Woe to the submissive who is bereft of master. What is a sub to do without a dom? Who is there to tell him to insert the butt plug with the pony tail? Where does one crawl and to whom does one present his ready anus? "Should I keep the ball gag in or take it out?" the leather slave must wonder. "And this mask. Zipper open or closed? Can I loosen the nipple clamps? What about this cock ring with a leash? Do I hold it myself? How do I step on my own balls?" God, how confusing, all that hair unpulled, all that skin not spanked, whipped, and, occasionally, punched.
Last night in Des Moines, Iowa, an assemblage of seven leather slaves stood on the stage while their master, Donald Trump, had abandoned them for his own event. "God," Rand Paul thought, "he's going to jack off and doesn't want me to lick the floor clean?"
Oh, sure, the leather slaves attempted to soldier on without Trump, having something of a debate, but mostly we were treated to the sight of seven lost souls going through the motions in assless chaps or tight thongs or, in the case of Cruz, one of those creepy full-body leather outfits. They occasionally were able to act on their own, like when they all piled on Marco Rubio and rolled around, sweating against each other over who was meaner to immigrants. And Ben Carson was like a reverse Bill Cosby, making himself fall asleep so he could get fucked.
Sometimes, sneering Megyn Kelly seemed to be taking charge of the whip, but she was a poor substitute for Trump, who, with a wave of his hand and some blustery phrasing, could cause even a rampaging Chris Christie to avert his eyes and beg to lick Trump's nipples.
It was hard to figure out who was the most pathetic figure on stage. Perhaps it was Ted Cruz, who tried to act like he could be a harsh dominant when he said, "Gosh, if you guys ask one more mean question I may have to leave the stage." In Cruz's head, it must have sounded like he was doing something brave, but even he had to realize that by imitating his master, he was, in fact, honoring him. Cruz will be well-rewarded by having the privilege of keeping Trump's balls warm in his mouth.
More likely, the saddest leather slave on stage was Jeb Bush, who acted as if he was finally free from the cruel shackles that Trump had placed on him. Bush was brave enough to take some jabs at his master: "I kind of miss Donald Trump. He was a little teddy bear to me. We always had such a loving relationship in these debates and in between and the tweets. I kind of miss him. I wish he was here. Everybody else was in the witness protection program when I went after him." No doubt, Trump will be amused by Bush's pitiable and lame swipes. It'll be the blindfold and the perforated paddle for Bush.
Setting himself up as the leather slave most likely to be punished harshly by his master, Marco Rubio kept attempting to puff up his credentials and his conservative bona fides. Rubio kept mentioning his Christianity and the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, as if one could actually reconcile those two things. He confronted his master by trying to make the world even scarier than Trump does: "ISIS is the most dangerous jihadist group in the history of mankind...They want to trigger an apocalyptic Armageddon showdown." Trump shall be displeased, and he will make Rubio's approach literal by forcing the senator to eat certain foods and exercise vigorously in a way that causes him to shit himself. Rubio will be ordered to wear the shit pants for the rest of the night.
Ultimately, Trump maintained his dom position by making the night all about him even when it wasn't about him. He could hold his rally for veterans or whatever the fuck it was, but his heart and his cock were with his leather slaves. He wanted them to suffer without his presence. This was just another exquisite torture by their master and none of the leather slaves were brave enough to say, "I'm sick of being Trump's bitch" and walk away. So that must mean that, on some primal level, they love it.
1/28/2016
In New Orleans, Confederate Monuments Are Ready to Be Shit-Canned
The Rude Pundit has an idea for a new monument on Lee Circle in New Orleans. Right now, the traffic/streetcar turn is named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, with a big statue on a big column dead in the center of the circle. A federal judge has denied a request for an injunction on taking down Robert E. Lee and three other Confederate monuments in New Orleans, so General Lee can come on down. The other monuments were statues of Jefferson Davis and General P.G.T. Beauregard, as well as a dumbass obelisk celebrating that time a group of whites attacked the integrated New Orleans police force. It's heritage, not hate.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier against the Louisiana Landmarks Society is heavy on the ol' legalese. But there is one choice line that deserves quoting. The LLS tried to use the Veterans Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act, which "makes it a criminal offense for a defendant to willfully injure or destroy any monument on public property commemorating the service of any person in the armed forces of the United States."
As Barbier points out, "Plaintiffs have not shown that any of the monuments commemorate 'the service of any person...in the armed forces of the United States.'" In a footnote, Barbier notes that, while Lee, Davis, and Beauregard all were part of the U.S. Army at one point, the monuments commemorate their role in the Confederate States of America, which is decidedly not the USA: "None of the monuments references service in the United States Army." And, besides, the monuments are being moved to a warehouse for now, not melted down and poured over a pile of Confederate flags and pissed on by descendants of slaves, as they should be.
Of course, if there's one thing that we know about the white people of the Confederacy, it's that when they lose, they are total dickholes about it. One company, H&O Investments, that was contracted to take the monuments down dropped out after the owner received death threats at work and at home, as well as threats to his business on social media and elsewhere. Other clients said they would cancel business with the company if it continued to work on the monuments. In the final insult, even after H&O backed out of the project, the owner's $200,000 Lamborghini was torched. It was not noted if a cross was burned near it.
So that idea: Instead of just taking down the Lee statue, the Rude Pundit proposes this: Lee can stay up there, but he's got to be positioned on all fours. In front of the commander of Confederate forces, Union General Ulysses S. Grant would stand proudly with his dick in Lee's mouth. Behind Lee, a male slave would be fucking the white general right in the ass. Both Grant and the slave would be flipping the bird with both hands, right at anyone who looked upon them debasing Lee.
That's the monument deserved by the assholes who have a problem with denying public space, at last, to traitors and terrorists.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier against the Louisiana Landmarks Society is heavy on the ol' legalese. But there is one choice line that deserves quoting. The LLS tried to use the Veterans Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act, which "makes it a criminal offense for a defendant to willfully injure or destroy any monument on public property commemorating the service of any person in the armed forces of the United States."
As Barbier points out, "Plaintiffs have not shown that any of the monuments commemorate 'the service of any person...in the armed forces of the United States.'" In a footnote, Barbier notes that, while Lee, Davis, and Beauregard all were part of the U.S. Army at one point, the monuments commemorate their role in the Confederate States of America, which is decidedly not the USA: "None of the monuments references service in the United States Army." And, besides, the monuments are being moved to a warehouse for now, not melted down and poured over a pile of Confederate flags and pissed on by descendants of slaves, as they should be.
Of course, if there's one thing that we know about the white people of the Confederacy, it's that when they lose, they are total dickholes about it. One company, H&O Investments, that was contracted to take the monuments down dropped out after the owner received death threats at work and at home, as well as threats to his business on social media and elsewhere. Other clients said they would cancel business with the company if it continued to work on the monuments. In the final insult, even after H&O backed out of the project, the owner's $200,000 Lamborghini was torched. It was not noted if a cross was burned near it.
So that idea: Instead of just taking down the Lee statue, the Rude Pundit proposes this: Lee can stay up there, but he's got to be positioned on all fours. In front of the commander of Confederate forces, Union General Ulysses S. Grant would stand proudly with his dick in Lee's mouth. Behind Lee, a male slave would be fucking the white general right in the ass. Both Grant and the slave would be flipping the bird with both hands, right at anyone who looked upon them debasing Lee.
That's the monument deserved by the assholes who have a problem with denying public space, at last, to traitors and terrorists.
Housekeeping: Rabble Tonight and Live Rudeness on Monday
Just a quick pimping of a couple of things the Rude Pundit is up to:
1. Tonight, he'll be watching the sad GOP debate with Jeff Kreisler (we'll probably switch to Trump's rally a few times) and mocking the fuck out of it on Rabble. Here's how it works: watch the debate on your TV or whatever. Tune your computer into us on Rabble.tv. You'll hear us moan and insult and yell like we're all at a bar together. We drink whiskey. You choose what you like.
And it's all free. If you want, you can join the rabble on Rabble by signing up (for free, yes) and comment throughout. We read and interact with commenters on the air. Shit, we'd buy a round for everyone if we were in the bar.
2. On Monday night, up here in New York City, the Rude Pundit will be telling stories live and in person at the inaugural "Political Tales with Jeff Kreisler & Harmon Leon." And he won't be alone. In addition to the illustrious hosts, he'll be on stage with Sirius XM host and comedian John Fugelsang, cartoonist (whose book Snowden is great) Ted Rall, and writer/comedian Negin Farsad.
It's at Union Hall in Brooklyn at 8 p.m. on Monday, February 1. Tickets are only 7 bucks in advance and are selling fast. So we can all be at a bar together (but the Rude Pundit won't be buying everyone a round).
You'll laugh, you'll get angry, you might cry, and you'll see hipsters in their natural environment. That's a bargain.
1. Tonight, he'll be watching the sad GOP debate with Jeff Kreisler (we'll probably switch to Trump's rally a few times) and mocking the fuck out of it on Rabble. Here's how it works: watch the debate on your TV or whatever. Tune your computer into us on Rabble.tv. You'll hear us moan and insult and yell like we're all at a bar together. We drink whiskey. You choose what you like.
And it's all free. If you want, you can join the rabble on Rabble by signing up (for free, yes) and comment throughout. We read and interact with commenters on the air. Shit, we'd buy a round for everyone if we were in the bar.
2. On Monday night, up here in New York City, the Rude Pundit will be telling stories live and in person at the inaugural "Political Tales with Jeff Kreisler & Harmon Leon." And he won't be alone. In addition to the illustrious hosts, he'll be on stage with Sirius XM host and comedian John Fugelsang, cartoonist (whose book Snowden is great) Ted Rall, and writer/comedian Negin Farsad.
It's at Union Hall in Brooklyn at 8 p.m. on Monday, February 1. Tickets are only 7 bucks in advance and are selling fast. So we can all be at a bar together (but the Rude Pundit won't be buying everyone a round).
You'll laugh, you'll get angry, you might cry, and you'll see hipsters in their natural environment. That's a bargain.
1/27/2016
Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly: Two Snakes Eating Each Other's Tail
There was that time Megyn Kelly defended Donald Trump against The Daily Beast's allegations that Trump had raped his then-wife Ivana.
There was that time Megyn Kelly supported Donald Trump's assertion about the number of undocumented immigrants who are criminals crossing the southern border into the United States from Mexico.
There was that time Megyn Kelly tried to explain away when Donald Trump derided John McCain's imprisonment during the Vietnam War.
There was that time Megyn Kelly had Donald Trump on her show so he could attack Univision for insulting him, and then Kelly also attacked Univision for insulting Donald Trump.
There was that time Megyn Kelly had Donald Trump on her show before he announced his candidacy so Trump could talk about his political views, which he did, unchallenged by Kelly.
There was that other earlier time Megyn Kelly had Donald Trump on her show before he announced his candidacy so Trump could talk about his political views, which he did, which Kelly praised and did not challenge.
Further back, in 2011, there was that time Donald Trump praised Megyn Kelly for "her moderating skills."
You could make an argument that Kelly helped create the idea that Donald Trump is a viable candidate for the presidency. But what happened?
The Rude Pundit's theory is simple (and, frankly, makes about as much sense as any other out there): Donald Trump wanted to fuck Megyn Kelly. Kelly declined. Used to always getting what he wants, Trump is throwing a sustained hissy fit. He is trying to punish Kelly for not fucking him, hence his refusal to do the debate tomorrow night. His beef isn't with everyone at Fox "news" because he is going on The O'Reilly Factor tonight in what will be no doubt a battle of bad breath. He's just angry at Kelly for not bending over when he said he wanted to be balls deep in her and maybe Roger Ailes for not forcing her to do it.
If the Rude Pundit is right, good for Megyn Kelly. It's hard to have ethics, especially when Ailes is constantly masturbating behind the set and telling you to look at the camera like you're sneering at him.
But make no mistake: Trump, Ailes, and Kelly are all awful human beings, so we can enjoy the whole spectacle of Trump and Ailes (if not Kelly herself) clawing at each other until one bleeds out. From somewhere.
There was that time Megyn Kelly supported Donald Trump's assertion about the number of undocumented immigrants who are criminals crossing the southern border into the United States from Mexico.
There was that time Megyn Kelly tried to explain away when Donald Trump derided John McCain's imprisonment during the Vietnam War.
There was that time Megyn Kelly had Donald Trump on her show so he could attack Univision for insulting him, and then Kelly also attacked Univision for insulting Donald Trump.
There was that time Megyn Kelly had Donald Trump on her show before he announced his candidacy so Trump could talk about his political views, which he did, unchallenged by Kelly.
There was that other earlier time Megyn Kelly had Donald Trump on her show before he announced his candidacy so Trump could talk about his political views, which he did, which Kelly praised and did not challenge.
Further back, in 2011, there was that time Donald Trump praised Megyn Kelly for "her moderating skills."
You could make an argument that Kelly helped create the idea that Donald Trump is a viable candidate for the presidency. But what happened?
The Rude Pundit's theory is simple (and, frankly, makes about as much sense as any other out there): Donald Trump wanted to fuck Megyn Kelly. Kelly declined. Used to always getting what he wants, Trump is throwing a sustained hissy fit. He is trying to punish Kelly for not fucking him, hence his refusal to do the debate tomorrow night. His beef isn't with everyone at Fox "news" because he is going on The O'Reilly Factor tonight in what will be no doubt a battle of bad breath. He's just angry at Kelly for not bending over when he said he wanted to be balls deep in her and maybe Roger Ailes for not forcing her to do it.
If the Rude Pundit is right, good for Megyn Kelly. It's hard to have ethics, especially when Ailes is constantly masturbating behind the set and telling you to look at the camera like you're sneering at him.
But make no mistake: Trump, Ailes, and Kelly are all awful human beings, so we can enjoy the whole spectacle of Trump and Ailes (if not Kelly herself) clawing at each other until one bleeds out. From somewhere.
1/26/2016
The Filthy Prick Who Made the Planned Parenthood Videos Indicted for Being a Filthy Prick
When last we left the dickface with the creepy cult buzzcut, David Daleiden, he was being celebrated by the Washington Post for being such a clever boy. Why was this pathetic jizz-sock so clever? Because he made up a fake organization and tried to buy baby parts from Planned Parenthood, which wouldn't sell him any baby parts because that's not how it's done, but that didn't stop Daleiden. That testicle wart craftily edited the videos he secretly shot of his attempts to buy baby parts to make them look sinister. Except they weren't and he was and remains either a motherfucking liar and con artist or a delusional shit pile that needs to be stomped and wiped away.
One of the things that Daleiden's Faces of (Fetus) Death fake-ass videos succeeded in doing was giving women-hating Republicans every opportunity to stick a vaginal probe into Planned Parenthood and see what they could find. In Texas, that meant three investigations, including one where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked the District Attorney of Harris County, where Houston is, to convene a grand jury to see just what kind of murder and dismemberment evil Planned Parenthood was up to. The D.A., being a Texas Republican and friend of Patrick, did what she was asked to do and started a criminal inquiry. And, holy shit, the grand jury found criminal activity and indicted the alleged perpetrators.
Except (and this is where it gets hilarious) it wasn't Planned Parenthood. No, the criminals here are the aforementioned dickface, David Daleiden, and an associate who helped him do his fuckery, Sandra Merritt. They were charged with a felony, tampering with government documents, for using fake driver's licenses to trick Planned Parenthood. And Daleiden was charged with...wait for it...trying to purchase baby parts.
Planned Parenthood was cleared of any wrongdoing, as it has in every investigation that this filthy prick caused to be opened against them. Yeah, fuck-ups are bigger in Texas.
As you might expect, the whining from the anti-choice forces has been loud and childish, with Students for Life (which probably describes their profession more than their beliefs) accusing the D.A.'s office of being in the pocket of big abortion: "It’s horrifying that the Houston grand jury failed to indict the organization who was willing to sell baby body parts yet somehow manages to indict the journalist who caught them in the act. The fact that an employee of the District Attorney is on the board of Planned Parenthood confirms an incestuous relationship between corrupt officials in the Harris County DA’s office and the nation’s largest abortion provider."
Or maybe Planned Parenthood is such a mainstream organization that a prosecutor in the office of the Republican District Attorney in Houston, Texas, would be on its board.
Daleiden decided to hide behind what he thinks are the vagaries of journalism, or maybe just the O'Keefe School of Douchenozzle Reporters: "The Center for Medical Progress [his bullshit organization] uses the same undercover techniques that investigative journalists have used for decades in exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, and follows all applicable laws."
Yes, everyone knows that Woodward and Bernstein created false driver's licenses to get the Watergate story. Oh, wait, no, they didn't. They had a source who gave them information that they looked into, which is really how real investigative journalists do it. They don't fuckin' put on disguises and pretend they're undercover cops infiltrating the mob. And even if they do, the First Amendment doesn't allow you to break many other laws. You can't scream your beliefs in the middle of a busy street at midnight. That shit gets you arrested, as does tampering with government documents for fun and profit.
But don't worry, oh, sweet, dumb fucks of the nutzoid Christian right. As Andrea Grimes points out in the Texas Observer, the state has your back: "The political waters in Texas run as red today as ever; this probably was quite a shock for an anti-abortion movement accustomed to nothing so much as hearing the word 'yes.' We already know that Texas lawmakers have their eyes on passing laws against fetal tissue donation when the Lege convenes in 2017. Hell, [Attorney General] Ken Paxton’s already laid out his wish list for new abortion restrictions."
If there is one notable thing about the filthy pricks of the hateful Jesus lovers, it is that they are inexhaustible in their madness.
One of the things that Daleiden's Faces of (Fetus) Death fake-ass videos succeeded in doing was giving women-hating Republicans every opportunity to stick a vaginal probe into Planned Parenthood and see what they could find. In Texas, that meant three investigations, including one where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked the District Attorney of Harris County, where Houston is, to convene a grand jury to see just what kind of murder and dismemberment evil Planned Parenthood was up to. The D.A., being a Texas Republican and friend of Patrick, did what she was asked to do and started a criminal inquiry. And, holy shit, the grand jury found criminal activity and indicted the alleged perpetrators.
Except (and this is where it gets hilarious) it wasn't Planned Parenthood. No, the criminals here are the aforementioned dickface, David Daleiden, and an associate who helped him do his fuckery, Sandra Merritt. They were charged with a felony, tampering with government documents, for using fake driver's licenses to trick Planned Parenthood. And Daleiden was charged with...wait for it...trying to purchase baby parts.
Planned Parenthood was cleared of any wrongdoing, as it has in every investigation that this filthy prick caused to be opened against them. Yeah, fuck-ups are bigger in Texas.
As you might expect, the whining from the anti-choice forces has been loud and childish, with Students for Life (which probably describes their profession more than their beliefs) accusing the D.A.'s office of being in the pocket of big abortion: "It’s horrifying that the Houston grand jury failed to indict the organization who was willing to sell baby body parts yet somehow manages to indict the journalist who caught them in the act. The fact that an employee of the District Attorney is on the board of Planned Parenthood confirms an incestuous relationship between corrupt officials in the Harris County DA’s office and the nation’s largest abortion provider."
Or maybe Planned Parenthood is such a mainstream organization that a prosecutor in the office of the Republican District Attorney in Houston, Texas, would be on its board.
Daleiden decided to hide behind what he thinks are the vagaries of journalism, or maybe just the O'Keefe School of Douchenozzle Reporters: "The Center for Medical Progress [his bullshit organization] uses the same undercover techniques that investigative journalists have used for decades in exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, and follows all applicable laws."
Yes, everyone knows that Woodward and Bernstein created false driver's licenses to get the Watergate story. Oh, wait, no, they didn't. They had a source who gave them information that they looked into, which is really how real investigative journalists do it. They don't fuckin' put on disguises and pretend they're undercover cops infiltrating the mob. And even if they do, the First Amendment doesn't allow you to break many other laws. You can't scream your beliefs in the middle of a busy street at midnight. That shit gets you arrested, as does tampering with government documents for fun and profit.
But don't worry, oh, sweet, dumb fucks of the nutzoid Christian right. As Andrea Grimes points out in the Texas Observer, the state has your back: "The political waters in Texas run as red today as ever; this probably was quite a shock for an anti-abortion movement accustomed to nothing so much as hearing the word 'yes.' We already know that Texas lawmakers have their eyes on passing laws against fetal tissue donation when the Lege convenes in 2017. Hell, [Attorney General] Ken Paxton’s already laid out his wish list for new abortion restrictions."
If there is one notable thing about the filthy pricks of the hateful Jesus lovers, it is that they are inexhaustible in their madness.
1/25/2016
Chris Christie Is an Incompetent Boob and a Goddamned Liar (Part 994 of an Endless Series)
Now, the Rude Pundit is no big-time politician who is friends with football team owners and kings, nor is he running for president, but he's pretty damn sure that if he were governor of a state that just got face-fucked by an historic blizzard with historic floods, he'd probably think it's his responsibility to stay in his goddamn state, just to show everyone that he gives a happy monkey fuck. But not New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Oh, sure, he was shamed into leaving the campaign trail in New Hampshire for a day to hang out and drink hot chocolate with the kids back at home. But as soon as the storm was over (and it was a big fucking storm), Christie told the snow-coated Garden State to kiss his big happy ass goodbye and jetted off in a private plane. When questioned about that decision this morning on Morning Starbucks, Christie, as is his way, was a total cock about it: "I don't even know what critics you're talking about. There is no residual damage, there is no residual flooding damage. All the flooding receded yesterday morning. And there was no other damage."
And, sure, the southern portions of the Jersey Shore might be a little more Philadelphia, a little more Delaware, but, you know they are still part of the state that Christie allegedly runs.
That part of the state got floods that dwarfed Hurricane/Superstorm/Big Honkin' Weather Event Sandy for them. In fact, this was their Sandy, since that the south shore dodged that bullet. But this more than made up for it. The flood waters recorded were a foot higher than the previous record in some areas.
As for the aftermath, or, as Christie calls it, "residual damage," the governor must understand that if a building gets flooded, especially if it has three, four, five feet of water in it, there is damage that may involve gutting the place or condemning it. Certainly, there is a fuckload of shit messed up. And it ain't isolated to a couple of homes.
The mayor of that town up there, North Wildwood, said, "We had between four and five feet of water in the downtown. Our entire dune system was compromised, and we had a big breach on 3rd Avenue. We had whitecaps and ice flow right through town. It was surreal."
Christie is prancing around New Hampshire, calling himself "the disaster governor," and saying that makes him a good leader. Well, shit, at least he didn't just fuck off to Disney World this time. He pretended he gave a fuck for a few minutes. If deluding yourself and lying to people is leadership, then Chris Christie should be the fuckin' emperor of the world.
Oh, sure, he was shamed into leaving the campaign trail in New Hampshire for a day to hang out and drink hot chocolate with the kids back at home. But as soon as the storm was over (and it was a big fucking storm), Christie told the snow-coated Garden State to kiss his big happy ass goodbye and jetted off in a private plane. When questioned about that decision this morning on Morning Starbucks, Christie, as is his way, was a total cock about it: "I don't even know what critics you're talking about. There is no residual damage, there is no residual flooding damage. All the flooding receded yesterday morning. And there was no other damage."
And, sure, the southern portions of the Jersey Shore might be a little more Philadelphia, a little more Delaware, but, you know they are still part of the state that Christie allegedly runs.
That part of the state got floods that dwarfed Hurricane/Superstorm/Big Honkin' Weather Event Sandy for them. In fact, this was their Sandy, since that the south shore dodged that bullet. But this more than made up for it. The flood waters recorded were a foot higher than the previous record in some areas.
As for the aftermath, or, as Christie calls it, "residual damage," the governor must understand that if a building gets flooded, especially if it has three, four, five feet of water in it, there is damage that may involve gutting the place or condemning it. Certainly, there is a fuckload of shit messed up. And it ain't isolated to a couple of homes.
The mayor of that town up there, North Wildwood, said, "We had between four and five feet of water in the downtown. Our entire dune system was compromised, and we had a big breach on 3rd Avenue. We had whitecaps and ice flow right through town. It was surreal."
Christie is prancing around New Hampshire, calling himself "the disaster governor," and saying that makes him a good leader. Well, shit, at least he didn't just fuck off to Disney World this time. He pretended he gave a fuck for a few minutes. If deluding yourself and lying to people is leadership, then Chris Christie should be the fuckin' emperor of the world.
1/22/2016
Anti-Abortion Ads That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Stab His Computer Screen
Young Marco Rubio, he of the dry mouth and bat-wing ears, may be marginally less skeevy than the cock-nosed, cold-hearted Canadian, Ted Cruz, or slightly more sincere than the febrile snake oil salesman, Donald Trump. But he is, without a doubt, just as much of a shit-bit as either of the two leading Republicans.
As the Rude Pundit has previously noted, Rubio put out one ad with his head talking against a black backdrop about how much he loves hisself some Jeebus with a capital goddamn J. Now, never one to let a good hategasm go un-ejaculated, Rubio has put out an anti-abortion ad in Iowa just in time for the 43rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Obnoxiously titled "Life," the ad shows the Rubio head talking about not abortin' the babies:
One thing sticks out in this plea to the evangelicals of the Iowa GOP to love him. It ain't when Rubio says that he wants to limit abortions, especially "those late-term abortions where children who are viable outside the womb are still being killed," even though that's buying into an extremist conspiracy theory about the incredibly rare late-term abortion. And it ain't when the ad ends with Rubio surrounded by his own litter of children, showing that he's a virile man capable of impregnating his wife multiple times (although it's unclear how helpful it is for Rubio to show that he is causing the number of Hispanics to rise in the country).
No, what really sticks out is this line: "If I have to make a choice, I am going to choose life." See, that's the end of the fucking argument. If you have a choice and you make a choice, you are pro-choice. You can't be anti-choice and say that there is a choice. One you choose, whether you choose "life" or choose to have an abortion, you can't then say, "But I'm against choice." Fuck you. If you get to choose, so does everyone else. Marco Rubio is pro-choice. He says so himself.
But not content to practice his motherfuckery in a 30-second commercial, Rubio penned an editorial for the Quad-City Times in Iowa. "Even one abortion is too many," Rubio says, without clarifying that he really means it: no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. So fuck you, 13 year-old who get pregnant when you were raped by your stepdad. You're having that fuckin' baby because God wants you to.
And then he offers, "We are a nation that encourages parents to dream big when they first catch a glimpse of their child in an ultrasound." And dreaming is all that the parents can do since Rubio's own "plan" to provide parental leave is bullshit. This is not to mention Rubio's desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood, thus taking away the ability of many women to have healthy pregnancies and births.
Rubio says he doesn't "want to tell anybody what to do with their bodies or their lives." That's such an obvious lie in an ad where he invokes "our Creator" that it's surprising that God didn't reach down His Mighty Huge Hand and squeeze Rubio's head until it popped like a grape.
As the Rude Pundit has previously noted, Rubio put out one ad with his head talking against a black backdrop about how much he loves hisself some Jeebus with a capital goddamn J. Now, never one to let a good hategasm go un-ejaculated, Rubio has put out an anti-abortion ad in Iowa just in time for the 43rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Obnoxiously titled "Life," the ad shows the Rubio head talking about not abortin' the babies:
One thing sticks out in this plea to the evangelicals of the Iowa GOP to love him. It ain't when Rubio says that he wants to limit abortions, especially "those late-term abortions where children who are viable outside the womb are still being killed," even though that's buying into an extremist conspiracy theory about the incredibly rare late-term abortion. And it ain't when the ad ends with Rubio surrounded by his own litter of children, showing that he's a virile man capable of impregnating his wife multiple times (although it's unclear how helpful it is for Rubio to show that he is causing the number of Hispanics to rise in the country).
No, what really sticks out is this line: "If I have to make a choice, I am going to choose life." See, that's the end of the fucking argument. If you have a choice and you make a choice, you are pro-choice. You can't be anti-choice and say that there is a choice. One you choose, whether you choose "life" or choose to have an abortion, you can't then say, "But I'm against choice." Fuck you. If you get to choose, so does everyone else. Marco Rubio is pro-choice. He says so himself.
But not content to practice his motherfuckery in a 30-second commercial, Rubio penned an editorial for the Quad-City Times in Iowa. "Even one abortion is too many," Rubio says, without clarifying that he really means it: no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. So fuck you, 13 year-old who get pregnant when you were raped by your stepdad. You're having that fuckin' baby because God wants you to.
And then he offers, "We are a nation that encourages parents to dream big when they first catch a glimpse of their child in an ultrasound." And dreaming is all that the parents can do since Rubio's own "plan" to provide parental leave is bullshit. This is not to mention Rubio's desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood, thus taking away the ability of many women to have healthy pregnancies and births.
Rubio says he doesn't "want to tell anybody what to do with their bodies or their lives." That's such an obvious lie in an ad where he invokes "our Creator" that it's surprising that God didn't reach down His Mighty Huge Hand and squeeze Rubio's head until it popped like a grape.
1/21/2016
Right-Wing Media Desperately Trying to Pin Blame For Flint Water Disaster on Democrats
It's pretty easy to pinpoint blame for the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The Republican governor appointed an emergency manager to oversee Flint and strip authority away from the elected officials of the city. The different city managers in 2013 and 2014 signed off on a switch in the water supply from Detroit and Lake Huron to the polluted Flint River. Yes, the city council voted for the switch to save money, but that vote didn't matter since it was up to the city manager who was, as mentioned, appointed by the Republican governor. The results of tests of the water were either mishandled or suppressed by the state's Department of Environmental Quality. That's a department that is under the Republican governor.
So Republicans are to blame. Quite clearly. Quite directly. This ain't a stretch of logic. This ain't bullshit grasping at straws. A Republican appointing people to make decisions for a town is pretty much A+B=C, a straight fuckin' line here.
But not if you're one of the spooge-bucket carriers for the sniveling right-wing in this country. Oh, no, according to them, the blame rests with Democrats for mismanaging Flint for decades, thus leading to the appointment of the city manager, thus leading to lead-fucked kids.
That's not an exaggeration of the position of much of the conservative punditocracy. The fuckin' National Review (motto: "Hey, even we won't hire Bill Kristol") has an editorial titled, helpfully, "Flint Is Not a Republican Scandal." The editorial gleefully points out that Darnell Earley, the emergency manager who was in place when the water supply change took place, is a Democrat, which is true, except that he served at the pleasure of the Republican governor, Rick Snyder, who most recently appointed him the emergency manager of the Detroit public schools, which is going about as well as you might imagine.
By the way, the Michigan Democratic Party called on Snyder to fire Earley because of his fuck-ups on the water. By the way, the emergency manager before Earley, who signed the executive order on switching water, Ed Kurtz? He's a Republican. Oh, and, by the way, the water switch? It had to be signed off on by the state government run, as you know, by Republicans.
Inflamed bunion John Nolte of that shithole of thought, Breitbart, goes even further: "The city of Flint, Michigan, has been imploding since the 1980’s. Now, due to mismanagement by city officials, the water is poisoned with lead. In every way imaginable, the city is an arm-pit. But how is that possible when Utopian-Democrats have run the city unchallenged for years? How is that possible when in 2006, Flint was voted the 10th most liberal city in America?"
Kevin Williamson of National Review says much the same: "Flint, like big brother Detroit down the way, has a long history of political dominance by the Democratic party. Its current mayor is a Democrat; so was her predecessor; the mayor before him, Don Williamson, was a career criminal (he did time for various scams some years back) and a Democrat who resigned under threat of recall."
At FrontPage, another conservative cockknob magazine, another cockknob writes, "Democrats turned Flint into a deadbeat city. A deadbeat city with high crime, high rates of structure fires, lots of potholes and failing services. Flint, Detroit, Newark, Oakland, Chicago and a hundred other failed and failing cities are their handiwork...Flint’s dirty water originated with its dirty Democratic Party overlords. Blaming Republicans won’t clean it up."
You know what's missing from all of these articles about how the poor, deluded people of Flint keep electing Democrats who keep them poor and deluded? The fucking collapse of the fucking auto industry that caused the closure of the GM plants in the 1980s, reducing the jobs in that field there by over 90% as of this year, from 80,000 to around 5000. You want to head back in time to lay blame? You better go a little further back than just the last couple of administrations in the city.
The conservative logic on this is that Flint was asking to get raped by Republicans because Democrats had dressed it so slutty.
The problem is that the governor's office roofied Flint. We know that by the emails, which show, at best, that Snyder's office wanted to close its eyes and pretend the poisoning of a 100,000 people wasn't happening. At worst, it just didn't care. And, frankly, it doesn't matter what party was involved. Someone should be arrested.
So Republicans are to blame. Quite clearly. Quite directly. This ain't a stretch of logic. This ain't bullshit grasping at straws. A Republican appointing people to make decisions for a town is pretty much A+B=C, a straight fuckin' line here.
But not if you're one of the spooge-bucket carriers for the sniveling right-wing in this country. Oh, no, according to them, the blame rests with Democrats for mismanaging Flint for decades, thus leading to the appointment of the city manager, thus leading to lead-fucked kids.
That's not an exaggeration of the position of much of the conservative punditocracy. The fuckin' National Review (motto: "Hey, even we won't hire Bill Kristol") has an editorial titled, helpfully, "Flint Is Not a Republican Scandal." The editorial gleefully points out that Darnell Earley, the emergency manager who was in place when the water supply change took place, is a Democrat, which is true, except that he served at the pleasure of the Republican governor, Rick Snyder, who most recently appointed him the emergency manager of the Detroit public schools, which is going about as well as you might imagine.
By the way, the Michigan Democratic Party called on Snyder to fire Earley because of his fuck-ups on the water. By the way, the emergency manager before Earley, who signed the executive order on switching water, Ed Kurtz? He's a Republican. Oh, and, by the way, the water switch? It had to be signed off on by the state government run, as you know, by Republicans.
Inflamed bunion John Nolte of that shithole of thought, Breitbart, goes even further: "The city of Flint, Michigan, has been imploding since the 1980’s. Now, due to mismanagement by city officials, the water is poisoned with lead. In every way imaginable, the city is an arm-pit. But how is that possible when Utopian-Democrats have run the city unchallenged for years? How is that possible when in 2006, Flint was voted the 10th most liberal city in America?"
Kevin Williamson of National Review says much the same: "Flint, like big brother Detroit down the way, has a long history of political dominance by the Democratic party. Its current mayor is a Democrat; so was her predecessor; the mayor before him, Don Williamson, was a career criminal (he did time for various scams some years back) and a Democrat who resigned under threat of recall."
At FrontPage, another conservative cockknob magazine, another cockknob writes, "Democrats turned Flint into a deadbeat city. A deadbeat city with high crime, high rates of structure fires, lots of potholes and failing services. Flint, Detroit, Newark, Oakland, Chicago and a hundred other failed and failing cities are their handiwork...Flint’s dirty water originated with its dirty Democratic Party overlords. Blaming Republicans won’t clean it up."
You know what's missing from all of these articles about how the poor, deluded people of Flint keep electing Democrats who keep them poor and deluded? The fucking collapse of the fucking auto industry that caused the closure of the GM plants in the 1980s, reducing the jobs in that field there by over 90% as of this year, from 80,000 to around 5000. You want to head back in time to lay blame? You better go a little further back than just the last couple of administrations in the city.
The conservative logic on this is that Flint was asking to get raped by Republicans because Democrats had dressed it so slutty.
The problem is that the governor's office roofied Flint. We know that by the emails, which show, at best, that Snyder's office wanted to close its eyes and pretend the poisoning of a 100,000 people wasn't happening. At worst, it just didn't care. And, frankly, it doesn't matter what party was involved. Someone should be arrested.
1/20/2016
Sarah Palin and Donald Trump: 69ing on the Road to Hell
Pausing between licks on her clit, Donald Trump said to Sarah Palin, "Now, tell me. Is that not the best tasting dick you've ever had in your mouth?" Palin, into the task at hand, uttered a muffled affirmation that, yes, Trump's penis was indeed delicious. "You got that right," Trump continued. "I make sure to keep it nice and clean. I get this special soap just for the male private area from a place in Spain. And I eat lots of fruit. Blueberries. Kiwi. Only the best. So when I blow my huge load, it'll be like sweet yogurt. You'll be asking for seconds." Palin reached out a hand and started push Trump's back, indicating that his head should be buried in her snatch and not talking about his own prick, which, to be honest, she could barely keep hard. "Oh, right," Trump exclaimed. "You know you don't taste too bad, either. You could barely tell you had any kids, let alone ones like that big-headed boy. It's a well-maintained, top-shelf slit, and I should know." Palin hit him again, and he went about clumsily attempting to bring her to orgasm. That was the deal they made, and Trump knows all about the deal.
Palin didn't need to say much in her liaison with the leading Republican presidential candidate in a penthouse at the Ames Holiday Inn. And, indeed, if you had walked in on them, you'd have wondered if it was a pair of lovers giving oral pleasure or two leathery snakes eating other from the tail up. When she gave her endorsement to Trump in Iowa, Palin went on, at length, about...well, really, it was kind of hard to tell since her "speech" would more accurately be described as an oxy-fueled, deranged, incomprehensible stream of consciousness that would make James Joyce say, "What the fuck are you talking about?" before drinking himself to a thankful death.
From what it's possible to piece together, or maybe to interpret, like it's Faulkner at his most obscure, Obama is a pussy, liberals are victimizing real conservatives, and Trump will, shit, make America great again or something. Seriously, you figure this shit out: "Where, in the private sector, you actually have to balance budgets in order to prioritize, to keep the main thing, the main thing, and he knows the main thing: a president is to keep us safe economically and militarily. He knows the main thing, and he knows how to lead the charge." The Rude Pundit reads really difficult theory and criticism. He actually can understand a Judith Butler article (shout-out to the academic geeks out there). He can't understand those sentences up there. Besides, there is no reason that we would treat this speech as anything other than ranting madness, which comes across even more when you watch it and see Palin shifting and twitching and gesticulating around like a ferret that got into the meth stash.
Surely, Trump had to pay her to be there. Palin may be many things, but she knows how to grift for some cash. She probably didn't even go to Cruz and jumped right to the billionaire so she could support the drug and alcohol habits of her brood of inbred beasts. Surely, Trump regretted it as soon as he realized he would have to stand there for however long Palin was going to have to blather on before she finally crashed and needed another hit of Klonopin or Vicodin or whatever takes the edge off her mania. In fact, you can pinpoint the moment when Trump realized that he might have made a terrible mistake. It's about 13 minutes in:
You gotta love that look of Trump glancing angrily to the side, as if asking some poor, demeaned assistant, "When the fuck is this kooky broad gonna finish? I got a tanning appointment." Don't pity Trump here. Laugh at him for thinking that he was getting a loyal dog when what he really bought was a rabid wolverine.
Trying to discern the substance of a Palin speech is like trying to figure out how to stick your hand into a roach-filled hole to get that coin you dropped: you might find what you're looking for, but you're gonna end up disgusted, skeeved out, and coated with goo. And here is that goo-slicked nickel: "The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them." Leaving aside the obvious jokes on the phrase "suck off of them," Palin dissed "crony capitalist" in front of a man who has profited mightily from that system. That kind of ideological dissonance might be alarming, but, well, Palin.
So maybe what Trump wanted was Palin to assure the yokels and the yahoos in Iowa that he was the right man to stand up to "special interests." To the rubes who would vote for Trump just because Palin supports him, that means he'll represent white and dumb and evangelical America. Their Idiot Queen has deemed it so. So it must be. The road to hell is paved with such pitiful alliances.
And Palin gets to extend the expiration date on the Palin product line. Someone's gotta pay for all that bail when Viper or Quack or Titty or whatever the fuck her kids are named get arrested.
Oh, and fuck you, John McCain.
Palin didn't need to say much in her liaison with the leading Republican presidential candidate in a penthouse at the Ames Holiday Inn. And, indeed, if you had walked in on them, you'd have wondered if it was a pair of lovers giving oral pleasure or two leathery snakes eating other from the tail up. When she gave her endorsement to Trump in Iowa, Palin went on, at length, about...well, really, it was kind of hard to tell since her "speech" would more accurately be described as an oxy-fueled, deranged, incomprehensible stream of consciousness that would make James Joyce say, "What the fuck are you talking about?" before drinking himself to a thankful death.
From what it's possible to piece together, or maybe to interpret, like it's Faulkner at his most obscure, Obama is a pussy, liberals are victimizing real conservatives, and Trump will, shit, make America great again or something. Seriously, you figure this shit out: "Where, in the private sector, you actually have to balance budgets in order to prioritize, to keep the main thing, the main thing, and he knows the main thing: a president is to keep us safe economically and militarily. He knows the main thing, and he knows how to lead the charge." The Rude Pundit reads really difficult theory and criticism. He actually can understand a Judith Butler article (shout-out to the academic geeks out there). He can't understand those sentences up there. Besides, there is no reason that we would treat this speech as anything other than ranting madness, which comes across even more when you watch it and see Palin shifting and twitching and gesticulating around like a ferret that got into the meth stash.
Surely, Trump had to pay her to be there. Palin may be many things, but she knows how to grift for some cash. She probably didn't even go to Cruz and jumped right to the billionaire so she could support the drug and alcohol habits of her brood of inbred beasts. Surely, Trump regretted it as soon as he realized he would have to stand there for however long Palin was going to have to blather on before she finally crashed and needed another hit of Klonopin or Vicodin or whatever takes the edge off her mania. In fact, you can pinpoint the moment when Trump realized that he might have made a terrible mistake. It's about 13 minutes in:
You gotta love that look of Trump glancing angrily to the side, as if asking some poor, demeaned assistant, "When the fuck is this kooky broad gonna finish? I got a tanning appointment." Don't pity Trump here. Laugh at him for thinking that he was getting a loyal dog when what he really bought was a rabid wolverine.
Trying to discern the substance of a Palin speech is like trying to figure out how to stick your hand into a roach-filled hole to get that coin you dropped: you might find what you're looking for, but you're gonna end up disgusted, skeeved out, and coated with goo. And here is that goo-slicked nickel: "The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them." Leaving aside the obvious jokes on the phrase "suck off of them," Palin dissed "crony capitalist" in front of a man who has profited mightily from that system. That kind of ideological dissonance might be alarming, but, well, Palin.
So maybe what Trump wanted was Palin to assure the yokels and the yahoos in Iowa that he was the right man to stand up to "special interests." To the rubes who would vote for Trump just because Palin supports him, that means he'll represent white and dumb and evangelical America. Their Idiot Queen has deemed it so. So it must be. The road to hell is paved with such pitiful alliances.
And Palin gets to extend the expiration date on the Palin product line. Someone's gotta pay for all that bail when Viper or Quack or Titty or whatever the fuck her kids are named get arrested.
Oh, and fuck you, John McCain.
1/19/2016
Bernie Sanders and the Death of Dreaming
It was really kind of stunning. Over the weekend, Democratic presidential candidate and man most likely to have soup on his tie, Bernie Sanders, released his long-awaited plan for "Medicare for All," a universal, government-run health insurance. Immediately, quite expectedly, the attacks started coming. This time, though, they came from the left, with Ezra Klein at Vox declaring it unfeasible and that Sanders has "raised real concerns about the plausibility of his own ideas." In the New York Times, Paul Krugman declared the plan "a quixotic attempt at a do-over" on health reform. Jonathan Chait pretty much called Sanders's plan dead on arrival, saying, "Sanders's health-care plan uses the kind of magical-realism approach to fiscal policy usually found in Republican budgets."
These are all big-name opinion makers on the left (and, yes, they are all male). And they all have great points to make about the math not adding up, about some projections on budgets and savings seeming too optimistic, and more. But let's be frank: all campaign documents are aspirational. Ask candidate Barack Obama, who went to the mat with Hillary Clinton in 2008 over her belief that any health insurance program would need an individual mandate to force people to buy insurance if they didn't have it through their employer or the government. Clinton was right and Obama had to modify his health care plan, despite what his campaign documents had said.
Mixed in with the critique of the health care plan is what writers see as a dose of realism. Doesn't Sanders understand that the Congress will never in a million years go for this plan? Doesn't Sanders understand that voters who are angry about Obamacare won't embrace something that gives even more control to the government? Does Bernie not get that the Affordable Care Act was the best that we were ever going to get and we shouldn't even try to go for something bigger and actually universal? Doesn't he know that Republican are hateful jerks and that the greedy medical industrial complex will never allow anything that would break their economic stranglehold on the American economy? Is he even serious about being president?
The Rude Pundit has read all this with a kind of sadness or melancholy or something that's like depression. If you buy this entirely rational and eminently demonstrable line of reasoning, you have pretty much ceded the political landscape to conservatives. You have said that, for the foreseeable future, the primary purposes of a Democratic president will be to nominate decent judges, to have a reasonably sane foreign policy, and to prevent Republicans from screwing over the nation to appease their insane, devolved base. You have given up on dreams, at least in your lifetime, of making the giant leaps forward, the kind of eyes-open optimism that has always driven the left to fight for its causes.
Many of the critiques of Sanders read as throwing in the towel. Instead of offering ways to make what have been traditional Democratic goals workable, to show how a Sanders-like plan could work, the writers are just done with hoping for an equitable and fair future for more Americans. After trying for decades to try to tackle income disparity or poverty or money in politics, it's exhausting to not just continually lose (with an occasional victory), but to see things get worse and worse. If you're feeling particularly cynical, you could call supporting Hillary Clinton "finally growing up." Clinton herself is guilty of pushing this narrative.
So the question the Rude Pundit has for the liberal who wants to dismiss Sanders's ideas: Are you ready to give up that kind of dreaming?
The Rude Pundit doesn't think that he is yet (and neither are a whole lot of people on this side of the track). He is thinking that he'll go for Bernie in the primary because we on the left need to make clear that we believe great changes are still possible, even in this heaving hulk of a nation. He's not an idiot: If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, the Rude Pundit will support her fully. And if you have a problem voting for Clinton in the general, you should probably ask some same-sex married couples or people who are surviving because of the Medicaid expansion what they think of your ideological purity. (Hell, he might even change his mind on Sanders by the time he gets in the voting booth on primary day.)
The point here is not whether you support Hillary or Bernie. Support who you want. O'Malley, even. It's the denigration of those things that we used to want to fight for, that many of us still want to fight for, that's disturbing and, yes, depressing.
(Now, the Rude Pundit thinks that if Sanders is the nominee, he better be good and ready for the GOP attack machine that is coming his way. We used to call "single-payer" health coverage "socialized medicine." We don't because of fear of the word "socialism." It's still got a ton of power all these years after the end of the Soviet Union.)
These are all big-name opinion makers on the left (and, yes, they are all male). And they all have great points to make about the math not adding up, about some projections on budgets and savings seeming too optimistic, and more. But let's be frank: all campaign documents are aspirational. Ask candidate Barack Obama, who went to the mat with Hillary Clinton in 2008 over her belief that any health insurance program would need an individual mandate to force people to buy insurance if they didn't have it through their employer or the government. Clinton was right and Obama had to modify his health care plan, despite what his campaign documents had said.
Mixed in with the critique of the health care plan is what writers see as a dose of realism. Doesn't Sanders understand that the Congress will never in a million years go for this plan? Doesn't Sanders understand that voters who are angry about Obamacare won't embrace something that gives even more control to the government? Does Bernie not get that the Affordable Care Act was the best that we were ever going to get and we shouldn't even try to go for something bigger and actually universal? Doesn't he know that Republican are hateful jerks and that the greedy medical industrial complex will never allow anything that would break their economic stranglehold on the American economy? Is he even serious about being president?
The Rude Pundit has read all this with a kind of sadness or melancholy or something that's like depression. If you buy this entirely rational and eminently demonstrable line of reasoning, you have pretty much ceded the political landscape to conservatives. You have said that, for the foreseeable future, the primary purposes of a Democratic president will be to nominate decent judges, to have a reasonably sane foreign policy, and to prevent Republicans from screwing over the nation to appease their insane, devolved base. You have given up on dreams, at least in your lifetime, of making the giant leaps forward, the kind of eyes-open optimism that has always driven the left to fight for its causes.
Many of the critiques of Sanders read as throwing in the towel. Instead of offering ways to make what have been traditional Democratic goals workable, to show how a Sanders-like plan could work, the writers are just done with hoping for an equitable and fair future for more Americans. After trying for decades to try to tackle income disparity or poverty or money in politics, it's exhausting to not just continually lose (with an occasional victory), but to see things get worse and worse. If you're feeling particularly cynical, you could call supporting Hillary Clinton "finally growing up." Clinton herself is guilty of pushing this narrative.
So the question the Rude Pundit has for the liberal who wants to dismiss Sanders's ideas: Are you ready to give up that kind of dreaming?
The Rude Pundit doesn't think that he is yet (and neither are a whole lot of people on this side of the track). He is thinking that he'll go for Bernie in the primary because we on the left need to make clear that we believe great changes are still possible, even in this heaving hulk of a nation. He's not an idiot: If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, the Rude Pundit will support her fully. And if you have a problem voting for Clinton in the general, you should probably ask some same-sex married couples or people who are surviving because of the Medicaid expansion what they think of your ideological purity. (Hell, he might even change his mind on Sanders by the time he gets in the voting booth on primary day.)
The point here is not whether you support Hillary or Bernie. Support who you want. O'Malley, even. It's the denigration of those things that we used to want to fight for, that many of us still want to fight for, that's disturbing and, yes, depressing.
(Now, the Rude Pundit thinks that if Sanders is the nominee, he better be good and ready for the GOP attack machine that is coming his way. We used to call "single-payer" health coverage "socialized medicine." We don't because of fear of the word "socialism." It's still got a ton of power all these years after the end of the Soviet Union.)
1/18/2016
Martin Luther King Would Still Fuck Your Shit Up (2016 Edition)
Don't let anyone lie to you on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Never allow conservatives to co-opt King's words to turn him into a snuggle bunny who just wants us all to wuv each other. King was a badass, radical son of a bitch, and his beliefs would still set the hair on fire of most all politicians of both parties. He believed in the redistribution of wealth. He spoke in stark terms about the end results of racism. He knew that along the path you were going to have to deal with liars, ratfuckers, and shitbirds, and you had to know how to deal with them or you were just gonna want to wring their necks, which is what they want you to do so they can crush you.
Here are some excerpts from a transcript of King talking to his Southern Christian Leadership Council staff at a retreat in 1966. Some of this would make it into his speeches and sermons, but this is King as a raw nerve, never backing down but always going forward with eyes wide open:
"Our society is still structured on the basis of racism. And racism says in the final analysis that a particular group is superior and another group is inferior and this is what we still confront...the ultimate logic of racism is genocide. In a sense, Hitler was one of the most honest men in history because he carried racism to its logical conclusion. The minute that he concluded that the Jewish people were inferior by nature, then he started killing Jews, and with his sick concepts and his pathological mind, and his deep racism, he ended [up] killing six million Jews. And the fact is that the ultimate logic of racism is genocide. If you say that I am not good enough to eat at a lunch counter, if you say that I am not good enough to go into a hotel or motel because of the color of my skin or my ethnic origins, then you are saying that that I do not deserve to exist. And this is what we see when we see that racism still hovering over our nation. And there is no doubt of the fact that it is still there, so we must see that during this period when we have had very dramatic victories we did not rid our society of racism..."
King explained why there was what he termed a "so-called white backlash" to their movement. It was because now they were asking for things that cost money, not just rights: "You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You [are] really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with the captains of industry. You can't talk about getting better schools in our nation without going back to see...that all schools are messed up.
"Suburban politicians talk about they are against open housing. And yet out of the same breath, they talk about they are not racists. And so what we are witnessing, my friends, is something that is very old in our country. And I am not going to be intimidated by the so-called 'white backlash' because American has been backlashing on the question of fundamental, basic, and human rights for the black man for more than 200 or 300 years."
King based his belief in wealth redistribution in his faith, taking a stand that no allegedly Christian politician would dare to take: "I am simply saying that God has left enough [to spare] in this world for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and God never intended for some of his children to live in inordinate, superfluous wealth while others live in abject, deadening poverty. And somehow I believe that God made it all. I believe that God made the coal. I believe that the gasoline that goes in my automobile is there because God made it, and I believe firmly that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. I don't think it belongs to Mr. Rockefeller. I don't think it belongs to Mr. Ford. I think the earth is the Lord's, and since we didn't make these things ourselves, we must share them with each other."
Yeah, when someone posts on Facebook about how much King wanted us to love each other, make sure they understand that he would fuck their shit up. Love existed on his terms, not the fake love of the racists in denial.
Here are some excerpts from a transcript of King talking to his Southern Christian Leadership Council staff at a retreat in 1966. Some of this would make it into his speeches and sermons, but this is King as a raw nerve, never backing down but always going forward with eyes wide open:
"Our society is still structured on the basis of racism. And racism says in the final analysis that a particular group is superior and another group is inferior and this is what we still confront...the ultimate logic of racism is genocide. In a sense, Hitler was one of the most honest men in history because he carried racism to its logical conclusion. The minute that he concluded that the Jewish people were inferior by nature, then he started killing Jews, and with his sick concepts and his pathological mind, and his deep racism, he ended [up] killing six million Jews. And the fact is that the ultimate logic of racism is genocide. If you say that I am not good enough to eat at a lunch counter, if you say that I am not good enough to go into a hotel or motel because of the color of my skin or my ethnic origins, then you are saying that that I do not deserve to exist. And this is what we see when we see that racism still hovering over our nation. And there is no doubt of the fact that it is still there, so we must see that during this period when we have had very dramatic victories we did not rid our society of racism..."
King explained why there was what he termed a "so-called white backlash" to their movement. It was because now they were asking for things that cost money, not just rights: "You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You [are] really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with the captains of industry. You can't talk about getting better schools in our nation without going back to see...that all schools are messed up.
"Suburban politicians talk about they are against open housing. And yet out of the same breath, they talk about they are not racists. And so what we are witnessing, my friends, is something that is very old in our country. And I am not going to be intimidated by the so-called 'white backlash' because American has been backlashing on the question of fundamental, basic, and human rights for the black man for more than 200 or 300 years."
King based his belief in wealth redistribution in his faith, taking a stand that no allegedly Christian politician would dare to take: "I am simply saying that God has left enough [to spare] in this world for all of his children to have the basic necessities of life, and God never intended for some of his children to live in inordinate, superfluous wealth while others live in abject, deadening poverty. And somehow I believe that God made it all. I believe that God made the coal. I believe that the gasoline that goes in my automobile is there because God made it, and I believe firmly that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. I don't think it belongs to Mr. Rockefeller. I don't think it belongs to Mr. Ford. I think the earth is the Lord's, and since we didn't make these things ourselves, we must share them with each other."
Yeah, when someone posts on Facebook about how much King wanted us to love each other, make sure they understand that he would fuck their shit up. Love existed on his terms, not the fake love of the racists in denial.
1/15/2016
Random Observations on Last Night's GOP Butt Chugging Competition
1. Last night's 727th GOP debate was remarkable because it made all the other GOP debates look like erudite examinations of the issues when, in reality, they were appalling, like going to a koala bear abattoir. Essentially, it was a competition to see who deserved most to get face-fucked by a porcupine. It's impossible to convey just how truly, remarkably terrible it was unless you watched. And it's impossible to express how meaningless an exercise it was, provoking the kind of existential despair in the Rude Pundit that he generally reserves for when he goes to the pot jar and it's empty. Where did it go? Who used it all up? Why wasn't he smart enough to get some more? These are the kinds of questions that the Republican Party ought to be asking today.
2. Everything you want to know about how unserious these men are can be summed up by how they used the brief detention of American sailors whose patrol boats had gone into Iran's waters. Ted Cruz opened with it, sneering with his sneery bitch voice: "Today, many of us picked up our newspapers, and we were horrified to see the sight of 10 American sailors on their knees, with their hands on their heads. In that State of the Union, President Obama didn't so much as mention the 10 sailors that had been captured by Iran." Chris Christie jowled, "It's a -- it's absolutely disgraceful that Secretary Kerry and others said in their response to what's going on in Iran that this was a good thing; it showed how the relationship was getting better...[T]he mullahs in Iran are taking our Navy ships." Donald Trump drama queened that he was hanging out with construction workers who were weeping over the sailors: "They were watching the humiliation of our young ten sailors, sitting on the floor with their knees in a begging position, their hands up. And Iranian wise guys having guns to their heads. It was a terrible sight."
This is such a non-story that Fox "news" doesn't even have a mention of it on the front page of its website. Not a single goddamned mention. Oh, they've got the story of the naked chick who tore shit up at a Waffle House (which, to be fair, is pretty much a description of a Fox viewer). But not a word about our brave young sailors being held captive by the evil Muslims of Evilstan. And that's because they were out 18 hours later. And they did go into Iranian waters. And they were on their knees because that's what you do when you're being arrested for, essentially, trespassing.
You can bet that Obama didn't mention it because, well, look at the Fox "news" webpage. It's insignificant. In fact, if he had mentioned it, he would have had to say that Iran was totally cool about it in a way that it wouldn't have been prior to the nuclear deal. If he had praised Iran, Republican fucknuts like the droopy sacks on stage last night would have had a hategasm so hard it would have propelled them from their seats.
3. This is the standard, though, for the Republicans at this point. There is nothing left that they will not lie about. It's why this Iran kerfuffle has to be the beginning of the battle for civilization, not a minor incident. It's why Benghazi is the worst thing to happen to this country ever, worse than ten Iraq wars times a dozen 9/11s to the power of Pearl Harbor. It's why every single one of those twats in Charleston could pretend that we are living in the end times of the United States unless one of them is elected.
Jeb Bush asserted, "[T]he idea that somehow we're better off today than the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States is totally an alternative universe. The simple fact is that the world has been torn asunder." Marco Rubio offered, "Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size." None of the candidates offered a single fucking example of anything that demonstrates their point other than that ISIS still exists, which, you know, considering how fucking long the Iraq war was, maybe give more than a few months to solve this fuckery that we created there.
How can you say, as Christie did, that "the world is on fire" and be considered a serious candidate? The world isn't on fire. A few bad events, minor in the scheme of things, do not add up to a conflagration of earth-ending proportions. In fact, the one thing that is potentially a danger to the entire globe, climate change, was again absent from the debate.
4. Rubio was probably the most deserving of a porcupine mouth rape. Every time it was his turn to speak, he went into some breathless spiel about how Obama and Hillary Clinton suck dog balls and that only he is tough enough to do the manly man things that real men can do. At one point, he pretty much accused the President of trying to actively wreck the nation: "He is -- this president is undermining the constitutional basis of this government. This president is undermining our military. He is undermining our standing in the world." And as proof? Nothing. Obama supports some moderate gun control laws? He supports Planned Parenthood? He doesn't want to carpet bomb places and wants to talk with our enemies? What did Obama actually do?
Even worse, Rubio's outright delusional lies should be enough to get him banished from politics for good. He called Obamacare "a certified job killer." To believe that, you have to ignore the millions and millions of jobs that have been created since the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, a fact, not an opinion. It's beyond mind-boggling and into something almost metaphysically deceitful, as if the ACA magically becomes a job killer just because you say it.
5. It was allegedly the best night for Senator Ted Cruz, a man so unambiguously evil and filled with hatred that he must have demon children suckling at his nipples. You know that he was good and ready for the evening because he got his college debater's intonations going every time he responded to something from Donald Trump. The most beautiful moment of the evening, as many have noted, was when Cruz got the very white South Carolina crowd to laugh at "New York values" (which must mean "kind of non-white and faggy") and then Trump, calmly, quietly, pushed Cruz against the wall and said, "Let me show you how you treat a bitch," and pimp-slapped him back and forth with 9/11. And, hate to say it, but Trump's right. You don't get to drape yourself in the terrorist attacks of 2001 like it's Superman's cape and then say that New Yorkers are shit because they think you should leave people the fuck alone to get married or be in charge of their own bodies.
But when Trump was talking about whether or not Cruz is a "natural-born citizen," he implied that Democrats might sue if Cruz were the nominee for president or VP. Motherfucker, it's the Republicans that sue over that shit. It's Republicans that try to use the courts to prevent people from running or voting or recounting votes. Mostly, we on the left don't give a flying monkey fuck about Cruz's eligibility. We just think it's hilarious to see y'all tearing each other up over it.
6. Bush had one possible moment where he could have done something noble. He affirmed that he meant it when he called Trump "unhinged" over the idea of banning all Muslims from entering the United States. Asked if he thought all the people who agree with Trump on that are also unhinged, Bush punked out: "No, not at all, absolutely not. I can see why people are angry and scared, because this president has created a condition where our national security has weakened dramatically. I totally get that."
Man, if only he had said, "Yeah, they are unhinged. They are batshit fucking crazy and if that's who the base of this party is, then they can go finger fuck their own assholes" and then walked off the stage. It's pretty much time for him to end this, especially after saying one or two halfway rational things, and he could have left with his head held high.
Of course, this came after one of those honest moments that ought to happen more. Talking about how the Republicans need to be united, Bush said, "[E]verybody needs to discount some of the things you're going to hear in these [attack] ads, and discount the -- the back-and-forth here, because every person here is better than Hillary Clinton." You got that? Bush said that the ads are lies and so is the onstage patter. Helluva job, Jebbie.
7. Kasich and Carson were present. It's time for them to go.
8. Christie lied so fucking much about his record and Clinton's record that it's a wonder the sky didn't open and a giant pile of shit didn't fall on him.
9. The Rude Pundit doesn't know if his liver can take the next few months.
(If you want to hear the Rude Pundit and Jeff Kreisler comment on the debate as it was occurring, you can check out our Rabble.tv rants from last night.)
2. Everything you want to know about how unserious these men are can be summed up by how they used the brief detention of American sailors whose patrol boats had gone into Iran's waters. Ted Cruz opened with it, sneering with his sneery bitch voice: "Today, many of us picked up our newspapers, and we were horrified to see the sight of 10 American sailors on their knees, with their hands on their heads. In that State of the Union, President Obama didn't so much as mention the 10 sailors that had been captured by Iran." Chris Christie jowled, "It's a -- it's absolutely disgraceful that Secretary Kerry and others said in their response to what's going on in Iran that this was a good thing; it showed how the relationship was getting better...[T]he mullahs in Iran are taking our Navy ships." Donald Trump drama queened that he was hanging out with construction workers who were weeping over the sailors: "They were watching the humiliation of our young ten sailors, sitting on the floor with their knees in a begging position, their hands up. And Iranian wise guys having guns to their heads. It was a terrible sight."
This is such a non-story that Fox "news" doesn't even have a mention of it on the front page of its website. Not a single goddamned mention. Oh, they've got the story of the naked chick who tore shit up at a Waffle House (which, to be fair, is pretty much a description of a Fox viewer). But not a word about our brave young sailors being held captive by the evil Muslims of Evilstan. And that's because they were out 18 hours later. And they did go into Iranian waters. And they were on their knees because that's what you do when you're being arrested for, essentially, trespassing.
You can bet that Obama didn't mention it because, well, look at the Fox "news" webpage. It's insignificant. In fact, if he had mentioned it, he would have had to say that Iran was totally cool about it in a way that it wouldn't have been prior to the nuclear deal. If he had praised Iran, Republican fucknuts like the droopy sacks on stage last night would have had a hategasm so hard it would have propelled them from their seats.
3. This is the standard, though, for the Republicans at this point. There is nothing left that they will not lie about. It's why this Iran kerfuffle has to be the beginning of the battle for civilization, not a minor incident. It's why Benghazi is the worst thing to happen to this country ever, worse than ten Iraq wars times a dozen 9/11s to the power of Pearl Harbor. It's why every single one of those twats in Charleston could pretend that we are living in the end times of the United States unless one of them is elected.
Jeb Bush asserted, "[T]he idea that somehow we're better off today than the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States is totally an alternative universe. The simple fact is that the world has been torn asunder." Marco Rubio offered, "Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size." None of the candidates offered a single fucking example of anything that demonstrates their point other than that ISIS still exists, which, you know, considering how fucking long the Iraq war was, maybe give more than a few months to solve this fuckery that we created there.
How can you say, as Christie did, that "the world is on fire" and be considered a serious candidate? The world isn't on fire. A few bad events, minor in the scheme of things, do not add up to a conflagration of earth-ending proportions. In fact, the one thing that is potentially a danger to the entire globe, climate change, was again absent from the debate.
4. Rubio was probably the most deserving of a porcupine mouth rape. Every time it was his turn to speak, he went into some breathless spiel about how Obama and Hillary Clinton suck dog balls and that only he is tough enough to do the manly man things that real men can do. At one point, he pretty much accused the President of trying to actively wreck the nation: "He is -- this president is undermining the constitutional basis of this government. This president is undermining our military. He is undermining our standing in the world." And as proof? Nothing. Obama supports some moderate gun control laws? He supports Planned Parenthood? He doesn't want to carpet bomb places and wants to talk with our enemies? What did Obama actually do?
Even worse, Rubio's outright delusional lies should be enough to get him banished from politics for good. He called Obamacare "a certified job killer." To believe that, you have to ignore the millions and millions of jobs that have been created since the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, a fact, not an opinion. It's beyond mind-boggling and into something almost metaphysically deceitful, as if the ACA magically becomes a job killer just because you say it.
5. It was allegedly the best night for Senator Ted Cruz, a man so unambiguously evil and filled with hatred that he must have demon children suckling at his nipples. You know that he was good and ready for the evening because he got his college debater's intonations going every time he responded to something from Donald Trump. The most beautiful moment of the evening, as many have noted, was when Cruz got the very white South Carolina crowd to laugh at "New York values" (which must mean "kind of non-white and faggy") and then Trump, calmly, quietly, pushed Cruz against the wall and said, "Let me show you how you treat a bitch," and pimp-slapped him back and forth with 9/11. And, hate to say it, but Trump's right. You don't get to drape yourself in the terrorist attacks of 2001 like it's Superman's cape and then say that New Yorkers are shit because they think you should leave people the fuck alone to get married or be in charge of their own bodies.
But when Trump was talking about whether or not Cruz is a "natural-born citizen," he implied that Democrats might sue if Cruz were the nominee for president or VP. Motherfucker, it's the Republicans that sue over that shit. It's Republicans that try to use the courts to prevent people from running or voting or recounting votes. Mostly, we on the left don't give a flying monkey fuck about Cruz's eligibility. We just think it's hilarious to see y'all tearing each other up over it.
6. Bush had one possible moment where he could have done something noble. He affirmed that he meant it when he called Trump "unhinged" over the idea of banning all Muslims from entering the United States. Asked if he thought all the people who agree with Trump on that are also unhinged, Bush punked out: "No, not at all, absolutely not. I can see why people are angry and scared, because this president has created a condition where our national security has weakened dramatically. I totally get that."
Man, if only he had said, "Yeah, they are unhinged. They are batshit fucking crazy and if that's who the base of this party is, then they can go finger fuck their own assholes" and then walked off the stage. It's pretty much time for him to end this, especially after saying one or two halfway rational things, and he could have left with his head held high.
Of course, this came after one of those honest moments that ought to happen more. Talking about how the Republicans need to be united, Bush said, "[E]verybody needs to discount some of the things you're going to hear in these [attack] ads, and discount the -- the back-and-forth here, because every person here is better than Hillary Clinton." You got that? Bush said that the ads are lies and so is the onstage patter. Helluva job, Jebbie.
7. Kasich and Carson were present. It's time for them to go.
8. Christie lied so fucking much about his record and Clinton's record that it's a wonder the sky didn't open and a giant pile of shit didn't fall on him.
9. The Rude Pundit doesn't know if his liver can take the next few months.
(If you want to hear the Rude Pundit and Jeff Kreisler comment on the debate as it was occurring, you can check out our Rabble.tv rants from last night.)
1/14/2016
The Rude Pundit Mouthing Off During the Debate Tonight
Join the Rude Pundit and co-conspirator Jeff Kreisler for another evening of saying terrible things about the Republican presidential candidates during their debate. Join us on Rabble.tv.
You can listen to us MST3K the shit out of the debate on the internets while watching Donald Trump eat Ted Cruz's face on Fox Business channel on your TV. It'll be like we're sharing a couch or a bed or wherever the fuck your TV is.
Listening is free and you don't have to do shit but click a button. Or you can sign up for free to Rabble and join the awesome group that sends us comments during the broadcast. Listen for a little while or the whole time.
We'll be drinking lots of whiskey and probably be high, so who knows what the fuck we'll say. But thousands of people have listened and had a blast (and some got mad and went away). Be one of them.
Tune in around 8:45 p.m. ET.
You can listen to us MST3K the shit out of the debate on the internets while watching Donald Trump eat Ted Cruz's face on Fox Business channel on your TV. It'll be like we're sharing a couch or a bed or wherever the fuck your TV is.
Listening is free and you don't have to do shit but click a button. Or you can sign up for free to Rabble and join the awesome group that sends us comments during the broadcast. Listen for a little while or the whole time.
We'll be drinking lots of whiskey and probably be high, so who knows what the fuck we'll say. But thousands of people have listened and had a blast (and some got mad and went away). Be one of them.
Tune in around 8:45 p.m. ET.
On Health Care, New Louisiana Governor Is Not Screwing Around
In his second day in office, Louisiana's new Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, signed an executive order to expand Medicaid in his state under the Affordable Care Act. As you know, Obamacare was supposed to be "job-killing," except for the part where millions of new jobs have been created in the private sector since it became the law of the land. Edwards was able to do this without the state legislature because, in its quite finite wisdom, it decided that only a governor could make the change. So now up to 300,000 people in one of the poorest states in the country can have access to the evils of government-paid health care.
You understand that, right, Louisiana? You get it, oh, sweet idiots of the Rude Pundit's home state? Right now, things suck the hair right off monkey balls down there. With oil prices swan-diving, the black gold-dependent state's getting righteously fucked and that's on top of the reaming given to Louisiana by disgraced governor and disgraced presidential candidate, the disgraceful human being, Bobby Jindal, who didn't plan for this very, very rainy day. Louisiana has one of the lowest income levels, highest unemployment, poverty, and violent crime rates, and one of the lowest life-expectancies in the entire country. Fuck, West Virginia is doing better. And we're not even getting into the effects of climate change on the state.
Now, the sad part is that if David Vitter hadn't put on diapers to fuck hookers, you'd have probably elected him and said, "Ah, fuck it" to the Medicaid expansion. And there's a good chance that you'll pull a Kentucky in four years and think, "Shit, we need to get rid of this Democrat because we're dumb and poor and want to stay that way."
Before you do that, look at what happened: You or your relatives or your neighbors just got access to health insurance. Elections have consequences. And you can piss and moan that this in some way harms Louisiana or makes people dependent on government or whatever bullshit thing you want to argue. But when your parrain gets that surgery he needs to help him walk better, maybe pause and thank the Democrat who made that possible and maybe think that he's someone who actually gives a shit about what happens to people like your parrain or tante.
Medicaid is an enormous part of Louisiana's budget - a third of it, which is what happens when your state is dirt poor. Already, about a quarter of all Louisiana residents are on the program, one of the highest rates in the nation. This is not to mention the nearly 200,000 people who get insurance through the federal ACA exchange since Louisiana never set one up or the million or so on Medicare. A big chunk of the state gets health care only because of programs set up by Democrats.
Sure, Edwards is no raging liberal. In fact, he's pretty damn conservative, especially on abortion and guns. But a conservative Democrat in Louisiana can do something that'll make thousands upon thousands of lives better, something that the Republicans there wouldn't have come close to doing. Edwards ran on Medicaid expansion and fulfilled that promise immediately. That's how the fuck you do it.
You understand that, right, Louisiana? You get it, oh, sweet idiots of the Rude Pundit's home state? Right now, things suck the hair right off monkey balls down there. With oil prices swan-diving, the black gold-dependent state's getting righteously fucked and that's on top of the reaming given to Louisiana by disgraced governor and disgraced presidential candidate, the disgraceful human being, Bobby Jindal, who didn't plan for this very, very rainy day. Louisiana has one of the lowest income levels, highest unemployment, poverty, and violent crime rates, and one of the lowest life-expectancies in the entire country. Fuck, West Virginia is doing better. And we're not even getting into the effects of climate change on the state.
Now, the sad part is that if David Vitter hadn't put on diapers to fuck hookers, you'd have probably elected him and said, "Ah, fuck it" to the Medicaid expansion. And there's a good chance that you'll pull a Kentucky in four years and think, "Shit, we need to get rid of this Democrat because we're dumb and poor and want to stay that way."
Before you do that, look at what happened: You or your relatives or your neighbors just got access to health insurance. Elections have consequences. And you can piss and moan that this in some way harms Louisiana or makes people dependent on government or whatever bullshit thing you want to argue. But when your parrain gets that surgery he needs to help him walk better, maybe pause and thank the Democrat who made that possible and maybe think that he's someone who actually gives a shit about what happens to people like your parrain or tante.
Medicaid is an enormous part of Louisiana's budget - a third of it, which is what happens when your state is dirt poor. Already, about a quarter of all Louisiana residents are on the program, one of the highest rates in the nation. This is not to mention the nearly 200,000 people who get insurance through the federal ACA exchange since Louisiana never set one up or the million or so on Medicare. A big chunk of the state gets health care only because of programs set up by Democrats.
Sure, Edwards is no raging liberal. In fact, he's pretty damn conservative, especially on abortion and guns. But a conservative Democrat in Louisiana can do something that'll make thousands upon thousands of lives better, something that the Republicans there wouldn't have come close to doing. Edwards ran on Medicaid expansion and fulfilled that promise immediately. That's how the fuck you do it.
1/13/2016
The State of the Union Is "Could We Stop Being Dicks?"
The short version of President Obama's final State of the Union speech last night is, more or less, "Here's a bunch of true shit, shit that happened. You're being lying dicks if you deny this. And, by the way, how about not being dicks? Have you thought about trying that for a little while? Stop being such dicks."
The "dicks" in this formulation are not just the Republicans in Congress, although someone oughta stomp on those throbbing pricks. The other dicks are the American people, specifically those who believe the lies being told by peckerwoods like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Chris Christie. Obama knows that his legacy is not just about what he accomplishes while in office, but how those accomplishments are allowed to flourish in the years to come.
Something that the Rude Pundit and others have said before is that, back in 2000, whatever faults Gore had as a candidate (including running away from Bill Clinton), whatever the real outcome was (Gore won; Bush was an illegitimate president), the election shouldn't have even been close. The choice was clear: Continue the shit that was making the nation relatively peaceful and prosperous after we were rescued from a Bush recession, or change to a goofy, fake hick who wanted to fuck everything up but sounded friendlier than the dude who just wanted good shit to continue (and maybe do a little something to stop climate change).
The nation shouldn't have even let George W. Bush have enough votes to make a fuss, let alone get him the goddamn presidency. But we were fat and happy and fickle and dumb and indulgent, biting the hand that fed us and thinking that we were in such awesome shape that no one could really fuck us up that badly, so, hey, let's give Forrest Gump Bush there a shot. And, unlike what happens in movies, if you elect a fucking idiot, that idiot will do idiotic things that hurt everyone.
So here we are again, coming to the end of another Democratic presidency that spent most of its time rescuing us from the fuckery of a Bush, and Obama wants to make sure that this time the selfish assholes who make up the American electorate don't fuck over everything he's done to try to make things sane again in the country. For an economy that's supposed to be at the end of a flush down the shitter, Obama asserted, "We’re in the middle of the longest streak of private sector job creation in history. More than 14 million new jobs, the strongest two years of job growth since the ‘90s, an unemployment rate cut in half. Our auto industry just had its best year ever. That's just part of a manufacturing surge that's created nearly 900,000 new jobs in the past six years. And we’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters."
That this needs to be affirmed and that people need to be told that these are good things exemplifies what Obama was up against in this speech. He was countering a nonstop barrage of doom from Republican candidates, from Fox "news," from talk radio and Right Blogsylvania, from a news media that thinks reporting facts is a demonstration of bias and thus has to engage in bullshit balance. He could have listed that and said, "And you know that the only thing that's prevented us from growing the economy more is that you all elected a bunch of dicks to put in the Congress, you stupid fuckers."
But Obama is not a man who uses a sledgehammer. No, he is a stiletto artist, cutting you in a way that makes you not realize you've been cut. Instead, he offered, "Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction." Obama, though, was firmly and finally living in reality here. After years of reaching out to Republicans to join him in doing things, he barely acknowledged that they were participants in the government. He didn't ask them for shit other than some spending on cancer research.
And when he said, "Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You will be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it," he may as well have just punctuated it by adding, "So you can go fuck yourselves" and then turned around to punch Paul Ryan right in his stupid, smirking face.
The last third of the speech was where Obama decided to try to say something to bring together the nation, and that deep, well-considered, personal, and meaningful thing was "For fuck's sake, stop being dicks to each other." See, he knows that American dickery is what might get us a President Trump and that's the death of his legacy. "[D]emocracy does require basic bonds of trust between its citizens," he said, knowingly naive. "It doesn’t work if we think the people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice. It doesn’t work if we think that our political opponents are unpatriotic or trying to weaken America."
The problem, of course, is that his opponents are motivated by actual malice, as they have been from the beginning of Obama's presidency, as they are every time a new Benghazi committee is formed, as they are in their absolute refusal to believe the very facts Obama listed. Each and every chance they have to choose honest negotiation over donor- or base-pleasing malice, they go with the very things that do weaken America, that are unpatriotic. Calling for honor from dishonorable people always fails. You can't tell motherfuckers to stop fucking their mothers. It's right there in the name.
Turning to us, the lowly voter, Obama said, "Changes in our political process -- in not just who gets elected, but how they get elected -- that will only happen when the American people demand it. It depends on you. That’s what’s meant by a government of, by, and for the people." We did demand change back in 2008. And when it came time for change, Obama didn't tell us how to achieve it, preferring to attempt to do it on his own, to do it by thinking the very people who had wrecked the country would be willing and able partners in rebuilding it.
The sad truth about the Obama presidency is that, while so very much has been accomplished, the President's own optimism and belief in the goodness of people prevented him from pushing those who would get in the way off the road. He ended the speech by saying, "I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people."
Sure, but we're kind of egotistical, selfish dicks. And the thing about selfish dicks is that if you don't show them another way to be, one that will benefit them more, they will go right back to being selfish dicks.
(Note: Yeah, all that shit about how many people he's drone murdered or assassinated was fucked-up. But at least he said he wouldn't carpet bomb or get into another Vietnam, so thanks for that.)
The "dicks" in this formulation are not just the Republicans in Congress, although someone oughta stomp on those throbbing pricks. The other dicks are the American people, specifically those who believe the lies being told by peckerwoods like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Chris Christie. Obama knows that his legacy is not just about what he accomplishes while in office, but how those accomplishments are allowed to flourish in the years to come.
Something that the Rude Pundit and others have said before is that, back in 2000, whatever faults Gore had as a candidate (including running away from Bill Clinton), whatever the real outcome was (Gore won; Bush was an illegitimate president), the election shouldn't have even been close. The choice was clear: Continue the shit that was making the nation relatively peaceful and prosperous after we were rescued from a Bush recession, or change to a goofy, fake hick who wanted to fuck everything up but sounded friendlier than the dude who just wanted good shit to continue (and maybe do a little something to stop climate change).
The nation shouldn't have even let George W. Bush have enough votes to make a fuss, let alone get him the goddamn presidency. But we were fat and happy and fickle and dumb and indulgent, biting the hand that fed us and thinking that we were in such awesome shape that no one could really fuck us up that badly, so, hey, let's give Forrest Gump Bush there a shot. And, unlike what happens in movies, if you elect a fucking idiot, that idiot will do idiotic things that hurt everyone.
So here we are again, coming to the end of another Democratic presidency that spent most of its time rescuing us from the fuckery of a Bush, and Obama wants to make sure that this time the selfish assholes who make up the American electorate don't fuck over everything he's done to try to make things sane again in the country. For an economy that's supposed to be at the end of a flush down the shitter, Obama asserted, "We’re in the middle of the longest streak of private sector job creation in history. More than 14 million new jobs, the strongest two years of job growth since the ‘90s, an unemployment rate cut in half. Our auto industry just had its best year ever. That's just part of a manufacturing surge that's created nearly 900,000 new jobs in the past six years. And we’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters."
That this needs to be affirmed and that people need to be told that these are good things exemplifies what Obama was up against in this speech. He was countering a nonstop barrage of doom from Republican candidates, from Fox "news," from talk radio and Right Blogsylvania, from a news media that thinks reporting facts is a demonstration of bias and thus has to engage in bullshit balance. He could have listed that and said, "And you know that the only thing that's prevented us from growing the economy more is that you all elected a bunch of dicks to put in the Congress, you stupid fuckers."
But Obama is not a man who uses a sledgehammer. No, he is a stiletto artist, cutting you in a way that makes you not realize you've been cut. Instead, he offered, "Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction." Obama, though, was firmly and finally living in reality here. After years of reaching out to Republicans to join him in doing things, he barely acknowledged that they were participants in the government. He didn't ask them for shit other than some spending on cancer research.
And when he said, "Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You will be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it," he may as well have just punctuated it by adding, "So you can go fuck yourselves" and then turned around to punch Paul Ryan right in his stupid, smirking face.
The last third of the speech was where Obama decided to try to say something to bring together the nation, and that deep, well-considered, personal, and meaningful thing was "For fuck's sake, stop being dicks to each other." See, he knows that American dickery is what might get us a President Trump and that's the death of his legacy. "[D]emocracy does require basic bonds of trust between its citizens," he said, knowingly naive. "It doesn’t work if we think the people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice. It doesn’t work if we think that our political opponents are unpatriotic or trying to weaken America."
The problem, of course, is that his opponents are motivated by actual malice, as they have been from the beginning of Obama's presidency, as they are every time a new Benghazi committee is formed, as they are in their absolute refusal to believe the very facts Obama listed. Each and every chance they have to choose honest negotiation over donor- or base-pleasing malice, they go with the very things that do weaken America, that are unpatriotic. Calling for honor from dishonorable people always fails. You can't tell motherfuckers to stop fucking their mothers. It's right there in the name.
Turning to us, the lowly voter, Obama said, "Changes in our political process -- in not just who gets elected, but how they get elected -- that will only happen when the American people demand it. It depends on you. That’s what’s meant by a government of, by, and for the people." We did demand change back in 2008. And when it came time for change, Obama didn't tell us how to achieve it, preferring to attempt to do it on his own, to do it by thinking the very people who had wrecked the country would be willing and able partners in rebuilding it.
The sad truth about the Obama presidency is that, while so very much has been accomplished, the President's own optimism and belief in the goodness of people prevented him from pushing those who would get in the way off the road. He ended the speech by saying, "I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people."
Sure, but we're kind of egotistical, selfish dicks. And the thing about selfish dicks is that if you don't show them another way to be, one that will benefit them more, they will go right back to being selfish dicks.
(Note: Yeah, all that shit about how many people he's drone murdered or assassinated was fucked-up. But at least he said he wouldn't carpet bomb or get into another Vietnam, so thanks for that.)
1/12/2016
Note to David Brooks: What Fucking Evangelicals Are You Talking About?
The Rude Pundit really wants to know what nation New York Times columnist and former serial swirlie recipient David Brooks is referring to in his most recent "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the contemplations of a lengthy refractory period between sessions of jacking off to armpit-fucking porn"). Because, see, if you've been paying attention to American politics and religion in the last, oh, say, 35 years, you know that no one who lives in what we might politely call "goddamned reality" could say, "Traditionally, candidates who have attracted strong evangelical support have in part emphasized the need to lend a helping hand to the economically stressed and the least fortunate among us."
This is in an article where Brooks is shocked to his garters that Republican Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz just might be a cruel motherfucker who believes in an apocalyptic vision of America as a barren hellscape of raping immigrants, suicide bombing Muslims, and gay aborted fetuses getting married. "[I]n his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace," Brooks mourns, and, no, really, he's dead serious there.
Which fucking Christians in politics is he talking about? Because it sure as shit ain't the conservative evangelicals. Back in 1988, televangelist and man who has lived way too long Pat Robertson ran for president, winning four states and scaring the shit out of the establishment. And that Christian son of a bitch (his mother was a dog) was on a goddamned crusade against anyone who supported abortion rights, opposed school prayer, and said that scientists should determine science. When Robertson launched his campaign (well, technically a campaign to campaign) in 1986, he gave a speech where he described a country that was descending into a morass of sin and disease and communism: "Ladies and gentlemen, what we are facing is not a governmental problem, it is a moral problem. Human cruelty, human selfishness, alcoholism, drug addiction, and sexual promiscuity will always bring poverty and the disintegration of society. The answer for us does not lie in institutionalizing aberrant behavior -- whether that behavior is substance abuse or sexual perversion. And certainly the answer does not lie in once again penalizing the productive sector of our society with high taxes and wasteful spending." And, remember, this was after over five years of Reagan.
Like every fucking bullshit Christian, the solution to poverty was the free market for Robertson, not actual programs. So where the fuck does Brooks get his information when he says, "The best conservatism balances support for free markets with a Judeo-Christian spirit of charity, compassion and solidarity." No. Jesus doesn't say jackshit about free markets. He says take care of the poor. You can pretend that's Christian because you happen to be a free market conservative who believes Christian hoodoo, but that doesn't mean it's "Christian" in the sense of, you know, Christ, the biblical dude.
Other have dealt with Cruz's contemporaries who Brooks views as better Christians (really, David? Mike Huckabee? Jesus would turn that hateful cockknob inside out and dance with his organs). To return to Robertson, after his campaign was finally over, George Bush and Dan Quayle had to kiss fundamentalist ass to get endorsements, pressing their lips to the bright white buttocks of Robertson and Jerry Falwell. The Christian Coalition became a presence in American politics throughout the 1990s. Their existence and their bitch members of Congress were a big reason we had to go through the fucking Clinton impeachment nightmare. And those taintfleas all but accused then First Lady Hillary Clinton of being a witch and demanding her burning.
Brooks writes, "Evangelicals and other conservatives have had their best influence on American politics when they have proceeded in a spirit of personalism — when they have answered hostility with service and emphasized the infinite dignity of each person. They have won elections as happy and hopeful warriors." No, they didn't. They won as hateful motherfuckers who only want everyone else to fuck their mothers just like them. Actually, the evangelicals who do give a shit about the poor are liberals and would rather be crucified than vote for Republican jackals and whores.
Ted Cruz isn't an anomaly in his "brutalism," as Brooks puts it. He's modern Christian fundamentalism's perfect example.
(Note: Don't google "armpit fucking" unless you want to see men fucking armpits.)
This is in an article where Brooks is shocked to his garters that Republican Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz just might be a cruel motherfucker who believes in an apocalyptic vision of America as a barren hellscape of raping immigrants, suicide bombing Muslims, and gay aborted fetuses getting married. "[I]n his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace," Brooks mourns, and, no, really, he's dead serious there.
Which fucking Christians in politics is he talking about? Because it sure as shit ain't the conservative evangelicals. Back in 1988, televangelist and man who has lived way too long Pat Robertson ran for president, winning four states and scaring the shit out of the establishment. And that Christian son of a bitch (his mother was a dog) was on a goddamned crusade against anyone who supported abortion rights, opposed school prayer, and said that scientists should determine science. When Robertson launched his campaign (well, technically a campaign to campaign) in 1986, he gave a speech where he described a country that was descending into a morass of sin and disease and communism: "Ladies and gentlemen, what we are facing is not a governmental problem, it is a moral problem. Human cruelty, human selfishness, alcoholism, drug addiction, and sexual promiscuity will always bring poverty and the disintegration of society. The answer for us does not lie in institutionalizing aberrant behavior -- whether that behavior is substance abuse or sexual perversion. And certainly the answer does not lie in once again penalizing the productive sector of our society with high taxes and wasteful spending." And, remember, this was after over five years of Reagan.
Like every fucking bullshit Christian, the solution to poverty was the free market for Robertson, not actual programs. So where the fuck does Brooks get his information when he says, "The best conservatism balances support for free markets with a Judeo-Christian spirit of charity, compassion and solidarity." No. Jesus doesn't say jackshit about free markets. He says take care of the poor. You can pretend that's Christian because you happen to be a free market conservative who believes Christian hoodoo, but that doesn't mean it's "Christian" in the sense of, you know, Christ, the biblical dude.
Other have dealt with Cruz's contemporaries who Brooks views as better Christians (really, David? Mike Huckabee? Jesus would turn that hateful cockknob inside out and dance with his organs). To return to Robertson, after his campaign was finally over, George Bush and Dan Quayle had to kiss fundamentalist ass to get endorsements, pressing their lips to the bright white buttocks of Robertson and Jerry Falwell. The Christian Coalition became a presence in American politics throughout the 1990s. Their existence and their bitch members of Congress were a big reason we had to go through the fucking Clinton impeachment nightmare. And those taintfleas all but accused then First Lady Hillary Clinton of being a witch and demanding her burning.
Brooks writes, "Evangelicals and other conservatives have had their best influence on American politics when they have proceeded in a spirit of personalism — when they have answered hostility with service and emphasized the infinite dignity of each person. They have won elections as happy and hopeful warriors." No, they didn't. They won as hateful motherfuckers who only want everyone else to fuck their mothers just like them. Actually, the evangelicals who do give a shit about the poor are liberals and would rather be crucified than vote for Republican jackals and whores.
Ted Cruz isn't an anomaly in his "brutalism," as Brooks puts it. He's modern Christian fundamentalism's perfect example.
(Note: Don't google "armpit fucking" unless you want to see men fucking armpits.)
1/11/2016
Freeman Elementary School in Flint, Michigan: A Demonstration of Heartbreaking Urban Disregard
If you go looking for information or updates on the crisis of lead poisoning the water of Flint, Michigan, you'll come across so many stories that make you despair for the treatment of the urban, industrial population in this greatest nation in the history of everything ever. If you're not up on this insane story about the criminal neglect and outright damnation of a poor city, especially its children, by cost-cutting Republicans, Rachel Maddow and her staff have been doing the kind of investigative reporting work that used to be a regular part of our media. If it's too much work to watch Maddow, you can read a quick summary to get up to speed.
The shortest version: budget-cutting, state-appointed emergency managers switched the water supply for Flint from Lake Huron to the polluted Flint River through sheer ignorance and wanton fuckery. By the time anyone listened that the water was poisoned, the chemicals had fucked up the pipes, and they continue to leech lead into the water supply so no one can drink from the faucet. If the state was led by honorable people, they would have lined up and sliced open their own guts with daggers to apologize.
Which gets us to Freeman Elementary School, a pre-kindergarten to sixth-grade public school in Flint and its family fun day, which will be held tomorrow at the school. Of course, it's not going to be just family fun, as a headline from the local paper reveals:
Yes, as the article says, "Children will be able to get their blood tested for lead during a family fun night this week at Freeman Elementary School in Flint." And then, heartbreakingly, "Lead testing is planned for infants up to children six years old, along with water filter giveaways, dance fitness for children, face painting, balloon artist, a free healthy meal, refreshments and raffles."
Think about that. This was supposed to be an event with dancing kids with cat whiskers drawn on their faces, eating healthy food, and winning a damn raffle. Now, it's being used as a chance for parents in one of the poorest cities in the country to see if their state has permanently damaged their kids because that's better than spending a little extra money on water tests or, you know, water safety. And what are they raffling now? Aquafina twelve-packs?
Never has the phrase "family fun" seemed more pathetic.
Before the recent pressures on the state to do something about the water issue, a local resident had to start a GoFundMe page to raise money to get water for the kids of Michigan. In the photo up there, you see kids at Freeman Elementary helping after they unloaded bottled water from a truck at the school in October.
Freeman's water was tested back then and it showed a level of lead at seven times what's considered unsafe. And if that appalls you, here's the kick in the nuts: the lead level wasn't due to the pipes. No, the lead was in the faucets and fountain fixtures in the school itself.
The district that Freeman serves is middling dangerous compared to other areas of Flint, the most dangerous city in the country 2013, with many people there exercising their Second Amendment rights, even if that ends up killing kids from the school, like 9 year-old Treshawn Macklin a year and a half ago. It's very poor, even in a city with 40% of its citizens living below the poverty line, and the number of homes in foreclosure is very high. The test scores at Freeman, a pretty small school, one that has shrunk in the last few years, aren't good, but they are about the average for the district.
You can bet that there are teachers who are trying their damnedest. You can bet there are parents who want something better for their kids. And you can bet that the state of Michigan and the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder have made a nearly impossible situation for those kids, those families, those teachers, much, much worse. They didn't give a shit because who the fuck cares what happens to them anyways. Budgets must be balanced. Yet...
Want one more punch in the face before you get back to mourning David Bowie? Michigan has a $700 million surplus in its state budget. It would have cost perhaps $100 a day to put phosphates into the water when the supply was first switched to prevent the water from corroding the pipes. That's $36, 500 a year. Now, it could cost $1.5 billion to replace the pipes. Republicans should probably go back to elementary school to learn math.
But, hey, Powerball's gonna give away a billion bucks, so...USA?
The shortest version: budget-cutting, state-appointed emergency managers switched the water supply for Flint from Lake Huron to the polluted Flint River through sheer ignorance and wanton fuckery. By the time anyone listened that the water was poisoned, the chemicals had fucked up the pipes, and they continue to leech lead into the water supply so no one can drink from the faucet. If the state was led by honorable people, they would have lined up and sliced open their own guts with daggers to apologize.
Which gets us to Freeman Elementary School, a pre-kindergarten to sixth-grade public school in Flint and its family fun day, which will be held tomorrow at the school. Of course, it's not going to be just family fun, as a headline from the local paper reveals:
Yes, as the article says, "Children will be able to get their blood tested for lead during a family fun night this week at Freeman Elementary School in Flint." And then, heartbreakingly, "Lead testing is planned for infants up to children six years old, along with water filter giveaways, dance fitness for children, face painting, balloon artist, a free healthy meal, refreshments and raffles."
Think about that. This was supposed to be an event with dancing kids with cat whiskers drawn on their faces, eating healthy food, and winning a damn raffle. Now, it's being used as a chance for parents in one of the poorest cities in the country to see if their state has permanently damaged their kids because that's better than spending a little extra money on water tests or, you know, water safety. And what are they raffling now? Aquafina twelve-packs?
Never has the phrase "family fun" seemed more pathetic.
Before the recent pressures on the state to do something about the water issue, a local resident had to start a GoFundMe page to raise money to get water for the kids of Michigan. In the photo up there, you see kids at Freeman Elementary helping after they unloaded bottled water from a truck at the school in October.
Freeman's water was tested back then and it showed a level of lead at seven times what's considered unsafe. And if that appalls you, here's the kick in the nuts: the lead level wasn't due to the pipes. No, the lead was in the faucets and fountain fixtures in the school itself.
The district that Freeman serves is middling dangerous compared to other areas of Flint, the most dangerous city in the country 2013, with many people there exercising their Second Amendment rights, even if that ends up killing kids from the school, like 9 year-old Treshawn Macklin a year and a half ago. It's very poor, even in a city with 40% of its citizens living below the poverty line, and the number of homes in foreclosure is very high. The test scores at Freeman, a pretty small school, one that has shrunk in the last few years, aren't good, but they are about the average for the district.
You can bet that there are teachers who are trying their damnedest. You can bet there are parents who want something better for their kids. And you can bet that the state of Michigan and the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder have made a nearly impossible situation for those kids, those families, those teachers, much, much worse. They didn't give a shit because who the fuck cares what happens to them anyways. Budgets must be balanced. Yet...
Want one more punch in the face before you get back to mourning David Bowie? Michigan has a $700 million surplus in its state budget. It would have cost perhaps $100 a day to put phosphates into the water when the supply was first switched to prevent the water from corroding the pipes. That's $36, 500 a year. Now, it could cost $1.5 billion to replace the pipes. Republicans should probably go back to elementary school to learn math.
But, hey, Powerball's gonna give away a billion bucks, so...USA?
1/08/2016
Campaign Ads That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Shoot Up Fentanyl: Cruz's Creative Craps
Ted Cruz's current role in the election is to be the secretly-deranged Eddie Haskell to Donald Trump's full-bore psychopathic Dennis the Menace (while Rubio and Christie do their Gilligan and Skipper routine - where the boomers and Gen Xers at?). By sounding like a reasonable human being while saying the most inhuman things, Cruz has skated for a while as Trump drew fire by saying pretty much the exact same thing as Cruz, except translated into his native motherfucker.
Check out Cruz telling 30 year-old Ofelia Valdez, who was brought to the United States as an undocumented child and allowed to stay under President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, that in a Cruz presidency, her status would be revoked and she would be deported. He does it without a thought that an actual person is before him, as if he's scolding a dog for shitting the floor. Of course, the gathered assholes applaud Cruz. By the way, Valdez works as a human resources director at a non-profit for special needs children, which makes her exactly a million times more valuable to this country than Ted Cruz.
For the purist expression of Cruz's particularly cruel and dumb dickishness, watch a recent, real ad titled "Invasion." It's remarkable because someone actually gave a shit about the quality of the filming:
So the point of the thing is to show well-dressed people crossing the border while Cruz's voice tells us that if lawyers and bankers were coming into this country without papers and "driving down wages" in those areas, the media would be clamoring for the borders to be closed. Now, the Rude Pundit's no immigration expert, but he's pretty sure that a whole lot of bankers and lawyers and all kinds of professionals are here past their initial various visas to come to the United States. That group of people, professionals, workers, students, and others with expired visas, makes up about 40% of the undocumented population. And wages for bankers are just fine.
So while Cruz thinks he's making a mighty point about how punk-ass liberals in the media would only care about border security if it affected them and their apparently rich friends, the ad, with its ominous, thumping music and its token moment of showing Cruz next to a nervous-looking Marco Rubio, ignores the pertinent fact that one reason that the left wants immigration reform is to raise wages for everyone and to end the exploitation of the undocumented (and this is not to mention the extraordinary decline of border crossers in the last few years). Cruz doesn't give a sad raccoon shit about the wages of regular workers, American or people here legally or not.
That one's hilarious in its hyperbole. It's a perfect ad because it says nothing other than that Cruz wants a wall, more border agents, and crocodiles with AR-15s in a moat or some such shit. For pure, undiluted Ted Cruz shot directly into your eyeballs and ears with a long needle, see how long you can make it through this 30-second ad:
That's Cruz talking about...who the fuck cares? It's wrong and/or meaningless. Look at that cock-nosed son of a bitch. Listen to his voice, like a neighbor named Gladys who yells across the yard at Ozzie and Harriet. You want that fucker piercing your skull with that voice for four years? You want to look at that needy piece of shit, begging for your approval, like a teenage boy trying to get the girl he just prematurely ejaculated all over to tell him he's a great lay?
That Cruz can actually have a shot at the nomination says more about the absence of anyone of merit on the right who can get back the crazies in the base than even the existence of Trump.
Check out Cruz telling 30 year-old Ofelia Valdez, who was brought to the United States as an undocumented child and allowed to stay under President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, that in a Cruz presidency, her status would be revoked and she would be deported. He does it without a thought that an actual person is before him, as if he's scolding a dog for shitting the floor. Of course, the gathered assholes applaud Cruz. By the way, Valdez works as a human resources director at a non-profit for special needs children, which makes her exactly a million times more valuable to this country than Ted Cruz.
For the purist expression of Cruz's particularly cruel and dumb dickishness, watch a recent, real ad titled "Invasion." It's remarkable because someone actually gave a shit about the quality of the filming:
So the point of the thing is to show well-dressed people crossing the border while Cruz's voice tells us that if lawyers and bankers were coming into this country without papers and "driving down wages" in those areas, the media would be clamoring for the borders to be closed. Now, the Rude Pundit's no immigration expert, but he's pretty sure that a whole lot of bankers and lawyers and all kinds of professionals are here past their initial various visas to come to the United States. That group of people, professionals, workers, students, and others with expired visas, makes up about 40% of the undocumented population. And wages for bankers are just fine.
So while Cruz thinks he's making a mighty point about how punk-ass liberals in the media would only care about border security if it affected them and their apparently rich friends, the ad, with its ominous, thumping music and its token moment of showing Cruz next to a nervous-looking Marco Rubio, ignores the pertinent fact that one reason that the left wants immigration reform is to raise wages for everyone and to end the exploitation of the undocumented (and this is not to mention the extraordinary decline of border crossers in the last few years). Cruz doesn't give a sad raccoon shit about the wages of regular workers, American or people here legally or not.
That one's hilarious in its hyperbole. It's a perfect ad because it says nothing other than that Cruz wants a wall, more border agents, and crocodiles with AR-15s in a moat or some such shit. For pure, undiluted Ted Cruz shot directly into your eyeballs and ears with a long needle, see how long you can make it through this 30-second ad:
That's Cruz talking about...who the fuck cares? It's wrong and/or meaningless. Look at that cock-nosed son of a bitch. Listen to his voice, like a neighbor named Gladys who yells across the yard at Ozzie and Harriet. You want that fucker piercing your skull with that voice for four years? You want to look at that needy piece of shit, begging for your approval, like a teenage boy trying to get the girl he just prematurely ejaculated all over to tell him he's a great lay?
That Cruz can actually have a shot at the nomination says more about the absence of anyone of merit on the right who can get back the crazies in the base than even the existence of Trump.
1/07/2016
Campaign Ads That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Shoot Up Fentanyl: Marco Rubio Fellates Jesus
If you want to stare into the deep, gaping, wrecked anus of the Republican campaign for president, just take a couple of minutes and watch the TV ads that the actual candidates are releasing (not their slut SuperPACs). You'll see not just pandering, but the kind of begging to be loved that you usually see in a desperate old man whose latest boy toy has gotten a sudden surge of independence. It's pathetic and sad and awkward and generally ends with jizz, blood, or both.
For instance, check out this thing from Marco Rubio that's running in Iowa:
Putting on fundamentalist drag, Rubio kneels before his lord and smiles lasciviously: "Our goal is eternity, the ability to live alongside our Creator and for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ." Oh, sure, Jesus is just giving free stuff away for the takers.
He blows Jesus vigorously along these lines: "The struggle on a daily basis as a Christian is to remind ourselves of this. The purpose of our life is to cooperate with God’s plan, to those who much has been given much is expected and we will be asked to account for that." Now, you might remember that Rubio said in November that if civil laws conflict with God's "rules," God always wins, even if that means defying the law. Seriously, Christ is balls deep in Rubio, to the point where he says religion should trump law, and we're supposed to pretend that Rubio is more rational than Cruz or Carson or that other one.
Rubio brings Jesus to explosive orgasm when he concludes, "Were your treasures stored up on earth or in Heaven? And to me I try to allow that to influence me in everything that I do." That little fantasy query there comes from Matthew 6 in the good ol' New Testament. If you go a little further into the chapter, like a verse or two later, you get to this: "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Wait, that's the fancy King James version. Here it is in dumbed down modern lingo: "You cannot serve both God and money." And then the rest of the chapter is about how you shouldn't give a happy monkey fuck about fancy clothes, that you should stop and listen to the birds and appreciate nature and God and shit. Rubio, of course, has some of the more active, secretly-funded "social welfare" groups poisoning the airwaves to the tune of millions of dollars. Rubio knows where his treasures are stored, and it sure as fuck ain't heaven.
Like everything Rubio ever says, the ad's a fucked-up mish-mash of talking points. In this case, they're just ultra-Christian ones in order to make anyone dumb enough to think, "He likes the same god I do" vote for him, unless they vote for Cruz or Carson, good fellaters all. Goddamn, how Jesus's dick must be sore these days.
For instance, check out this thing from Marco Rubio that's running in Iowa:
Putting on fundamentalist drag, Rubio kneels before his lord and smiles lasciviously: "Our goal is eternity, the ability to live alongside our Creator and for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ." Oh, sure, Jesus is just giving free stuff away for the takers.
He blows Jesus vigorously along these lines: "The struggle on a daily basis as a Christian is to remind ourselves of this. The purpose of our life is to cooperate with God’s plan, to those who much has been given much is expected and we will be asked to account for that." Now, you might remember that Rubio said in November that if civil laws conflict with God's "rules," God always wins, even if that means defying the law. Seriously, Christ is balls deep in Rubio, to the point where he says religion should trump law, and we're supposed to pretend that Rubio is more rational than Cruz or Carson or that other one.
Rubio brings Jesus to explosive orgasm when he concludes, "Were your treasures stored up on earth or in Heaven? And to me I try to allow that to influence me in everything that I do." That little fantasy query there comes from Matthew 6 in the good ol' New Testament. If you go a little further into the chapter, like a verse or two later, you get to this: "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Wait, that's the fancy King James version. Here it is in dumbed down modern lingo: "You cannot serve both God and money." And then the rest of the chapter is about how you shouldn't give a happy monkey fuck about fancy clothes, that you should stop and listen to the birds and appreciate nature and God and shit. Rubio, of course, has some of the more active, secretly-funded "social welfare" groups poisoning the airwaves to the tune of millions of dollars. Rubio knows where his treasures are stored, and it sure as fuck ain't heaven.
Like everything Rubio ever says, the ad's a fucked-up mish-mash of talking points. In this case, they're just ultra-Christian ones in order to make anyone dumb enough to think, "He likes the same god I do" vote for him, unless they vote for Cruz or Carson, good fellaters all. Goddamn, how Jesus's dick must be sore these days.
1/06/2016
Note to Donald Trump: Please Kill Yourself for the Good of the Nation
Every once in a while, a patriot is called upon to do something drastic for his country. If you're a soldier, you might be sent on a mission that can save the lives of a thousand people but requires you to put yourself in life-ending danger. If you're a firefighter, you have to run into the burning building and try to find that missing kid, even if you might be overtaken by smoke and flames. Sometimes, an entire nation, nay, an entire era needs the hero it deserves to take action that he deserves in order to save us from ourselves.
That hero is you, Donald J. Trump. And you need to kill yourself.
Now, before you dismiss this outright, let's face it. This whole presidential run thing is just a lark, a grand indulgence for a rich, louche hedonist who is facing the end of his clock on this earth anyways. You don't really want to be president. You just want people to want you to be president, and you're getting a huge kick out of saying whatever the hell enters your head and seeing how much the rubes still love you for it. You said of a crowd, "I could be the worst person in the world, they're not leaving." How does someone with anything but contempt in their heart say that?
But be careful. Wanting to be loved and actually having to do the work of being president are two very different things. Now, maybe you're so enamored of yourself that you want to see what you can do to take down those hick Clintons. Maybe you think you'll be able to do whatever you please as president and demand that your rubes riot if Democrats try to impeach you. Maybe you're buying your own megalomania.
You're smarter than that, though. You know that what goes up comes down. You've seen it happen. It's happened to you. And you know that, at the end of the day, it's better to get slaughtered when you're the top hog at the fair than to wallow around in the mud with the regular pigs until you're just another piece of bacon.
So kill yourself. It's a modest proposal, but it's so simple.
Now, of course, some of us would like you to kill yourself because, frankly, you're an asshole who is degrading our already degraded political process. You sound like the yowling spawn of Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace doing Benito Mussolini in threesome. You're riling up those rubes you scorn, and, when you're not elected, you're gonna leave behind a bunch of angry, incoherent, racist rage-beasts ready to tear up Mexicans, Muslims, and Canadians. By going through the electoral process, you guarantee that someone at some point is going to be killed because of what you say.
And your father will never love you, even from Hell.
You need to commit suicide, like an honorable samurai or a sad poet. Think about it. Just for a moment. Let's play this out. The first path is that you keep going around the country with your clown show, racking up primary victories, waiting to be torn apart by the Clinton machine, until you lose (or you win, in which case, see above). After you lose, you go back to doing what you did before, the very things that made you so bored that you ran for president. Or you have to lead a movement without being an elected official and that's a hell of a lot of work, man.
Or you kill yourself. You could leave a note saying that you're doing it because you can see how you're dragging the country down. No? Not your style? Okay, you could make it all full of how amazing you are and how you've reached peak awesomeness and, well, let's just see if God can handle the Donald. Later, losers.
It doesn't matter how you do it. You could snort a bunch of ketamine and down a bottle of rare Polish vodka. You could tie a fine silk rope around your neck and masturbate until you asphyxiate while your wife and daughter watch. You could announce a press conference outside the Trump Tower in Columbus Circle and then leap to your death from the top, your body popping like a jelly-filled balloon right in front of the gathered media. The ratings would be huge. Huge.
Either way, rest assured, the country you leave behind would be vastly improved. Indeed, it's the one thing you could do that would definitely make America at least a little bit greater than it is right now.
That hero is you, Donald J. Trump. And you need to kill yourself.
Now, before you dismiss this outright, let's face it. This whole presidential run thing is just a lark, a grand indulgence for a rich, louche hedonist who is facing the end of his clock on this earth anyways. You don't really want to be president. You just want people to want you to be president, and you're getting a huge kick out of saying whatever the hell enters your head and seeing how much the rubes still love you for it. You said of a crowd, "I could be the worst person in the world, they're not leaving." How does someone with anything but contempt in their heart say that?
But be careful. Wanting to be loved and actually having to do the work of being president are two very different things. Now, maybe you're so enamored of yourself that you want to see what you can do to take down those hick Clintons. Maybe you think you'll be able to do whatever you please as president and demand that your rubes riot if Democrats try to impeach you. Maybe you're buying your own megalomania.
You're smarter than that, though. You know that what goes up comes down. You've seen it happen. It's happened to you. And you know that, at the end of the day, it's better to get slaughtered when you're the top hog at the fair than to wallow around in the mud with the regular pigs until you're just another piece of bacon.
So kill yourself. It's a modest proposal, but it's so simple.
Now, of course, some of us would like you to kill yourself because, frankly, you're an asshole who is degrading our already degraded political process. You sound like the yowling spawn of Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace doing Benito Mussolini in threesome. You're riling up those rubes you scorn, and, when you're not elected, you're gonna leave behind a bunch of angry, incoherent, racist rage-beasts ready to tear up Mexicans, Muslims, and Canadians. By going through the electoral process, you guarantee that someone at some point is going to be killed because of what you say.
And your father will never love you, even from Hell.
You need to commit suicide, like an honorable samurai or a sad poet. Think about it. Just for a moment. Let's play this out. The first path is that you keep going around the country with your clown show, racking up primary victories, waiting to be torn apart by the Clinton machine, until you lose (or you win, in which case, see above). After you lose, you go back to doing what you did before, the very things that made you so bored that you ran for president. Or you have to lead a movement without being an elected official and that's a hell of a lot of work, man.
Or you kill yourself. You could leave a note saying that you're doing it because you can see how you're dragging the country down. No? Not your style? Okay, you could make it all full of how amazing you are and how you've reached peak awesomeness and, well, let's just see if God can handle the Donald. Later, losers.
It doesn't matter how you do it. You could snort a bunch of ketamine and down a bottle of rare Polish vodka. You could tie a fine silk rope around your neck and masturbate until you asphyxiate while your wife and daughter watch. You could announce a press conference outside the Trump Tower in Columbus Circle and then leap to your death from the top, your body popping like a jelly-filled balloon right in front of the gathered media. The ratings would be huge. Huge.
Either way, rest assured, the country you leave behind would be vastly improved. Indeed, it's the one thing you could do that would definitely make America at least a little bit greater than it is right now.
1/05/2016
Thank the NRA and Their Boot Lickers for the Fear We All Live Under
Over the holidays, the Rude Pundit visited with family down south in Louisiana. Amid the devouring of various sea and land animals, the consumption of far too much, yet far too little beer (God bless you, Bayou Teche Brewing Company), and the music in skeevy joints and tourist traps, he decided to go to the movies. So he and the Rude Sister and another relative or two went over to the Grand Theatre in Lafayette to see The Big Short.
You might remember the Grand because that's where a gunman killed two women and injured nine before killing himself last July. The theatre had been shut for months as the owners redid the place, and, as decent a cinema as it was before, they did right by Lafayette. The Grand's got damn comfortable seats and, hell, it's Louisiana, so you can get a frozen daiquiri in the lobby. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, especially when it's rainy and cold or swampy and hot outside.
The Family Rude was seated in the front of the main section, before the divide between the stadium seats and the ones that are much closer to the screen. About two-thirds of the way into the film, two white men, one middle-aged, one a little younger, both wearing jackets, entered the theatre and sat in the back row of that front section. They left a seat between them. The Rude Pundit and the Rude Sister almost immediately looked at each other because, well, shit, the history of the place might make you a little edgy. It didn't help that the younger one was fidgety and nervous the entire time.
Like the Rude Sister, who confirmed this later, the Rude Pundit began to plan a strategy in case something happened, in case the white men he was profiling did take out guns and open fire. Would he try to duck down? But he'd still be exposed. He wondered how to do something to protect the Rude Nieces, teenagers who were there. He checked the exits and knew that any attempt to run towards them would have been incredibly risky. He wondered if, because he had identified the potential shooters, he might be able to run towards them and at least give his family a chance to get out. He thought stupid things, like if the light on his phone might be enough to blind them for a moment. And he glanced behind him, trying to figure out if anyone there was packing, a "good guy with a gun" who would just catch everyone in crossfire.
Through all this, the Rude Pundit was fucking furious. He wasn't angry at the two men, who more than likely had just snuck into the theatre after another movie. No, he was enraged by the fact that we live in a time and in a place where we have to think these things, where we have to look at perfectly innocuous things as not just suspicious, but life-threatening. Sure, obviously, in a larger sense, we always have to be on our guard, even in a Parisian cafe or a British train station. But not to the paranoid extent that we must now, in the United States, in the time of reckless gun fetishism.
The NRA and their lickspittles in Congress want us to live this way. It's a goal to make us all so bugfuck insane about the nearly non-existent threats of violence that many will run gladly into their scabby, scarred arms to embrace the pro-gun cause and to make it their own. If you're scared, get a gun. It's a simple equation that is so prevalent in our 21st-century America that we don't even question the innate madness of it.
Lafayette was one of the cities in President Obama's litany of sites of mass shootings today when he announced the mildest of tweaks to existing gun laws through executive order. What Obama did today won't do much of anything to stem the rising tide of gun sales. It redefines "engaged in the business" of gun sales a bit more broadly so that some people who regularly sell guns can't just claim they are hobbyists and thus exempt from background checking laws. Obama is refocusing some enforcement and prosecution. And more money to the ATF can't hurt. Of course, one or two of the proposals say that he will "request" that Congress fund something, which means it's pretty much dead as a first-grader in the wrong classroom in Connecticut.
Obama said explicitly, "This is not a plot to take away everybody's guns," and every gun humper running for office and already elected and in the media and on the streets and starving in a goddamn cabin in Oregon immediately said that Obama is coming to take away the guns. Some, like Ted Cruz, just re-upped on everything they've been saying, about how Obama hates the Constitution and rights and fuck you if you don't own a freedom AR-15. And, really, it's not that different than what Alex Jones and his shit-tossers say.
This morning on NPR, people at a gun shop in Virginia were being interviewed. Even the most fervent gun buyer, a woman who was rushing to get some semi-automatic assault rifle before a fictional ban went into place, believed that there should be universal background checks. And all expressed a sad recognition that they don't know what to do about gun violence in the United States. In a gun store. As they were buying their fourth or fifth or tenth weapons.
We are no longer naive enough to believe that anything will change now. The NRA and its ass-sniffers have seen to that. Until someone is willing to crush them under their heels, the status quo will be accepting massacres as a regular part of living in the greatest country in the history of forever. Or whatever they're saying now to make us feel good about ourselves, like children who must be praised always.
By the way, The Big Short is a great film, even when one is wondering if one is going to be shot dead.
You might remember the Grand because that's where a gunman killed two women and injured nine before killing himself last July. The theatre had been shut for months as the owners redid the place, and, as decent a cinema as it was before, they did right by Lafayette. The Grand's got damn comfortable seats and, hell, it's Louisiana, so you can get a frozen daiquiri in the lobby. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, especially when it's rainy and cold or swampy and hot outside.
The Family Rude was seated in the front of the main section, before the divide between the stadium seats and the ones that are much closer to the screen. About two-thirds of the way into the film, two white men, one middle-aged, one a little younger, both wearing jackets, entered the theatre and sat in the back row of that front section. They left a seat between them. The Rude Pundit and the Rude Sister almost immediately looked at each other because, well, shit, the history of the place might make you a little edgy. It didn't help that the younger one was fidgety and nervous the entire time.
Like the Rude Sister, who confirmed this later, the Rude Pundit began to plan a strategy in case something happened, in case the white men he was profiling did take out guns and open fire. Would he try to duck down? But he'd still be exposed. He wondered how to do something to protect the Rude Nieces, teenagers who were there. He checked the exits and knew that any attempt to run towards them would have been incredibly risky. He wondered if, because he had identified the potential shooters, he might be able to run towards them and at least give his family a chance to get out. He thought stupid things, like if the light on his phone might be enough to blind them for a moment. And he glanced behind him, trying to figure out if anyone there was packing, a "good guy with a gun" who would just catch everyone in crossfire.
Through all this, the Rude Pundit was fucking furious. He wasn't angry at the two men, who more than likely had just snuck into the theatre after another movie. No, he was enraged by the fact that we live in a time and in a place where we have to think these things, where we have to look at perfectly innocuous things as not just suspicious, but life-threatening. Sure, obviously, in a larger sense, we always have to be on our guard, even in a Parisian cafe or a British train station. But not to the paranoid extent that we must now, in the United States, in the time of reckless gun fetishism.
The NRA and their lickspittles in Congress want us to live this way. It's a goal to make us all so bugfuck insane about the nearly non-existent threats of violence that many will run gladly into their scabby, scarred arms to embrace the pro-gun cause and to make it their own. If you're scared, get a gun. It's a simple equation that is so prevalent in our 21st-century America that we don't even question the innate madness of it.
Lafayette was one of the cities in President Obama's litany of sites of mass shootings today when he announced the mildest of tweaks to existing gun laws through executive order. What Obama did today won't do much of anything to stem the rising tide of gun sales. It redefines "engaged in the business" of gun sales a bit more broadly so that some people who regularly sell guns can't just claim they are hobbyists and thus exempt from background checking laws. Obama is refocusing some enforcement and prosecution. And more money to the ATF can't hurt. Of course, one or two of the proposals say that he will "request" that Congress fund something, which means it's pretty much dead as a first-grader in the wrong classroom in Connecticut.
Obama said explicitly, "This is not a plot to take away everybody's guns," and every gun humper running for office and already elected and in the media and on the streets and starving in a goddamn cabin in Oregon immediately said that Obama is coming to take away the guns. Some, like Ted Cruz, just re-upped on everything they've been saying, about how Obama hates the Constitution and rights and fuck you if you don't own a freedom AR-15. And, really, it's not that different than what Alex Jones and his shit-tossers say.
This morning on NPR, people at a gun shop in Virginia were being interviewed. Even the most fervent gun buyer, a woman who was rushing to get some semi-automatic assault rifle before a fictional ban went into place, believed that there should be universal background checks. And all expressed a sad recognition that they don't know what to do about gun violence in the United States. In a gun store. As they were buying their fourth or fifth or tenth weapons.
We are no longer naive enough to believe that anything will change now. The NRA and its ass-sniffers have seen to that. Until someone is willing to crush them under their heels, the status quo will be accepting massacres as a regular part of living in the greatest country in the history of forever. Or whatever they're saying now to make us feel good about ourselves, like children who must be praised always.
By the way, The Big Short is a great film, even when one is wondering if one is going to be shot dead.