an agreement with the rest of the world to do some fucking thing about the weather rape that's been occurring. But an aide to Senate majority leader Mitch "Bug Eyes" McConnell "has had conversations with a select group of representatives from foreign embassies to make it clear that Republicans intend to fight Obama's climate agenda at every turn, sources familiar with the efforts say."

In other words, they want the nations of the world to be like them: Do nothing. Stop what's happening. Sit back. Tell your idiot base you've done your job. It's worked up until now. And if they win the presidency, we will once again get to see how far the clock can be turned back.

Dick Cheney: "We're All Gonna Die (Except Me)"

So it was that today, the sewage blob that can take the shape of a man known as "Dick Cheney," who was once the Vice President of the United States, undulated to the lectern at the American Enterprise Insititute (motto: "Allowing fecal goo a platform for years") and spewed its diseased combination of apocalyptic madness and paranoia, promising Armageddon should the Iran nuclear pact go into effect.

Despite the fact that Cheney is the one who swatted at phantoms with the full force of the U.S. military, even when told that phantoms don't exist, he insisted, with no evidence at all, that Iran wants to blow up the United States: "With the removal of restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program, this agreement will give Iran the means to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland. I know of no nation in history that has agreed to guarantee that the means of its own destruction will be in the hands of another nation, particularly one that is hostile. What President Obama is asking the United States Congress to do is unique — historically and dangerously unique. The results may be catastrophic."

Other than saying the exact opposite of what the deal actually does, one would have to ask, "What the fuck are you talking about, Dick?" Put aside that if Iran were to "launch a nuclear attack," it would immediately be turned into a large glass parking lot by the full force of our terrifying arsenal and that Iran seems more inclined to want to rejoin the world than fulfill some mass suicide pact. Cheney goes farther than anyone has gone in describing the threat of a nuclear Iran. Usually, it's just "Israel, man, Israel," and that's enough of a whistle to make all the hawk dogs come runnning. 

But now Cheney ups the motherfucking ante: You will be nuked by Iran if this agreement goes forward. Your shit will be made radioactive. Your children will burn. (Secretly, Cheney has always masturbated to images of scarred and screaming children. The more chemical the burns, the better. He clicks through the photos by degrees, intensely smacking his Dick dick until he reaches to-the-bone fourth degree and, "Sweet Jesus, thank you for the gift of phosphorus," he cries as he climaxes and blows out his own white powder. When the Code Pink protesters today interrupted by calling him a "war criminal," not only did it not shake Cheney even a little - it made him get hard. Hell, he almost told them to keep chanting so he could go home and commit a few atrocities on Lynne.)

The reactions are as expected from the left and from the rational: Cheney is delusional. Cheney is a liar. Yes, yes, of course, to all of it. But he doesn't care. All that matters is that Cheney justify his madness in the tones of an Old Testament prophet, carrying on about gods that are destroyers of worlds, in order to counter any of the pussies from the old team, like that traitorous black prick, Colin Powell, from incriminating him any further than he already has been. 

Cheney is our American cockroach. He will continue to exist unless we actively crush him.