Today is a fine day to subscribe to this here blog's Patreon page. For a buck a month, you get a bonus blog post a month. For three bucks a month, you get that bonus every week. And for a magical fiver a month, you get the posts and early access and/or extended versions of Another Goddamn Podcast, my thing where I interview funny people every other week.
I just posted an extended interview with comedian and former senior producer for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Benari Poulten. He's been in the Army Reserves for 18 years, and he has stories about his time working at Gitmo and in Iraq. Don't worry - it's funny stuff.
You can also catch up on posts you missed there, like "Trying To Explain the South to Some Yankees" and a teacher's perspective on guns in the classroom.
Plus, you'll keep me in weed and whiskey, which is how you want me. Trust me on that.
3/31/2018
3/30/2018
What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now? (Infrastructure Edition)
Things have been going pretty shitty for our goddamned president this last week, so he needed a little pick me up. And while allowing ICE to keep pregnant women in custody might have lifted his spirits, Trump is always happiest when he prances in front of a crowd of the slavering dogs who still support him and performs his ongoing one-man show, Can You Fuckin' Believe I'm President?
Trump was speaking to workers at a training facility for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18 in Richfield, Ohio, right new Cleveland. Yeah, the guy who is dismantling and wrecking whatever scraps of union support are left in the government was welcomed to this local of an organization that endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in order to brag about a plan that isn't even a plan yet so he could pretend he gave even a tiny fart about the union members.
Every Trump speech has levels of deranged and weird and alarming as whatever combination of shitty eating habits, mental illness, normal aging, and brain worms reduces his capacity for thought from emo tween back in the early 2010s to toddler who wants that goddamn cookie. And yesterday's was no exception.
There was a mini-rant about the stupid, useless border wall: "We are building a really state-of-the-art, very, very efficient — have to be able to see through; it makes a lot of sense. You have to be able to see who is on the other side. Nobody would even think of it." You know he's not talking about some enormous plexiglass wall that'll just totally fuck with coyotes chasing roadrunners, right? He's talking about a fuckin' fence. You can see through a fence. A fence ain't a wall, but that's really what we have already. In fact, he touted pictures of what he called new construction on the wall, but they were really photos of a replacement fence for an existing section.
That was started in 2009 when, apparently, if Wikipedia is correct, Barack Obama was president. But Trump said that Democrats don't want border security at all. "They want people to come in from the border. And they want — I guess, want — I can’t imagine they want — but, certainly, drugs are flowing across borders. We need walls," he babbled.
Things went batshit and lie-filled throughout the entire long-ass speech. Here's Trump on job creation: "We are keeping our promises, and the results are in: 3 million new jobs since Election Day. Three million. And if I would have said that to you during the campaign, where we had tremendous support in this great state, the state of Ohio — if I would have said 3 million jobs, they would have said, the fake news, 'He’s exaggerating.'" It would have been pretty fuckin' dumb for anyone to say, considering how that number was reached a couple of times in Obama's presidency, including 2014, where nearly 3 million jobs were created in just 12 months, not 17 (and, hey, over two of those months "since Election Day" were during the Obama presidency). So when Trump added that, if Democrats had won, "You wouldn’t have 3 million jobs; you’d probably go negative," it's objectively wrong since, under a Democratic president, we had had 3 million jobs multiple times.
Trump leaped from topic to topic like a pissed of bunny that got into the meth but now can't find any more meth and goddamnit, it wants some more meth. In one section, he ping-ponged from judges to the Second Amendment ("But your Second Amendment will always be your Second Amendment. We’re not doing anything to that. Not doing anything.") to building roads ("We’ll transform our roads and bridges from a source of endless frustration into a source of absolutely incredible pride.") to school safety to gun laws ("We fixed, very strongly, the background checks. We got rid of the bump stocks," which "we" did not do at all) to opioids and back to, no shit, the fuckin' wall to electing more Republicans and then back to infrastructure. It's less stream of consciousness and more "Can we take Grandpa back to the home now?"
If Obama had ever bragged about himself even a quarter as much as Trump does, well, we don't have to wonder because Obama would have never said any of this shit. But Trump sure as fuck wanted to get credit for everything. "I got it approved," he said of the Keystone XL pipeline. "I did it." This was before he lied that the CEO of Transcanada never thanked him for the approval when the CEO did, right to Trump's face, in the motherfuckin' Oval Office.
The pure, bugfuck idiocy was there in the speech in spades. Talking about spending on the Middle East, "We spent, as of three months ago, $7 trillion — not billion, not million — $7 trillion, with a “T” — nobody ever heard of the word 'trillion' until 10 years ago," he said, as if we never imagined you could count that high. About worker training, he said, "I don’t know what that means — a community college. To me, it means a two-year college. I don’t know what it means," as if community colleges hadn't been around for centuries and had a well-established reason for existing and are, for the most part, quite different from vocational or technical schools.
And for uncut weird, there's "We dug out the Panama Canal. Think of that. Thousands of lives were lost to the mosquito. To the mosquito — malaria. We dug out the Panama Canal." It's like beat poetry for the deranged.
He ended by saying how he talked to Roseanne Barr about her ratings.
Every time Donald Trump speaks, the nation gets a little worse, a little sadder, a little dumber, and it makes sense just a little less.
Trump was speaking to workers at a training facility for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18 in Richfield, Ohio, right new Cleveland. Yeah, the guy who is dismantling and wrecking whatever scraps of union support are left in the government was welcomed to this local of an organization that endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in order to brag about a plan that isn't even a plan yet so he could pretend he gave even a tiny fart about the union members.
Every Trump speech has levels of deranged and weird and alarming as whatever combination of shitty eating habits, mental illness, normal aging, and brain worms reduces his capacity for thought from emo tween back in the early 2010s to toddler who wants that goddamn cookie. And yesterday's was no exception.
There was a mini-rant about the stupid, useless border wall: "We are building a really state-of-the-art, very, very efficient — have to be able to see through; it makes a lot of sense. You have to be able to see who is on the other side. Nobody would even think of it." You know he's not talking about some enormous plexiglass wall that'll just totally fuck with coyotes chasing roadrunners, right? He's talking about a fuckin' fence. You can see through a fence. A fence ain't a wall, but that's really what we have already. In fact, he touted pictures of what he called new construction on the wall, but they were really photos of a replacement fence for an existing section.
That was started in 2009 when, apparently, if Wikipedia is correct, Barack Obama was president. But Trump said that Democrats don't want border security at all. "They want people to come in from the border. And they want — I guess, want — I can’t imagine they want — but, certainly, drugs are flowing across borders. We need walls," he babbled.
Things went batshit and lie-filled throughout the entire long-ass speech. Here's Trump on job creation: "We are keeping our promises, and the results are in: 3 million new jobs since Election Day. Three million. And if I would have said that to you during the campaign, where we had tremendous support in this great state, the state of Ohio — if I would have said 3 million jobs, they would have said, the fake news, 'He’s exaggerating.'" It would have been pretty fuckin' dumb for anyone to say, considering how that number was reached a couple of times in Obama's presidency, including 2014, where nearly 3 million jobs were created in just 12 months, not 17 (and, hey, over two of those months "since Election Day" were during the Obama presidency). So when Trump added that, if Democrats had won, "You wouldn’t have 3 million jobs; you’d probably go negative," it's objectively wrong since, under a Democratic president, we had had 3 million jobs multiple times.
Trump leaped from topic to topic like a pissed of bunny that got into the meth but now can't find any more meth and goddamnit, it wants some more meth. In one section, he ping-ponged from judges to the Second Amendment ("But your Second Amendment will always be your Second Amendment. We’re not doing anything to that. Not doing anything.") to building roads ("We’ll transform our roads and bridges from a source of endless frustration into a source of absolutely incredible pride.") to school safety to gun laws ("We fixed, very strongly, the background checks. We got rid of the bump stocks," which "we" did not do at all) to opioids and back to, no shit, the fuckin' wall to electing more Republicans and then back to infrastructure. It's less stream of consciousness and more "Can we take Grandpa back to the home now?"
If Obama had ever bragged about himself even a quarter as much as Trump does, well, we don't have to wonder because Obama would have never said any of this shit. But Trump sure as fuck wanted to get credit for everything. "I got it approved," he said of the Keystone XL pipeline. "I did it." This was before he lied that the CEO of Transcanada never thanked him for the approval when the CEO did, right to Trump's face, in the motherfuckin' Oval Office.
The pure, bugfuck idiocy was there in the speech in spades. Talking about spending on the Middle East, "We spent, as of three months ago, $7 trillion — not billion, not million — $7 trillion, with a “T” — nobody ever heard of the word 'trillion' until 10 years ago," he said, as if we never imagined you could count that high. About worker training, he said, "I don’t know what that means — a community college. To me, it means a two-year college. I don’t know what it means," as if community colleges hadn't been around for centuries and had a well-established reason for existing and are, for the most part, quite different from vocational or technical schools.
And for uncut weird, there's "We dug out the Panama Canal. Think of that. Thousands of lives were lost to the mosquito. To the mosquito — malaria. We dug out the Panama Canal." It's like beat poetry for the deranged.
He ended by saying how he talked to Roseanne Barr about her ratings.
Every time Donald Trump speaks, the nation gets a little worse, a little sadder, a little dumber, and it makes sense just a little less.
3/27/2018
The Next Battles in Our Neverending Abortion War: Intimidation and Bans
Indiana is an ugly, infected carbuncle of a state crammed into the middle of the country. It is a flat hellscape, bereft of anything but corporate farms and closed factories, a cultural wasteland where the most exciting event involves watching cars go around in a circle for a couple of hours while the fumes make the ignorant population even more brain-damaged. Its few bright spots are coated by the gray grime of the dust made of poison-laden dirt. It has given the nation the pestilence of Mike Pence, and it has long sought to position itself as the craziest joint in the nation when it comes to forcing Christian doctrine on people. You got that when Pence was governor and he signed the disastrous "religious freedom" bill. And it is never more clear than when it comes to abortion. Then the fictional words of an invisible sky wizard matter more than the flesh and blood women who are damaged by the state.
Already, Indiana had the case of Purvi Patel, the woman who tried to give herself an abortion by using drugs and was convicted of feticide, which was eventually overturned. In March 2016, Gov. Mike Pence signed into a law a bill that mandated that all deceased fetuses must be buried or cremated and that no abortions could be done in cases of fetal deformity, no matter how severe. The law was suspended before it ever went into effect.
And now, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law a bill that requires doctors to report to the state every year the complications that patients have had post-abortion procedure. The bill itself lists 26 possible complications (well, the 26th is more or less "anything else we didn't think of") and, while it doesn't ask for patients' names, it does ask for 16 details about the patient and the procedure. And it's a Class B misdemeanor of a doctor doesn't file this report, something that isn't demanded by the state in any other medical procedure. Not in cancer treatment. Not in heart surgery.
Oh, there's more there. The bill also has a list of shit a doctor has to report to the state for any patient who gets an abortion, surgically or through drugs, even if there are no complications. This includes "the number of the patient's previously induced terminations" and "the date of the patient's last menses." That's right: the state of Indiana gets to know when your last period was, ladies. So instead of "Periods for Pence," maybe you can try "Flowing for Holcomb."
Yeah, the ACLU is already on this as a First Amendment issue.
Of course, you go right next door to Indiana and you get to Ohio, and, holy shit, Ohio is considering trying for the full challenge to Roe v. Wade. Republicans in the Ohio legislature are trying to pass a bill that would simply outlaw all abortions and charge any doctors who perform them with murder, as in getting the death penalty murder. That one doesn't really have a chance to pass, since John Kasich has already vetoed other, less fucked-up bills.
But then you head south, to the American shithole of Mississippi, and the fuckin' loonies in that state's legislature just decided to punish pregnant women by banning abortion after 15 weeks. And this one became a law last Monday, although a judge has issued a restraining order, preventing the law from going into effect. The 15 week rule is totally in defiance of Roe, and the lawsuits are already being planned.
Because that's the ultimate goal, right? To fuck up the lives of American women, especially poor women, who are unlucky enough to live in states like Mississippi, where there are only two abortion providers in the entire state. To take that shiny new Gorsuch out for a drive and see if he'll ride the SCOTUS highway all the way to overturning Roe. To hope that Justice Kennedy retires so that when this case gets to the Supreme Court, the fate of the women in 90% of the counties in the United States where there is no abortion provider (and you can bet most of those counties are red as spilled blood) can be up to the whims of a man, our president, who thinks women are disposable.
Already, Indiana had the case of Purvi Patel, the woman who tried to give herself an abortion by using drugs and was convicted of feticide, which was eventually overturned. In March 2016, Gov. Mike Pence signed into a law a bill that mandated that all deceased fetuses must be buried or cremated and that no abortions could be done in cases of fetal deformity, no matter how severe. The law was suspended before it ever went into effect.
And now, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law a bill that requires doctors to report to the state every year the complications that patients have had post-abortion procedure. The bill itself lists 26 possible complications (well, the 26th is more or less "anything else we didn't think of") and, while it doesn't ask for patients' names, it does ask for 16 details about the patient and the procedure. And it's a Class B misdemeanor of a doctor doesn't file this report, something that isn't demanded by the state in any other medical procedure. Not in cancer treatment. Not in heart surgery.
Oh, there's more there. The bill also has a list of shit a doctor has to report to the state for any patient who gets an abortion, surgically or through drugs, even if there are no complications. This includes "the number of the patient's previously induced terminations" and "the date of the patient's last menses." That's right: the state of Indiana gets to know when your last period was, ladies. So instead of "Periods for Pence," maybe you can try "Flowing for Holcomb."
Yeah, the ACLU is already on this as a First Amendment issue.
Of course, you go right next door to Indiana and you get to Ohio, and, holy shit, Ohio is considering trying for the full challenge to Roe v. Wade. Republicans in the Ohio legislature are trying to pass a bill that would simply outlaw all abortions and charge any doctors who perform them with murder, as in getting the death penalty murder. That one doesn't really have a chance to pass, since John Kasich has already vetoed other, less fucked-up bills.
But then you head south, to the American shithole of Mississippi, and the fuckin' loonies in that state's legislature just decided to punish pregnant women by banning abortion after 15 weeks. And this one became a law last Monday, although a judge has issued a restraining order, preventing the law from going into effect. The 15 week rule is totally in defiance of Roe, and the lawsuits are already being planned.
Because that's the ultimate goal, right? To fuck up the lives of American women, especially poor women, who are unlucky enough to live in states like Mississippi, where there are only two abortion providers in the entire state. To take that shiny new Gorsuch out for a drive and see if he'll ride the SCOTUS highway all the way to overturning Roe. To hope that Justice Kennedy retires so that when this case gets to the Supreme Court, the fate of the women in 90% of the counties in the United States where there is no abortion provider (and you can bet most of those counties are red as spilled blood) can be up to the whims of a man, our president, who thinks women are disposable.
3/26/2018
Two Women Kicked Conservatives' Ass This Weekend and It Was Glorious
1. Emma Gonzalez has a superhero origin story that is up there with Batman's. After her friends were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Gonzalez transformed from a smart, active, politically-aware teen looking forward to graduation into a goddamn warrior queen, a powerful avenger against the forces of evil that have dominated our politics for too long. Call her "the Skinhead Lesbian" and put a motherfuckin' cape on her.
Gonzalez had already given one of the most potent and angry speeches about the failure of adults, especially the adults supposedly serving the nation (but are really just serving the National Rifle Association), to do anything to address gun violence other than call for more violence. And on Saturday, at the March For Our Lives in Washington, DC., Gonzalez spoke for a couple of minutes and then stood there in silence, staring out at the sea of hundreds of thousands of people, stone cold except for the tears streaming down her face, for the remainder of the 6 minutes and 20 seconds, the same time it took for Nikolas Cruz to kill 17 and wound 17 others back in Parkland, Florida, a month and a half ago. What Gonzalez did emphasized both how short a time it was for so many to die and how long a time it was to wait in darkened classrooms, in closets, in bathrooms, behind locked doors, wondering if you are going to be murdered at your school.
Crazed Trump supporters and gun-humping conservatives are scared shitless by Gonzalez. They have attacked her looks and sexuality (the aforementioned "skinhead lesbian" remark that led to its speaker, a Republican - duh - to drop out of his race for the Maine legislature), photoshopped her tearing a copy of the Constitution (which was really a shooting range target), and criticized her for wearing a Cuban flag on her jacket (her father is from Cuba). Hell, craven scum fuck Rep. Steve King got in on the act, saying that Gonzalez was "ignor[ing] the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp." To which one can only say, "Asshole, that flag has been flying in Cuba since 1902. Should German-Americans never hang up a flag from their ancestors' country?"
This is the point where a rational pro-gun group would stand down, where rational pro-gun members of Congress would say, "Okay, let's negotiate," but these are not rational people. They are hideous money-engorging monsters who thrive on irrational fear and fake machismo. You can stand with them or you can stand with the vast majority of Americans who want gun control. You can stand with the desiccated, weary visage of the NRA's Wayne LaPierre or you can stand strong with Gonzalez.
Gonzalez didn't ask to become a superhero any more than Peter Parker asked to be bitten by a spider. She chose to take her pain and, along with her fellow students, turn it into courage and righteous anger. May we be a better nation because of it.
(Note: Amazing speeches were made all around the nation from students, from David Hogg to 11 year-old Naomi Wadler. Gonzalez's stood out because it used the incredible power of silence, something our noisy, word-filled, notification-dinging age has forgotten can convey more than a million memes.)
2. Man, Donald Trump must have been laying sullenly in bed after returning to DC last night, having spent the weekend avoiding protesters at Mar-a-Lago, which is less than an hour from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Seriously, it's right down the fucking road.) Trump must have been getting bits of Big Macs stuck in his fat folds as he watched the 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, the porn actress, director, and writer. How deranged he must have felt when Daniels said, plainly, she wasn't attracted to Trump, that she didn't want to fuck him after the first time because he lied about getting her on The Celebrity Apprentice, that she turned him into her bitch by spanking him with a magazine.
And, especially, that she came across as more honest, intelligent, and trustworthy than the goddamn President of the United States ever had been in his entire life. Yeah, that's right. The woman whose film roles include her taking copious amounts of jizz on her breasts is a way more respectable person than Donald Trump. Although, to be fair, there are moldy rocks that are more honorable than Trump.
Daniels, or, you know, Stephanie Clifford, was every bit as convincing as her lawyer said she would be. She confidently related how Trump got her to go back to his room, how he dangled the prize of the TV appearance over her, how he skeevily compared her to his daughter (presumable Ivanka, since Tiffany was 13 at the time of the affair, but, with Trump, you never know), how he told her to ignore the fact that Melania had just recently given birth. Trump comes across like every horndog old man creeping on a younger, seemingly sexually open woman. It's somewhere between pathetic and rapey, even as Daniels insisted that she was not a victim. But Trump's lawyer worked hard to intimidate her and someone sent a goon to intimidate her, threatening her in front of her infant daughter. Gee, who could have sent the goon? Who is a wannabe gangster? Who is a fake-ass tough guy?
What Daniels did to kick Trump's ass was to stand up to him and his thugs. She showed that you can tell Trump to shut the fuck up, and, if you've got the right magazine to spank him with, he might just do that.
Still, one thing she said has stuck with me. Daniels talked about coming out of the bathroom that first evening in 2006 in Trump's hotel suite and seeing him perched on the bed. She told Anderson Cooper, "I realized exactly what I'd gotten myself into. And I was like, 'Ugh, here we go.' (LAUGH) And I just felt like maybe-- (LAUGH) it was sort of-- I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone's room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, 'Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.'" So she had sex with him. In its way, that statement is a distillation of the treatment of women in our culture, conditioned to think that they "deserve" what they get. Daniels insisted that she consented, but she's admitting that that consent was a kind of self-punishment.
And while we can laugh and say that, of course, sex with Trump is punishment, it's sad that however much power Daniels had taken in the situation, she still didn't think she was powerful enough to tell him she wasn't into it. Maybe the interview was a long-delayed "No" that Trump rarely hears.
Gonzalez had already given one of the most potent and angry speeches about the failure of adults, especially the adults supposedly serving the nation (but are really just serving the National Rifle Association), to do anything to address gun violence other than call for more violence. And on Saturday, at the March For Our Lives in Washington, DC., Gonzalez spoke for a couple of minutes and then stood there in silence, staring out at the sea of hundreds of thousands of people, stone cold except for the tears streaming down her face, for the remainder of the 6 minutes and 20 seconds, the same time it took for Nikolas Cruz to kill 17 and wound 17 others back in Parkland, Florida, a month and a half ago. What Gonzalez did emphasized both how short a time it was for so many to die and how long a time it was to wait in darkened classrooms, in closets, in bathrooms, behind locked doors, wondering if you are going to be murdered at your school.
Crazed Trump supporters and gun-humping conservatives are scared shitless by Gonzalez. They have attacked her looks and sexuality (the aforementioned "skinhead lesbian" remark that led to its speaker, a Republican - duh - to drop out of his race for the Maine legislature), photoshopped her tearing a copy of the Constitution (which was really a shooting range target), and criticized her for wearing a Cuban flag on her jacket (her father is from Cuba). Hell, craven scum fuck Rep. Steve King got in on the act, saying that Gonzalez was "ignor[ing] the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp." To which one can only say, "Asshole, that flag has been flying in Cuba since 1902. Should German-Americans never hang up a flag from their ancestors' country?"
This is the point where a rational pro-gun group would stand down, where rational pro-gun members of Congress would say, "Okay, let's negotiate," but these are not rational people. They are hideous money-engorging monsters who thrive on irrational fear and fake machismo. You can stand with them or you can stand with the vast majority of Americans who want gun control. You can stand with the desiccated, weary visage of the NRA's Wayne LaPierre or you can stand strong with Gonzalez.
Gonzalez didn't ask to become a superhero any more than Peter Parker asked to be bitten by a spider. She chose to take her pain and, along with her fellow students, turn it into courage and righteous anger. May we be a better nation because of it.
(Note: Amazing speeches were made all around the nation from students, from David Hogg to 11 year-old Naomi Wadler. Gonzalez's stood out because it used the incredible power of silence, something our noisy, word-filled, notification-dinging age has forgotten can convey more than a million memes.)
2. Man, Donald Trump must have been laying sullenly in bed after returning to DC last night, having spent the weekend avoiding protesters at Mar-a-Lago, which is less than an hour from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Seriously, it's right down the fucking road.) Trump must have been getting bits of Big Macs stuck in his fat folds as he watched the 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, the porn actress, director, and writer. How deranged he must have felt when Daniels said, plainly, she wasn't attracted to Trump, that she didn't want to fuck him after the first time because he lied about getting her on The Celebrity Apprentice, that she turned him into her bitch by spanking him with a magazine.
And, especially, that she came across as more honest, intelligent, and trustworthy than the goddamn President of the United States ever had been in his entire life. Yeah, that's right. The woman whose film roles include her taking copious amounts of jizz on her breasts is a way more respectable person than Donald Trump. Although, to be fair, there are moldy rocks that are more honorable than Trump.
Daniels, or, you know, Stephanie Clifford, was every bit as convincing as her lawyer said she would be. She confidently related how Trump got her to go back to his room, how he dangled the prize of the TV appearance over her, how he skeevily compared her to his daughter (presumable Ivanka, since Tiffany was 13 at the time of the affair, but, with Trump, you never know), how he told her to ignore the fact that Melania had just recently given birth. Trump comes across like every horndog old man creeping on a younger, seemingly sexually open woman. It's somewhere between pathetic and rapey, even as Daniels insisted that she was not a victim. But Trump's lawyer worked hard to intimidate her and someone sent a goon to intimidate her, threatening her in front of her infant daughter. Gee, who could have sent the goon? Who is a wannabe gangster? Who is a fake-ass tough guy?
What Daniels did to kick Trump's ass was to stand up to him and his thugs. She showed that you can tell Trump to shut the fuck up, and, if you've got the right magazine to spank him with, he might just do that.
Still, one thing she said has stuck with me. Daniels talked about coming out of the bathroom that first evening in 2006 in Trump's hotel suite and seeing him perched on the bed. She told Anderson Cooper, "I realized exactly what I'd gotten myself into. And I was like, 'Ugh, here we go.' (LAUGH) And I just felt like maybe-- (LAUGH) it was sort of-- I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone's room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, 'Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.'" So she had sex with him. In its way, that statement is a distillation of the treatment of women in our culture, conditioned to think that they "deserve" what they get. Daniels insisted that she consented, but she's admitting that that consent was a kind of self-punishment.
And while we can laugh and say that, of course, sex with Trump is punishment, it's sad that however much power Daniels had taken in the situation, she still didn't think she was powerful enough to tell him she wasn't into it. Maybe the interview was a long-delayed "No" that Trump rarely hears.
3/23/2018
Fucking Hell, John Bolton Again?
Now that our goddamn president, Donald Trump, has appointed John Bolton, one of the most war-mongering, cruelest, dumbest dickholes, to be National Security Adviser, I oughta write something about his terrible career.
Except I already fucking did that back in 2005, when Undersecretary of State Bolton was nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations, a position he got a recess appointment for until he was whipped out of public service and became that fuckin' guy with the stupid mustache polluting the airwaves with violent and hateful rhetoric.
So here ya go, gathered for your clicking convenience.
John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America, where you can read about Bolton's belief that presidents should not have to respond to subpoenas, something you know Trump loves about him, as well as his attempt to get a woman fired from the DOJ for taking a leave while pregnant.
Part 2: John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America, where you can read how Bolton was fiending for war with Iraq during the mid-1990s.
John Bolton Acid Flashback - The Age of Not Giving a Shit, where you can read a 1999 interview where Bolton out-crazied Bill O'Reilly by saying that the United States shouldn't intervene to stop the Serbs from committing genocide in Kosovo.
John Bolton, Crazy Man, where you can read what a total shitheel Bolton was to people working for him.
Here we are, 13 years later, and it's not like he's fuckin' mellowed since getting paid almost exclusively from Fox "news" and nutzoid think tanks. So, of course, Trump chose him. He saw Bolton on the TV.
Crazy meets crazy, and we're all fucked.
Except I already fucking did that back in 2005, when Undersecretary of State Bolton was nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations, a position he got a recess appointment for until he was whipped out of public service and became that fuckin' guy with the stupid mustache polluting the airwaves with violent and hateful rhetoric.
So here ya go, gathered for your clicking convenience.
John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America, where you can read about Bolton's belief that presidents should not have to respond to subpoenas, something you know Trump loves about him, as well as his attempt to get a woman fired from the DOJ for taking a leave while pregnant.
Part 2: John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America, where you can read how Bolton was fiending for war with Iraq during the mid-1990s.
John Bolton Acid Flashback - The Age of Not Giving a Shit, where you can read a 1999 interview where Bolton out-crazied Bill O'Reilly by saying that the United States shouldn't intervene to stop the Serbs from committing genocide in Kosovo.
John Bolton, Crazy Man, where you can read what a total shitheel Bolton was to people working for him.
Here we are, 13 years later, and it's not like he's fuckin' mellowed since getting paid almost exclusively from Fox "news" and nutzoid think tanks. So, of course, Trump chose him. He saw Bolton on the TV.
Crazy meets crazy, and we're all fucked.
3/22/2018
No Requiems for a Terrorist in Austin
When Anthony Stephan House picked up the package that was left on his front porch in Austin, Texas, on March 2, he pulled away some paper that allowed for an electric circuit to be completed, and the current caused the bomb inside to explode. House likely lost his hands immediately from the shockwave while the shrapnel that was packed into the bomb tore through him, severing arteries, embedding in bone, slicing organs. This is not to mention the additional fragments of broken windows and pieces of the porch. Just before picking up the bomb, House had sent his 8 year-old daughter back into their home to brush her teeth. Had he not done that, had he not been being a good dad, the girl would have been ripped up, too, probably dead.
I think about Draylen Mason, the 17 year-old musician and student who leaped in front of his mom after she opened the package in her kitchen with a knife. Mason must have known that something was wrong with the box on the table, and he protected her, getting the full impact of the bomb in a contained area. It would have torn him to pieces, and he died instantly. His mom is in the hospital. Imagine what she saw. Imagine her helplessness.
And I think about the three other victims, all severely wounded, probably from the nails that the terrorist packed into the bombs to achieve maximum pain and destruction.
Let's be absolutely clear:
Mark Conditt, the bomber, is a fucking terrorist, as surely as anyone from al Qaeda or ISIS or whatever spooky Muslim group you want to invoke is. When I hear Austin's Chief of Police describe Conditt's video confession as "the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point," I don't give a fuck because he's a fucking terrorist. The deranged shit blew himself up at the end. You know what we'd call him in other circumstances? A suicide bomber. Fuck him. Fuck his pain. Fuck his personal life. Fuck his challenges. Fuck his outcry.
Now we're treated to descriptions of Conditt as "the quiet, socially awkward oldest child of a devout Christian family that held Bible study groups in their white clapboard house, where an American flag hangs from the front porch." Oh, so he was a Christian terrorist, right? Shouldn't we be asking every Christian if they condemn Conditt? 'Cause "devout Christian" can mean crazy-ass fundamentalist, especially if they belonged to a sect that held secret meetings in a private home. Fuckin' hell, that's just a sleeper cell, and Conditt got activated. He was home-schooled, and that's suspicious as hell, isn't it? Maybe we should be dragging in his parents and ask them what the connection with Amway is. Is Amway really just a cover organization for a cult of Christian terrorists? Is their Ponzi-scheme of shitty personal care products covering up for a coming coordinated attack on others in this country? What about the town of Pflugerville? It sure seems like we should be raiding all the churches there to see what they might be hiding, especially Conditt's Austin Stone Community Church.
Another home-schooled student described the pasty terrorist as someone who "loved to think and argue and turn things over and figure out what was really going on." Have they questioned him and other home-schoolers about what they figured out? Have they rounded them up and beaten them until they gave up information on other terrorists?
Or maybe, just maybe, we should think about humanizing all terrorists in order to understand what drove them to violence. Maybe that would actually do more to make us mitigate terrorism, no matter where it comes from. Every terrorist is troubled. Every terrorist is challenged. Every terrorist has to go through a personal journey to get to the point where they want to kill others. We should try to figure all this out without demonizing the demographic group the terrorist comes from.
But we should never forget that, no matter who they are, they are still fucking terrorists, and we should call them as such, whether they're named Nidal Hassan or Dylan Roof or Nikolas Cruz or this fucking Conditt.
I think about Draylen Mason, the 17 year-old musician and student who leaped in front of his mom after she opened the package in her kitchen with a knife. Mason must have known that something was wrong with the box on the table, and he protected her, getting the full impact of the bomb in a contained area. It would have torn him to pieces, and he died instantly. His mom is in the hospital. Imagine what she saw. Imagine her helplessness.
And I think about the three other victims, all severely wounded, probably from the nails that the terrorist packed into the bombs to achieve maximum pain and destruction.
Let's be absolutely clear:
Mark Conditt, the bomber, is a fucking terrorist, as surely as anyone from al Qaeda or ISIS or whatever spooky Muslim group you want to invoke is. When I hear Austin's Chief of Police describe Conditt's video confession as "the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point," I don't give a fuck because he's a fucking terrorist. The deranged shit blew himself up at the end. You know what we'd call him in other circumstances? A suicide bomber. Fuck him. Fuck his pain. Fuck his personal life. Fuck his challenges. Fuck his outcry.
Now we're treated to descriptions of Conditt as "the quiet, socially awkward oldest child of a devout Christian family that held Bible study groups in their white clapboard house, where an American flag hangs from the front porch." Oh, so he was a Christian terrorist, right? Shouldn't we be asking every Christian if they condemn Conditt? 'Cause "devout Christian" can mean crazy-ass fundamentalist, especially if they belonged to a sect that held secret meetings in a private home. Fuckin' hell, that's just a sleeper cell, and Conditt got activated. He was home-schooled, and that's suspicious as hell, isn't it? Maybe we should be dragging in his parents and ask them what the connection with Amway is. Is Amway really just a cover organization for a cult of Christian terrorists? Is their Ponzi-scheme of shitty personal care products covering up for a coming coordinated attack on others in this country? What about the town of Pflugerville? It sure seems like we should be raiding all the churches there to see what they might be hiding, especially Conditt's Austin Stone Community Church.
Another home-schooled student described the pasty terrorist as someone who "loved to think and argue and turn things over and figure out what was really going on." Have they questioned him and other home-schoolers about what they figured out? Have they rounded them up and beaten them until they gave up information on other terrorists?
Or maybe, just maybe, we should think about humanizing all terrorists in order to understand what drove them to violence. Maybe that would actually do more to make us mitigate terrorism, no matter where it comes from. Every terrorist is troubled. Every terrorist is challenged. Every terrorist has to go through a personal journey to get to the point where they want to kill others. We should try to figure all this out without demonizing the demographic group the terrorist comes from.
But we should never forget that, no matter who they are, they are still fucking terrorists, and we should call them as such, whether they're named Nidal Hassan or Dylan Roof or Nikolas Cruz or this fucking Conditt.
3/21/2018
What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now? (Opioid "Policy" Edition)
So it was that our overbaked butternut squash of a president had his voluminous ass flown up to New Hampshire, dragging his poor wife along with him for some unknown reason, to make an announcement about a new policy initiatives to battle the scourge of opioid addiction in the United States. Why New Hampshire and not, say, West Virginia, where the crisis is far worse? Because, Trump said, "I don’t know if you remember, but this is the first place I came for the primaries. And this is the room right here. So I like this room. This has been a good room."
Are you already smacking your goddamn head, thinking that Trump sounds like someone on fentanyl trying to describe why they're passing out in your kitchen? Well, that dumb orange motherfucker also said he was living up to his promise, "I said I’d be back, and we are back."
The speech was filled with the usual Trump shit. He reacted to things in the teleprompter like he was seeing it for the very first time, likely because he was seeing it for the very first time, as in "In New Hampshire, the overdose, really, death rate — I mean, can you believe this? The death rate is double the national average. It’s got difficulties like people wouldn’t believe." No, we believe it because, see, we've been fucking aware of the opioid crisis for quite some time.
Trump briefly mentioned overprescribing as a cause of widespread addiction, even saying that "our Department of Justice is looking very seriously into bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies." He talked about making ads targeting young people who will see commercials "during the right shows on television or wherever — the Internet." And I'm sure you remember how when Nancy Reagan's pal Mr. T did a "Just Say No" ad, we all stopped doing drugs forever.
Most of the speech and most of what might be considered "policy" was all about the evil Mexicans who apparently forced all those doctors to hand out oxy like it's Halloween candy Yeah, as soon as Trump entered his wheelhouse of hate and bigotry, he was happy as a chihuahua with three dicks, just licking like crazy. He repeated the same specious lies, like "Some of these drug dealers will kill thousands of people during their lifetime." He attacked Democrats about DACA, for some reason. He got the gathered idiots to chant "Build the wall" because Trump said, "We’ll build the wall to keep the damn drugs out." Trump had said that "Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border," but somehow didn't mention that it's not on the backs of fuckin' drug mules running across the desert. It's on planes and boats, which, you know, fuck walls. And it's in trucks that go through border crossings where there is already a goddamn wall. This is not to mention the shit that goes through the mail from China and elsewhere.
In other words, Trump just preened and pretended, like an inbred prince, as when he ripped into "sanctuary cities." Weirdly, he dragged Kate Steinle's corpse into mix, a death that had nothing to do with the opioid crisis, which, ostensibly, was what the entire fucking thing was about. But that didn't stop him from shaking his jowls and humphing, "Look at this verdict. Look at the verdict. Can you believe the verdict?"
He also said, "According to a recent Dartmouth study, the sanctuary city of Lawrence, Massachusetts is one of the primary sources of fentanyl in six New Hampshire counties." The problem, though, is that fucking "study" was preliminary research that involved interviews with just 20 drug users. As the principal investigator on the study itself said, "I can't really answer where the sources of drugs are." In fact, the 20 white drug users named other places that aren't sanctuary cities as sources of fentanyl.
What really got Trump hard, though, was talking about being able to give drug dealers the death penalty. He practically humped the lectern when he started saying how he talks with leaders of other countries but "I won’t mention names, but you know the countries I’m talking about." And he had a little vaudeville back and forth with the imaginary leader. "I go around, 'How is your drug problem?' 'We don’t have much of a drug problem.' 'What do you mean you don’t have a drug problem?' 'Well, we don’t have.' I say, 'how come?' 'We have zero tolerance for drug dealers.' I said, 'What does that mean?' 'That means we have the death penalty for drug dealers. We don’t have a drug problem.'" Who? First base, bitch.
Ok, beyond the fact that the Philippines does still have a drug problem, there's one big fucking thing that Trump is leaving out there. Rodrigo Duterte didn't just pledge to kill drug dealers but also drug users. And, you know, there's still a fuck-ton of drug use in Iran, which also executes drug dealers. If you think that your average drug trafficker, who faces death all the time from opposing traffickers, from people trying to rob them, from within their own gang or cartel, from law enforcement, is going to give a single soggy turd about getting the death penalty, you are fuckin' delusional.
The one thing we know that helps with opioid addiction is proper medical care. Pain management is a long-term proposition, and people who don't have access to health care professionals rely on meds to get through what expensive therapy or surgery could help. And with the attack on the Affordable Care Act resulting in people losing their insurance and unable to get on Medicaid, with the absurdity of sky-high deductibles and co-pays, people in pain are gonna end up taking the cheapest route, no matter what piddling amount of money Trump tosses at the problem. (This is not to mention the heroin and fentanyl addicts who got there without any injury or illness.)
That's why no other nation has this problem with prescription opioids. Not because of the death penalty or drug dealers. But because they live in countries that, at a bare minimum, give a fuck about their health.
Are you already smacking your goddamn head, thinking that Trump sounds like someone on fentanyl trying to describe why they're passing out in your kitchen? Well, that dumb orange motherfucker also said he was living up to his promise, "I said I’d be back, and we are back."
The speech was filled with the usual Trump shit. He reacted to things in the teleprompter like he was seeing it for the very first time, likely because he was seeing it for the very first time, as in "In New Hampshire, the overdose, really, death rate — I mean, can you believe this? The death rate is double the national average. It’s got difficulties like people wouldn’t believe." No, we believe it because, see, we've been fucking aware of the opioid crisis for quite some time.
Trump briefly mentioned overprescribing as a cause of widespread addiction, even saying that "our Department of Justice is looking very seriously into bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies." He talked about making ads targeting young people who will see commercials "during the right shows on television or wherever — the Internet." And I'm sure you remember how when Nancy Reagan's pal Mr. T did a "Just Say No" ad, we all stopped doing drugs forever.
Most of the speech and most of what might be considered "policy" was all about the evil Mexicans who apparently forced all those doctors to hand out oxy like it's Halloween candy Yeah, as soon as Trump entered his wheelhouse of hate and bigotry, he was happy as a chihuahua with three dicks, just licking like crazy. He repeated the same specious lies, like "Some of these drug dealers will kill thousands of people during their lifetime." He attacked Democrats about DACA, for some reason. He got the gathered idiots to chant "Build the wall" because Trump said, "We’ll build the wall to keep the damn drugs out." Trump had said that "Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border," but somehow didn't mention that it's not on the backs of fuckin' drug mules running across the desert. It's on planes and boats, which, you know, fuck walls. And it's in trucks that go through border crossings where there is already a goddamn wall. This is not to mention the shit that goes through the mail from China and elsewhere.
In other words, Trump just preened and pretended, like an inbred prince, as when he ripped into "sanctuary cities." Weirdly, he dragged Kate Steinle's corpse into mix, a death that had nothing to do with the opioid crisis, which, ostensibly, was what the entire fucking thing was about. But that didn't stop him from shaking his jowls and humphing, "Look at this verdict. Look at the verdict. Can you believe the verdict?"
He also said, "According to a recent Dartmouth study, the sanctuary city of Lawrence, Massachusetts is one of the primary sources of fentanyl in six New Hampshire counties." The problem, though, is that fucking "study" was preliminary research that involved interviews with just 20 drug users. As the principal investigator on the study itself said, "I can't really answer where the sources of drugs are." In fact, the 20 white drug users named other places that aren't sanctuary cities as sources of fentanyl.
What really got Trump hard, though, was talking about being able to give drug dealers the death penalty. He practically humped the lectern when he started saying how he talks with leaders of other countries but "I won’t mention names, but you know the countries I’m talking about." And he had a little vaudeville back and forth with the imaginary leader. "I go around, 'How is your drug problem?' 'We don’t have much of a drug problem.' 'What do you mean you don’t have a drug problem?' 'Well, we don’t have.' I say, 'how come?' 'We have zero tolerance for drug dealers.' I said, 'What does that mean?' 'That means we have the death penalty for drug dealers. We don’t have a drug problem.'" Who? First base, bitch.
Ok, beyond the fact that the Philippines does still have a drug problem, there's one big fucking thing that Trump is leaving out there. Rodrigo Duterte didn't just pledge to kill drug dealers but also drug users. And, you know, there's still a fuck-ton of drug use in Iran, which also executes drug dealers. If you think that your average drug trafficker, who faces death all the time from opposing traffickers, from people trying to rob them, from within their own gang or cartel, from law enforcement, is going to give a single soggy turd about getting the death penalty, you are fuckin' delusional.
The one thing we know that helps with opioid addiction is proper medical care. Pain management is a long-term proposition, and people who don't have access to health care professionals rely on meds to get through what expensive therapy or surgery could help. And with the attack on the Affordable Care Act resulting in people losing their insurance and unable to get on Medicaid, with the absurdity of sky-high deductibles and co-pays, people in pain are gonna end up taking the cheapest route, no matter what piddling amount of money Trump tosses at the problem. (This is not to mention the heroin and fentanyl addicts who got there without any injury or illness.)
That's why no other nation has this problem with prescription opioids. Not because of the death penalty or drug dealers. But because they live in countries that, at a bare minimum, give a fuck about their health.
3/19/2018
Republicans Promise They'll Do Something if Trump Fires Mueller. But They Won't.
At this point, "No Collusion!" has supplanted "You're fired!" as President Donald Trump's catchphrase. In three separate tweets this weekend, Trump lowed those words across the fields of America, even as he shit-talked the FBI leadership, former and present, and had Attorney General Jeff Sessions fire Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe for the crime of "Not licking Trump's taint," punishable by loss of retirement benefits and a Fox "news" enema, followed, no doubt, by a bunch of Twitter and Reddit threats and insults against McCabe, his family, and, hell, his dog.
Because that's the motherfuckin' world we motherfuckin' live in now and we live in that motherfuckin' world because the Republican motherfuckers have refused to do a goddamn thing, like tell Trump, "Yo, fucko, why not shut the hell up for a change, huh? Why not shut Putin's fuckhole in your face for a few goddamn days or weeks or years?"
Oh, but now, the mighty Republicans have said that there is a line that Trump dast not cross. If Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller, they said, oooh, they'll be really, really mad. On CNN's State of the Union yesterday, tough, independent, retiring Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona toughly said to Jake Tapper, "I just hope it doesn't go there, because it can't. We can't, in Congress, accept that. And so I would expect to see considerable pushback in the next couple days in urging the president not to go there. He can't go there." Tapper gave Flake his best "Really?" face and the Senator continued, "I mean, talking to my colleagues all along, it was, you know, once he goes after Mueller, then we will take action. I think that people see that as a massive red line that can't be crossed. So, I hope that that's the case."
Then Tapper gave Senator Lindsey Graham his best "The fuck?" look, and Graham said, "The only reason Mr. Mueller could ever be dismissed is for cause. I see no cause when it comes to Mr. Mueller. He needs to be able to do his job, independent of any political influence. I pledge to the American people, as a Republican, to make sure that Mr. Mueller can continue to do his job without any interference. I think he's doing a good job. And everything about McCabe and the FBI handling of the dossier has nothing to do with the Russia investigation regarding Mr. Mueller." And, even though Graham just gave Trump an out by saying if there's "cause," Mueller can be fired, Tapper was all "Really?" To which Graham promised, "Well, as I have said before, if he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we're a rule of law nation...when it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him. And I think it's very important he be allowed to do his job without interference. And there are many Republicans who share my view."
On other Sunday gabfests, lobotomy model and (retiring) Republican Representative Trey Gowdy told Fox "news" Sunday that there really wasn't shit he could do about Mueller in the House, but "Let it play out its course. If you've done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as wholesome and thorough as possible." On Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked frantic weasel anus Marco Rubio about Mueller, and Rubio offered his support for him, saying, "I remain confident that the Special Counsel is gonna, is going to conduct a probe that is fair and thorough and is gonna arrive at the truth and is, and is not going to go down rabbit holes that are not places that we need to be going."
You could read a hundred of these quotes, of Republicans saying that they are gonna stand up to Trump if he lays a finger on Mueller. And, like every other statement, like every thought, every prayer, every milquetoast waving of the hankie before flopping onto the fainting couch, not a goddamn thing will happen. Trump could fire Mueller and Mitch McConnell won't even budge, like a lethargic rat that's satisfied with the amount of moldy cheese in the hole. You know Trump is laughing at this shit, saying, "Oh, sit the fuck down, Lindsey, or I'll grab you by the pussy."
And the reason Graham would sullenly plop down on his petticoats is because the GOP is Trump. There is no Republican Party without Trump. That's because Republicans believe that the way to maintain their majority in the Senate is through Trump. As Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner explained, "He’ll be actively campaigning for a Senate majority. Absolutely." You can slap the ass of the man whose dick you're sucking all you want, but you're still sucking his dick and most of those ass slaps just make him come harder. The GOP isn't going to really do a fucking thing to hurt Trump when "Republicans insist there isn’t a state on the Senate map where they are nervous about deploying Trump."
See, the one thing Trump did by defeating those dozen plus opponents in the primary is he made sure that none of them could ever outshine him. Nobody's fuckin' going to a Kevin Cramer rally in North Dakota. But if Trump flies his orange saggy ass there to do one of his shuckin' and jivin' shows, oh, the yokels will line up. Trump knows he's the only fuckin' game in town for the GOP.
If the concerned Republicans in the Senate really, truly gave a fuck at all about Mueller or the truth or anything other than maintaining their majority, two of 'em would say, "Eat my ass, Mitch" and caucus with the Democrats. Because, at the end of the day, the only thing that will really stop the Trumptanic from sinking with all of us on board is a Democratic Congress that will subpoena and expose shit. Until Republicans do that, they're just rearranging the deck chairs.
All their fake courageous words are as meaningless as their degraded careers.
Because that's the motherfuckin' world we motherfuckin' live in now and we live in that motherfuckin' world because the Republican motherfuckers have refused to do a goddamn thing, like tell Trump, "Yo, fucko, why not shut the hell up for a change, huh? Why not shut Putin's fuckhole in your face for a few goddamn days or weeks or years?"
Oh, but now, the mighty Republicans have said that there is a line that Trump dast not cross. If Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller, they said, oooh, they'll be really, really mad. On CNN's State of the Union yesterday, tough, independent, retiring Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona toughly said to Jake Tapper, "I just hope it doesn't go there, because it can't. We can't, in Congress, accept that. And so I would expect to see considerable pushback in the next couple days in urging the president not to go there. He can't go there." Tapper gave Flake his best "Really?" face and the Senator continued, "I mean, talking to my colleagues all along, it was, you know, once he goes after Mueller, then we will take action. I think that people see that as a massive red line that can't be crossed. So, I hope that that's the case."
Then Tapper gave Senator Lindsey Graham his best "The fuck?" look, and Graham said, "The only reason Mr. Mueller could ever be dismissed is for cause. I see no cause when it comes to Mr. Mueller. He needs to be able to do his job, independent of any political influence. I pledge to the American people, as a Republican, to make sure that Mr. Mueller can continue to do his job without any interference. I think he's doing a good job. And everything about McCabe and the FBI handling of the dossier has nothing to do with the Russia investigation regarding Mr. Mueller." And, even though Graham just gave Trump an out by saying if there's "cause," Mueller can be fired, Tapper was all "Really?" To which Graham promised, "Well, as I have said before, if he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we're a rule of law nation...when it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him. And I think it's very important he be allowed to do his job without interference. And there are many Republicans who share my view."
On other Sunday gabfests, lobotomy model and (retiring) Republican Representative Trey Gowdy told Fox "news" Sunday that there really wasn't shit he could do about Mueller in the House, but "Let it play out its course. If you've done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as wholesome and thorough as possible." On Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked frantic weasel anus Marco Rubio about Mueller, and Rubio offered his support for him, saying, "I remain confident that the Special Counsel is gonna, is going to conduct a probe that is fair and thorough and is gonna arrive at the truth and is, and is not going to go down rabbit holes that are not places that we need to be going."
You could read a hundred of these quotes, of Republicans saying that they are gonna stand up to Trump if he lays a finger on Mueller. And, like every other statement, like every thought, every prayer, every milquetoast waving of the hankie before flopping onto the fainting couch, not a goddamn thing will happen. Trump could fire Mueller and Mitch McConnell won't even budge, like a lethargic rat that's satisfied with the amount of moldy cheese in the hole. You know Trump is laughing at this shit, saying, "Oh, sit the fuck down, Lindsey, or I'll grab you by the pussy."
And the reason Graham would sullenly plop down on his petticoats is because the GOP is Trump. There is no Republican Party without Trump. That's because Republicans believe that the way to maintain their majority in the Senate is through Trump. As Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner explained, "He’ll be actively campaigning for a Senate majority. Absolutely." You can slap the ass of the man whose dick you're sucking all you want, but you're still sucking his dick and most of those ass slaps just make him come harder. The GOP isn't going to really do a fucking thing to hurt Trump when "Republicans insist there isn’t a state on the Senate map where they are nervous about deploying Trump."
See, the one thing Trump did by defeating those dozen plus opponents in the primary is he made sure that none of them could ever outshine him. Nobody's fuckin' going to a Kevin Cramer rally in North Dakota. But if Trump flies his orange saggy ass there to do one of his shuckin' and jivin' shows, oh, the yokels will line up. Trump knows he's the only fuckin' game in town for the GOP.
If the concerned Republicans in the Senate really, truly gave a fuck at all about Mueller or the truth or anything other than maintaining their majority, two of 'em would say, "Eat my ass, Mitch" and caucus with the Democrats. Because, at the end of the day, the only thing that will really stop the Trumptanic from sinking with all of us on board is a Democratic Congress that will subpoena and expose shit. Until Republicans do that, they're just rearranging the deck chairs.
All their fake courageous words are as meaningless as their degraded careers.
3/17/2018
New Episode of AGD Podcast: Talking About Voting and an Interview with Molly Jong-Fast
Now up on iTunes for your free listening pleasure, it's the latest episode of Another Goddamn Podcast. This time, I'm talking about voting, even when you know your candidate is gonna lose. And I interview writer and mistress of Twitter snark Molly Jong-Fast.
She dishes dirt (no, really) on the Trumps, and she talks about her work on the board of the Arena, which encourages new Democrats to run for office and raises money for them.
Molly is funny, caustic, and pretty damn raspy because she had a cold. She says she sounds like Minnie Mouse, which would be true if Minnie Mouse said "fuck" a lot while punching Trump in his man-tits.
Download, listen, subscribe. You can also get early access and bonus stuff by ponying up some cash over at Patreon.
She dishes dirt (no, really) on the Trumps, and she talks about her work on the board of the Arena, which encourages new Democrats to run for office and raises money for them.
Molly is funny, caustic, and pretty damn raspy because she had a cold. She says she sounds like Minnie Mouse, which would be true if Minnie Mouse said "fuck" a lot while punching Trump in his man-tits.
Download, listen, subscribe. You can also get early access and bonus stuff by ponying up some cash over at Patreon.
3/15/2018
Writer Molly Jong-Fast on Meeting Vanessa Trump
In this fun clip from the new episode of Another Goddamn Podcast (or AGD Podcast, for your sfw ears), writer and Upper East Side of Manhattan resident Molly Jong-Fast talks about going to a ladies' game night party with Vanessa Trump, Donald Trump, Jr.'s soon-to-be ex-wife.
And Molly says that Ivanka Trump, who used to be in her social circle, is no longer welcome there.
Full episode, including more about the Trumps, will be up later tonight. Subscribe to AGD Podcast over on iTunes.
And Molly says that Ivanka Trump, who used to be in her social circle, is no longer welcome there.
Full episode, including more about the Trumps, will be up later tonight. Subscribe to AGD Podcast over on iTunes.
3/13/2018
What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Today? (Part Whatever of a Shut the Fuck Up Already)
Yesterday, this here blog was all about how goddamned dumb Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is. But never forget: The Fucking Dumbass in Chief will always outstupid anyone who dares challenge his mantle of idiocy.
So it was today that Our Goddamned President, Donald Trump, visited California in order to shit on California in person and to see the prototypes of his worthless boondoggle of a wall. And while he was there, he said some fucking brainless shit because he is an imbecile who lopes around like a lazy gorilla, dragging his simian arms on the ground. How dumb was it? Remember how you used to think that George W. Bush was a complete dolt? Trump makes Bush look like Neil DeGrasse Tyson on rocket fuel.
Here are things the real president of increasingly unreal United States really said, offered with little to no comment because, truly, the language of the moron is pretty self-explanatory:
"Every day, criminals and tariffs try to infiltrate our country."
"California sanctuary policies put the entire nation at risk. They’re the best friend of the criminal."
About Mexico: "They have an election coming up. I hear they have some very good people running, and they have some that maybe aren’t so good."
"So this was really a day where we look at the different prototypes of the wall."
"For the people that say no wall, if you didn't have walls over here, you wouldn't even have a country." (Um, what about all those countries that don't have border wa-- ah, fuck it.)
About how the goddamned wall should be see-through: "You could be two feet away from a criminal cartel and you don’t know they’re there."
"I think governor Jerry Brown has done a very poor job at running California. They have the highest taxes in the United States; the place is totally out of control.” (For the record, California does not have the highest taxes in the United States, and the state's government is running a surplus.)
Then, later, at Miramar Air Station, talking to asshole Marines who hooted and hollered in approval, he talked about outer space because why the fuck not. He began by shitting all over Hillary Clinton, again, except in a weird context: "You wouldn’t have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn’t even be thinking about it." What the fuck does that even mean? Honest to fuckin' god, it's like listening to a deranged, barely coherent C-SPAN caller who dials in every day to rant about Clinton sucking his eyeballs out with her vagina so now he can't see.
But that wasn't even peak nutzoid. "My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a warfighting domain just like the land, air and sea. We may even have a ‘Space Force,’ develop another one. Space Force. We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force," Trump exclaimed, later yellling, "So think of that: Space Force!" You know how big a fuckin' border wall you're gonna need if we gotta worry about people coming in from space?
What with firing Rex Tillerson and his deputy, nominating Trump taint-sniffer deluxe Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State and that torture lover as CIA director, with his denigration of parts of the country he doesn't like (while the right-wing media focuses on Clinton saying something about the deplorables, who really are fuckin' deplorable), Trump is hitting a peak for ripping up America's sanity, setting it on fire, and pissing on the ashes, dancing around the smoke, loving the scent of our anxious sweat and bile, giddy that we have to give his idiot antics attention, like a brain-damaged patient whose only function he can manage is to masturbate endlessly and giggle while the nurse cleans the jizz off his hands.
So it was today that Our Goddamned President, Donald Trump, visited California in order to shit on California in person and to see the prototypes of his worthless boondoggle of a wall. And while he was there, he said some fucking brainless shit because he is an imbecile who lopes around like a lazy gorilla, dragging his simian arms on the ground. How dumb was it? Remember how you used to think that George W. Bush was a complete dolt? Trump makes Bush look like Neil DeGrasse Tyson on rocket fuel.
Here are things the real president of increasingly unreal United States really said, offered with little to no comment because, truly, the language of the moron is pretty self-explanatory:
"Every day, criminals and tariffs try to infiltrate our country."
"California sanctuary policies put the entire nation at risk. They’re the best friend of the criminal."
About Mexico: "They have an election coming up. I hear they have some very good people running, and they have some that maybe aren’t so good."
"So this was really a day where we look at the different prototypes of the wall."
"For the people that say no wall, if you didn't have walls over here, you wouldn't even have a country." (Um, what about all those countries that don't have border wa-- ah, fuck it.)
About how the goddamned wall should be see-through: "You could be two feet away from a criminal cartel and you don’t know they’re there."
"I think governor Jerry Brown has done a very poor job at running California. They have the highest taxes in the United States; the place is totally out of control.” (For the record, California does not have the highest taxes in the United States, and the state's government is running a surplus.)
Then, later, at Miramar Air Station, talking to asshole Marines who hooted and hollered in approval, he talked about outer space because why the fuck not. He began by shitting all over Hillary Clinton, again, except in a weird context: "You wouldn’t have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn’t even be thinking about it." What the fuck does that even mean? Honest to fuckin' god, it's like listening to a deranged, barely coherent C-SPAN caller who dials in every day to rant about Clinton sucking his eyeballs out with her vagina so now he can't see.
But that wasn't even peak nutzoid. "My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a warfighting domain just like the land, air and sea. We may even have a ‘Space Force,’ develop another one. Space Force. We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force," Trump exclaimed, later yellling, "So think of that: Space Force!" You know how big a fuckin' border wall you're gonna need if we gotta worry about people coming in from space?
What with firing Rex Tillerson and his deputy, nominating Trump taint-sniffer deluxe Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State and that torture lover as CIA director, with his denigration of parts of the country he doesn't like (while the right-wing media focuses on Clinton saying something about the deplorables, who really are fuckin' deplorable), Trump is hitting a peak for ripping up America's sanity, setting it on fire, and pissing on the ashes, dancing around the smoke, loving the scent of our anxious sweat and bile, giddy that we have to give his idiot antics attention, like a brain-damaged patient whose only function he can manage is to masturbate endlessly and giggle while the nurse cleans the jizz off his hands.
3/12/2018
Betsy DeVos Is Every Stupid Teacher You Ever Had (Except Way Richer)
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, born a Prince, has been a billionaire for her entire life. Her father was a billionaire. So she inherited a shit-ton of money. She married a billionaire Dick who inherited his money from the long-running Ponzi scheme known as Amway. As such, she never, ever had shit to do with public schools except as a hobby. Public school education was never life or death for her or her children. It was a thing this rich person decided to fuck with because, shit, what the fuck else are you gonna do with all that time and money if you can't attempt to force your completely bullshit ideas about education, Jesus, and capitalism on the poors?
I'm reminded of a friend of mine whose son was having trouble with a public high school teacher. The teacher was making his regular chemistry class as hard as his AP class for students who had no interest in advanced chemistry. In fact, every other chemistry teacher taught regular old chemistry to the regular old chemistry students and saved the hard stuff for those who geek out on it, as it should be. When my friend looked at the teacher's web page, she saw how he bragged about how he and his wife had home-schooled their 5 kids. Finally, when her son was ready to just give up, my friend set up a meeting with the principal and the teacher. The teacher tried to be a pal and say how he's just challenging the kids and it's good for them and it shouldn't be my friend's concern. That's when my friend looked him square in the eyes and said, "You home schooled your children, right?" The teacher proudly said he had all the way through high school, and my friend responded, "So you never had to deal with an arrogant teacher being a jerk to your kid, did you?" According to my friend, a nauseous look of "oh, fuck me" crossed the man's face before he sputtered something about needing to get back to class. (Note: The class did become more normal after that.)
I thought of that incident when I watched DeVos completely shit herself repeatedly on 60 Minutes last night. She shit herself so much that, by the end of the interview with Leslie Stahl, DeVos was looking down from her thick shit cushion. Asked the simplest questions, ones about the very worthless things that DeVos had allegedly spent the last decade or so of her life working on, like school "choice" and charter schools, the motherfucking Secretary of Education couldn't even manage to come up with a halfway decent defense.
Stahl wanted to know about why schools are fucked in Michigan, which is not only DeVos's home state, but it's where she and her Dick husband recently built a 22,000 square foot house. DeVos gave the look of a college freshman who thought she didn't have to study because she's on a volleyball scholarship and said, "I hesitate to talk about all schools in general because schools are made up of individual students attending them."
Oddly, DeVos had not trouble talking about all the fucking schools in Detroit back in 2016 when she wanted their funding to go to charter schools and school "choice," which means, in part, "public funds being used at private religious schools because fuck the separation between church and state." Wrote DeVos, "We must acknowledge the simple fact that [Detroit Public Schools] has failed academically and financially – for decades." But what about the individual students, Secretary DeVos? She's actually more correct here than with Stahl. Schools aren't about individuals. They are about groups who rise and fall based on the teachers and the support they have. You don't back the teachers, you don't have a good school and students fucking suffer across the board.
That ignorance was on almost breathtaking display in the very next question, when Stahl asked DeVos if she had ever visited a failing school, maybe even in Michigan. DeVos answered, in what should be her political epitaph, "I have not — I have not — I have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming." I just wish Stahl had followed up with, "The fuck? Did you ever unintentionally visit one? Did your driver ever bring you to the wrong address and you walked in and saw a bunch of black kids and ran back to the car and threatened to have your brother kill your driver's whole family for daring to put in you in such close proximity to 'those people'?"
DeVos continued her reign of being Secretary of Stupid when Stahl asked her about whether or not false accusations of sexual assault are really a problem on college campuses. DeVos moroned, "Well, one sexual assault is one too many, and one falsely accused individual is one too many." Stahl pressed, asking if they were the same, and the rational answer to that is "No, of course not. One is real and actual physical violence and a violation against the body." But DeVos is not rational or compassionate or smart. She is just full of conservative nonsense, so she said, " I don't know. I don't know. But I'm committed to a process that's fair for everyone involved."
And that shit comes from being so rich that no one ever challenges you, no one ever tells you, "You know, Bets, that's fucked up right there and it's gonna hurt people, you fucking pathetic idiot." Maybe if DeVos had had some teachers who fuckin' flunked her ass, she'd know how dumb she really is.
This doesn't even get into the guns in school discussion she had this morning, where DeVos essentially giggled, "Whatever the NRA tells you, Donald. Sure, we'll arm the teachers." And all I can think about is how Betsy DeVos never had to wonder if her kids' teachers should have guns in the classroom.
Then I think about my freshman high school English teacher, who was regularly drunk in class, who insisted that Geoffrey Chaucer's last name was pronounced "Saucer" (that always fuckin' galled me), who would get tired halfway through diagramming a sentence and just give up, who would occasionally miss the chair when she sat down and hit the floor. Oh, she'd've wanted the gun. Hell, if she had been a billionaire, she might have become Secretary of Education.
One other thing that's fucking annoying about Betsy fuckin' DeVos. You know that boxed water you see at the grocery store and you think, "I wonder if I should buy that because it tells me boxes are better than bottles"? You know that shit? Yeah, DeVos owns that company.
I'm reminded of a friend of mine whose son was having trouble with a public high school teacher. The teacher was making his regular chemistry class as hard as his AP class for students who had no interest in advanced chemistry. In fact, every other chemistry teacher taught regular old chemistry to the regular old chemistry students and saved the hard stuff for those who geek out on it, as it should be. When my friend looked at the teacher's web page, she saw how he bragged about how he and his wife had home-schooled their 5 kids. Finally, when her son was ready to just give up, my friend set up a meeting with the principal and the teacher. The teacher tried to be a pal and say how he's just challenging the kids and it's good for them and it shouldn't be my friend's concern. That's when my friend looked him square in the eyes and said, "You home schooled your children, right?" The teacher proudly said he had all the way through high school, and my friend responded, "So you never had to deal with an arrogant teacher being a jerk to your kid, did you?" According to my friend, a nauseous look of "oh, fuck me" crossed the man's face before he sputtered something about needing to get back to class. (Note: The class did become more normal after that.)
I thought of that incident when I watched DeVos completely shit herself repeatedly on 60 Minutes last night. She shit herself so much that, by the end of the interview with Leslie Stahl, DeVos was looking down from her thick shit cushion. Asked the simplest questions, ones about the very worthless things that DeVos had allegedly spent the last decade or so of her life working on, like school "choice" and charter schools, the motherfucking Secretary of Education couldn't even manage to come up with a halfway decent defense.
Stahl wanted to know about why schools are fucked in Michigan, which is not only DeVos's home state, but it's where she and her Dick husband recently built a 22,000 square foot house. DeVos gave the look of a college freshman who thought she didn't have to study because she's on a volleyball scholarship and said, "I hesitate to talk about all schools in general because schools are made up of individual students attending them."
Oddly, DeVos had not trouble talking about all the fucking schools in Detroit back in 2016 when she wanted their funding to go to charter schools and school "choice," which means, in part, "public funds being used at private religious schools because fuck the separation between church and state." Wrote DeVos, "We must acknowledge the simple fact that [Detroit Public Schools] has failed academically and financially – for decades." But what about the individual students, Secretary DeVos? She's actually more correct here than with Stahl. Schools aren't about individuals. They are about groups who rise and fall based on the teachers and the support they have. You don't back the teachers, you don't have a good school and students fucking suffer across the board.
That ignorance was on almost breathtaking display in the very next question, when Stahl asked DeVos if she had ever visited a failing school, maybe even in Michigan. DeVos answered, in what should be her political epitaph, "I have not — I have not — I have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming." I just wish Stahl had followed up with, "The fuck? Did you ever unintentionally visit one? Did your driver ever bring you to the wrong address and you walked in and saw a bunch of black kids and ran back to the car and threatened to have your brother kill your driver's whole family for daring to put in you in such close proximity to 'those people'?"
DeVos continued her reign of being Secretary of Stupid when Stahl asked her about whether or not false accusations of sexual assault are really a problem on college campuses. DeVos moroned, "Well, one sexual assault is one too many, and one falsely accused individual is one too many." Stahl pressed, asking if they were the same, and the rational answer to that is "No, of course not. One is real and actual physical violence and a violation against the body." But DeVos is not rational or compassionate or smart. She is just full of conservative nonsense, so she said, " I don't know. I don't know. But I'm committed to a process that's fair for everyone involved."
And that shit comes from being so rich that no one ever challenges you, no one ever tells you, "You know, Bets, that's fucked up right there and it's gonna hurt people, you fucking pathetic idiot." Maybe if DeVos had had some teachers who fuckin' flunked her ass, she'd know how dumb she really is.
This doesn't even get into the guns in school discussion she had this morning, where DeVos essentially giggled, "Whatever the NRA tells you, Donald. Sure, we'll arm the teachers." And all I can think about is how Betsy DeVos never had to wonder if her kids' teachers should have guns in the classroom.
Then I think about my freshman high school English teacher, who was regularly drunk in class, who insisted that Geoffrey Chaucer's last name was pronounced "Saucer" (that always fuckin' galled me), who would get tired halfway through diagramming a sentence and just give up, who would occasionally miss the chair when she sat down and hit the floor. Oh, she'd've wanted the gun. Hell, if she had been a billionaire, she might have become Secretary of Education.
One other thing that's fucking annoying about Betsy fuckin' DeVos. You know that boxed water you see at the grocery store and you think, "I wonder if I should buy that because it tells me boxes are better than bottles"? You know that shit? Yeah, DeVos owns that company.
3/08/2018
Tennessee and Kentucky: Grappling With Ending Child Marriage (aka "Letting Rapists Marry Their Underage Victims" Laws)
On this International Women's Day, let us remember that in too many places in the United States, kids under 18 are allowed to get married to adults. Sometimes there is an age limit. Sometimes it requires a parent's approval. Sometimes it requires a judge. But, in almost every case, it's an underage girl and a grown man. It's sexual exploitation with the imprimatur of the government behind it. It's beyond fucked up that anywhere in the world in 2018 this is an issue (and it is a huge issue in many other countries). But not only does this bullshit go on in the United States, elected officials will still defend it. However, a good bit of public shaming goes a long way, as Kentucky and Tennessee learned quite recently.
In Kentucky, last week, "a bill to make 18 the legal age for marriage in Kentucky...stalled in a Senate committee amid concerns about the rights of parents to allow children to wed at a younger age." Right now, Kentucky law allows a judge to approve a marriage for anyone under 16, no matter what the age of the potential spouse is. According to state records, girls as young as 13 were married in the last few years. The bill wouldn't allow any marriage under 17, and, in that case, a judge must be involved.
Social media got hold of the failure of the Senate committee to advance the bill, and, what do you know, all of a sudden it was back yesterday and it easily passed. Oh, sure, there were the usual bizarro fucknuts opposing it, like Republican Dan Seum, who stupidly said, ""I as a parent couldn't let my pregnant 16-year-old daughter marry the guy that loves her, give the baby a name?" This led to the best smackdown by another Republican, Ralph Alvarado, who is a pediatrician: "I would argue they need more of a father than a husband at that age." A bit patriarchal, sure, but it's good to see evolution in action.
The bill was brought forward by Republican Senators Alice Forgy Kerr and Julie Raque Adams. And, in testimony before the Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee, former victim Donna Pollard told her story about the 29 year-old man who first statutorily raped when she was 14. By the time she was 16, she had married her rapist with permission from her mother, who herself had married at 13. Years later, Pollard got divorced and became a kickass advocate against child marriage.
Meanwhile, down south a bit, Tennessee just had its own mulligan moment on child marriage. Last month, a couple of Democrats in the state legislature discovered a loophole in Tennessee state law that lets a judge waive the minimum age of marriage so that anyone of any age can get hitched. One organization found 3 girls who got married to adult men at age 10. So Sen. Jeff Yarbro and Rep. Darren Jernigan did what anyone who is fully human would do and introduced legislation to close the loophole.
But guess what? Apparently, the leader of an organization ironically called the "Family Action Council" contacted the GOP House Majority Leader, Glen Casada, and said, "Whoa, whoa. Helping young girls will get in the way of us hurting the gays." See, the "family" organization is suing to overturn the Supreme Court's Obergfell decision that legalized same-sex marriage for some bullshit reasoning that it nullified all marriage licenses in Tennessee because something something Jesus something man/woman who the fuck knows. And if the legislature acknowledged that marriage licenses were valid by passing the anti-child marriage bill, it'd spoil their chances to show those queers what-for. So the bill was going to die in committee yesterday.
Then, all of a sudden, today, after media pressure, Casada realized that maybe it looks like Tennessee is a bunch of backwards ass country fucks if they didn't close the loophole, and the bill is back for reconsideration and a hearing or two.
So, kicking and screaming, Kentucky and Tennessee are being brought into at least the late 20th century, if not all the way to the present. And the young girls of the state, especially in the rural areas where many of these awful marriages occur, may actually be allowed to grow up without thinking that they're supposed to be victims of predatory men.
Now, how about you, Florida?
In Kentucky, last week, "a bill to make 18 the legal age for marriage in Kentucky...stalled in a Senate committee amid concerns about the rights of parents to allow children to wed at a younger age." Right now, Kentucky law allows a judge to approve a marriage for anyone under 16, no matter what the age of the potential spouse is. According to state records, girls as young as 13 were married in the last few years. The bill wouldn't allow any marriage under 17, and, in that case, a judge must be involved.
Social media got hold of the failure of the Senate committee to advance the bill, and, what do you know, all of a sudden it was back yesterday and it easily passed. Oh, sure, there were the usual bizarro fucknuts opposing it, like Republican Dan Seum, who stupidly said, ""I as a parent couldn't let my pregnant 16-year-old daughter marry the guy that loves her, give the baby a name?" This led to the best smackdown by another Republican, Ralph Alvarado, who is a pediatrician: "I would argue they need more of a father than a husband at that age." A bit patriarchal, sure, but it's good to see evolution in action.
The bill was brought forward by Republican Senators Alice Forgy Kerr and Julie Raque Adams. And, in testimony before the Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee, former victim Donna Pollard told her story about the 29 year-old man who first statutorily raped when she was 14. By the time she was 16, she had married her rapist with permission from her mother, who herself had married at 13. Years later, Pollard got divorced and became a kickass advocate against child marriage.
Meanwhile, down south a bit, Tennessee just had its own mulligan moment on child marriage. Last month, a couple of Democrats in the state legislature discovered a loophole in Tennessee state law that lets a judge waive the minimum age of marriage so that anyone of any age can get hitched. One organization found 3 girls who got married to adult men at age 10. So Sen. Jeff Yarbro and Rep. Darren Jernigan did what anyone who is fully human would do and introduced legislation to close the loophole.
But guess what? Apparently, the leader of an organization ironically called the "Family Action Council" contacted the GOP House Majority Leader, Glen Casada, and said, "Whoa, whoa. Helping young girls will get in the way of us hurting the gays." See, the "family" organization is suing to overturn the Supreme Court's Obergfell decision that legalized same-sex marriage for some bullshit reasoning that it nullified all marriage licenses in Tennessee because something something Jesus something man/woman who the fuck knows. And if the legislature acknowledged that marriage licenses were valid by passing the anti-child marriage bill, it'd spoil their chances to show those queers what-for. So the bill was going to die in committee yesterday.
Then, all of a sudden, today, after media pressure, Casada realized that maybe it looks like Tennessee is a bunch of backwards ass country fucks if they didn't close the loophole, and the bill is back for reconsideration and a hearing or two.
So, kicking and screaming, Kentucky and Tennessee are being brought into at least the late 20th century, if not all the way to the present. And the young girls of the state, especially in the rural areas where many of these awful marriages occur, may actually be allowed to grow up without thinking that they're supposed to be victims of predatory men.
Now, how about you, Florida?
3/07/2018
Note to Republicans: It's Not the Sex; It's Your Hypocrisy
If you bring up that Donald Trump fucked porn star Stormy Daniels, who now is suing Trump in order to be able to speak out about their fucking, with many Republicans, they will immediately jump to his defense by invoking other presidents. A conservative spoogebucket in his own right, Stephen Moore put this most succinctly on CNN last night when he sputtered, "Who would have ever thought that we had a president that had sex out of marriage. I mean, certainly not Bill Clinton or John F. Kennedy." Or Eisenhower or Harding, if we're gonna play that game of "Who's not president now?"
But here's the deal, you convenient moralists of the right: Most of us on the left don't give a shit about politicians who consensually fuck other adults. Let 'em fuck. Let 'em fuck in marriage, out of marriage, while married to other people. Let 'em fuck people of the opposite sex, people of the same sex, L's, G's, B's, T's, Q's, whoever. Fuck away. Fuck porn stars. Fuck waiters. Fuck bus drivers. Fuck doctors. Fuck and fuck and fuck.
What we have a problem with is that the right decided to be hypocritical assholes about the fucking. We might not care about Trump's porn star fucking. We sure as hell care if he is open to blackmail. We sure as hell care if he misused campaign funds to keep the porn star quiet. You're the ones who are supposed to care about who's fucking who. That's one of the big things the "culture war" you started was about.
For some of us, it goes back to the moment when Bill Clinton had to sit there on 60 Minutes in January 1992, Hillary by his side, and apologize for his affair with Gennifer Flowers. Clinton did it not because Democrats were piling on him (although some were), but because Democrats were scared shitless (as Democrats often are) that Republicans wouldn't let it go if Clinton won the nomination, which, of course, he did. Clinton apologized then. Later, he apologized for getting a blow job from Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, but Republicans still impeached him. Oh, they'll say it was for perjury, but it was for lying about having an affair.
Now, we have to sit here and watch Republicans contort themselves to defend Donald Trump, a man who fucked around on his first wife with the woman who became his second and bragged about it; a man who fucked around on his second wife with multiple women, as he himself told a newspaper; a man who fucked around with other women during his third marriage, including fucking Stormy Daniels shortly after his third wife gave birth to his fifth child. And the very groups, indeed, the very individuals that condemned Bill Clinton (and Barack Obama, as loyal a family man as may have ever held the presidency) gladly say that they give Trump a "pass" or a "mulligan" on his affairs because he's a "changed" person now.
Bill Clinton fucking apologized. Bill Clinton fucking went to church all the time. Donald Trump has never apologized, never admitted wrongdoing, and never goes to church. If you condemned Bill Clinton but have no problem with Trump, fuck you in every hole you have and in a few that you don't.
Meanwhile, Republicans want to deny equal rights to gay and lesbian Americans simply because of who they fuck. They want to allow for exemptions to civil rights laws under the broadly and stupidly defined banner of "religious freedom" because, they say, people shouldn't have to compromise their relationship with an invisible sky wizard and bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, for instance.
Yet the very book about what their invisible sky wizard likes and doesn't like has precious few verses about same-sex fucking. You know what it's got a metric shit-ton of verses about? Adultery, motherfuckers. Old Testament, New Testament, all over the fuckin' Bible, adultery is seen as one of the most fucked up things you can do. It's one of the Ten goddamn Commandments.
It seems like if you actually feared the opinion of an invisible sky wizard, you'd think that he'd fuck you up for not condemning an adulterer. But you can bet that if Donald Trump waddled his mistress-boning ass into a place like Masterpiece Cakeshop, the oh-so-Christian bakers would fall over themselves to bake him whatever the fuck he wanted, even a cake for wedding #4.
You get it, conservatives? Over here on the promiscuous left, most of us think fucking should be a blessing. We think condemning people for fucking is bullshit. We're consistent in that belief.
The defining characteristic of what is laughingly referred to as "contemporary conservatism" is a shameless hypocrisy that shows there are no core beliefs to it beyond rank racism, sleazy sexism, and corrupt capitalism.
By the way, for the record, Stormy Daniels is also a director and writer of dozens of porn films. She has even moved into producing them now. She's not just a porn star. She's a porn maven. She's a business person who knows where her bread gets buttered. And if she's the one whose lawsuit ends up bringing down Trump, well, it'd be as beautiful as the glass dildo in her film Pussy Sweat.
But here's the deal, you convenient moralists of the right: Most of us on the left don't give a shit about politicians who consensually fuck other adults. Let 'em fuck. Let 'em fuck in marriage, out of marriage, while married to other people. Let 'em fuck people of the opposite sex, people of the same sex, L's, G's, B's, T's, Q's, whoever. Fuck away. Fuck porn stars. Fuck waiters. Fuck bus drivers. Fuck doctors. Fuck and fuck and fuck.
What we have a problem with is that the right decided to be hypocritical assholes about the fucking. We might not care about Trump's porn star fucking. We sure as hell care if he is open to blackmail. We sure as hell care if he misused campaign funds to keep the porn star quiet. You're the ones who are supposed to care about who's fucking who. That's one of the big things the "culture war" you started was about.
For some of us, it goes back to the moment when Bill Clinton had to sit there on 60 Minutes in January 1992, Hillary by his side, and apologize for his affair with Gennifer Flowers. Clinton did it not because Democrats were piling on him (although some were), but because Democrats were scared shitless (as Democrats often are) that Republicans wouldn't let it go if Clinton won the nomination, which, of course, he did. Clinton apologized then. Later, he apologized for getting a blow job from Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, but Republicans still impeached him. Oh, they'll say it was for perjury, but it was for lying about having an affair.
Now, we have to sit here and watch Republicans contort themselves to defend Donald Trump, a man who fucked around on his first wife with the woman who became his second and bragged about it; a man who fucked around on his second wife with multiple women, as he himself told a newspaper; a man who fucked around with other women during his third marriage, including fucking Stormy Daniels shortly after his third wife gave birth to his fifth child. And the very groups, indeed, the very individuals that condemned Bill Clinton (and Barack Obama, as loyal a family man as may have ever held the presidency) gladly say that they give Trump a "pass" or a "mulligan" on his affairs because he's a "changed" person now.
Bill Clinton fucking apologized. Bill Clinton fucking went to church all the time. Donald Trump has never apologized, never admitted wrongdoing, and never goes to church. If you condemned Bill Clinton but have no problem with Trump, fuck you in every hole you have and in a few that you don't.
Meanwhile, Republicans want to deny equal rights to gay and lesbian Americans simply because of who they fuck. They want to allow for exemptions to civil rights laws under the broadly and stupidly defined banner of "religious freedom" because, they say, people shouldn't have to compromise their relationship with an invisible sky wizard and bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, for instance.
Yet the very book about what their invisible sky wizard likes and doesn't like has precious few verses about same-sex fucking. You know what it's got a metric shit-ton of verses about? Adultery, motherfuckers. Old Testament, New Testament, all over the fuckin' Bible, adultery is seen as one of the most fucked up things you can do. It's one of the Ten goddamn Commandments.
It seems like if you actually feared the opinion of an invisible sky wizard, you'd think that he'd fuck you up for not condemning an adulterer. But you can bet that if Donald Trump waddled his mistress-boning ass into a place like Masterpiece Cakeshop, the oh-so-Christian bakers would fall over themselves to bake him whatever the fuck he wanted, even a cake for wedding #4.
You get it, conservatives? Over here on the promiscuous left, most of us think fucking should be a blessing. We think condemning people for fucking is bullshit. We're consistent in that belief.
The defining characteristic of what is laughingly referred to as "contemporary conservatism" is a shameless hypocrisy that shows there are no core beliefs to it beyond rank racism, sleazy sexism, and corrupt capitalism.
By the way, for the record, Stormy Daniels is also a director and writer of dozens of porn films. She has even moved into producing them now. She's not just a porn star. She's a porn maven. She's a business person who knows where her bread gets buttered. And if she's the one whose lawsuit ends up bringing down Trump, well, it'd be as beautiful as the glass dildo in her film Pussy Sweat.
3/05/2018
White Supremacists Are Just So Fucking Dumb (Florida Teacher Edition)
Your average white supremacist shitbag might be able to come up with a clever tweet, a threat to stab you in the heart and rape the hole, ha, ha, punctuated with a frog or a caricature of a hook-nosed Jew or a Molon Labe (whatever the fuck that is, and, no, I'm not fuckin' looking it up). But when it comes to functioning in the real world, you know, outside a gathering of like-minded shitbags, the almost brazen stupidity of even the most highly-regarded racists becomes perfectly clear. And, frankly, while there are some scary-looking motherfuckers in their movement and violent motherfuckers who shoot up places, sometimes, it can be pretty goddamn sadly comical.
Take, for instance, the middle-school teacher in Crystal River, Florida (motto: "We're poor, but at least we're not Bonifay poor"), Dayanna Volitich, who, like just about everyone else in the United States, has a podcast. Except hers is called Unapologetic, and its subject is how awesome white people are and how fucked up other races are. Oh, Volitich cleverly disguised her name to "Tiana Dalichov." Now one thing you learn when you're in education and you have some, let's say, controversial or profane political opinions that you may express online in some form is that you leave that out of the classroom. Don't shit where you eat.
But no one told Volitich that little lesson, so on her podcast, she brags about teaching her students racist shit and then pretending that she didn't when the administration would visit her classroom. She even says that she told the kids to be cool about how she behaves differently if the principal comes by. She and her co-host even talk about having separate schools for white children. This is in a district that is 90% white. She pretty much does teach in a school for white children, but I guess it's not pure enough. The other fun thing she does in the podcast is brag about her support for Russia and Vladimir Putin because of course she does. She says it's because she's Russian. I'm part Russian. Fuck Putin.
Volitich issued a statement on Friday, and you'll never guess her defense. You'll never fuckin' guess. She said it was satire and she was just playing a character: "I employed political satire and exaggeration, mainly to the end of attracting listeners and followers, and generating conversation about the content discussed between myself and my guests."
Jesus fuckballs Christ, conservatives wouldn't know satire if it bit them on the nipple and screamed, "I'm satire!" 'Cause, see, if it's satire, it's gotta have some kind of point other than "Racism is awesome." If you listen to any of the other episodes of Unapologetic, like the one where Volitich-as-Dalichov says she sees Islam as supporting violence or the pair of episodes where she praises an even more blatant racist author. And, pro-tip, if you're playing a character, you might not wanna make that character a teacher.
Volitich has been suspended as the school investigates. Irony of ironies is that, for the host of Unapologetic, Volitich was pretty quick to apologize to her family: "I humbly ask for forgiveness, as it was never my intention to cause them grief while engaging in a hobby on my personal time."
Look, I buy that she was doing this on her "personal time." The problem, as I've said, is that she decided to make it about the kids in her classroom. She decided to talk about how she was indoctrinating them and deliberately deceiving her supervisors. There are lots of teachers with lots of appalling points of view. Hell, a lot of teachers probably voted for Trump and love him grabbin' pussy. A bunch of 'em probably like porn about rock-hard, uncut "teen" jocks who love to fuck their teachers. Leave it at home. Once you say you're bringing it into your class, you involve parents and administrators in your "hobby," and it ain't a hobby anymore. It's who the fuck you are.
And it's fucking dumb. She's 25. She can be a better person. She can learn to push this bullshit out of her. But I'm not holding my breath.
(Note: the online insult war between racists and anti-racists over this degrades all of us.)
Take, for instance, the middle-school teacher in Crystal River, Florida (motto: "We're poor, but at least we're not Bonifay poor"), Dayanna Volitich, who, like just about everyone else in the United States, has a podcast. Except hers is called Unapologetic, and its subject is how awesome white people are and how fucked up other races are. Oh, Volitich cleverly disguised her name to "Tiana Dalichov." Now one thing you learn when you're in education and you have some, let's say, controversial or profane political opinions that you may express online in some form is that you leave that out of the classroom. Don't shit where you eat.
But no one told Volitich that little lesson, so on her podcast, she brags about teaching her students racist shit and then pretending that she didn't when the administration would visit her classroom. She even says that she told the kids to be cool about how she behaves differently if the principal comes by. She and her co-host even talk about having separate schools for white children. This is in a district that is 90% white. She pretty much does teach in a school for white children, but I guess it's not pure enough. The other fun thing she does in the podcast is brag about her support for Russia and Vladimir Putin because of course she does. She says it's because she's Russian. I'm part Russian. Fuck Putin.
Volitich issued a statement on Friday, and you'll never guess her defense. You'll never fuckin' guess. She said it was satire and she was just playing a character: "I employed political satire and exaggeration, mainly to the end of attracting listeners and followers, and generating conversation about the content discussed between myself and my guests."
Jesus fuckballs Christ, conservatives wouldn't know satire if it bit them on the nipple and screamed, "I'm satire!" 'Cause, see, if it's satire, it's gotta have some kind of point other than "Racism is awesome." If you listen to any of the other episodes of Unapologetic, like the one where Volitich-as-Dalichov says she sees Islam as supporting violence or the pair of episodes where she praises an even more blatant racist author. And, pro-tip, if you're playing a character, you might not wanna make that character a teacher.
Volitich has been suspended as the school investigates. Irony of ironies is that, for the host of Unapologetic, Volitich was pretty quick to apologize to her family: "I humbly ask for forgiveness, as it was never my intention to cause them grief while engaging in a hobby on my personal time."
Look, I buy that she was doing this on her "personal time." The problem, as I've said, is that she decided to make it about the kids in her classroom. She decided to talk about how she was indoctrinating them and deliberately deceiving her supervisors. There are lots of teachers with lots of appalling points of view. Hell, a lot of teachers probably voted for Trump and love him grabbin' pussy. A bunch of 'em probably like porn about rock-hard, uncut "teen" jocks who love to fuck their teachers. Leave it at home. Once you say you're bringing it into your class, you involve parents and administrators in your "hobby," and it ain't a hobby anymore. It's who the fuck you are.
And it's fucking dumb. She's 25. She can be a better person. She can learn to push this bullshit out of her. But I'm not holding my breath.
(Note: the online insult war between racists and anti-racists over this degrades all of us.)
3/02/2018
What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now? (Part 4,298 of an Ongoing Series)
Imagine, for shits and giggles, that the Trump administration is a guy, just a guy, not Trump, but a metaphorical man. An older man. And he's in the middle of fucking the ass of another guy. It's all consensual, although the bottom guy is pretty sure he was drunk when he invited the older guy over, but the older guy promised him awesome sex. It's ok, it's just fucking, and, hey, that can't be bad, right? Except now the older man, he's getting tired. He hasn't come. The bottom guy hasn't come. No one is even close to coming. And the older man is starting to lose his boner. If the older dude cared, he might grab an available dildo to get the bottom guy off, but he's not. He's a selfish fuck, and he's getting angry that his hard-on is starting to fade. The bottom guy can feel this happening, and it happens fast, from weaker thrusts to missed thrusts to the feeling of latex-covered Play-Doh being repeatedly mashed against the edges of his asshole.
The older man should just stop. It's not gonna work. And the bottom guy knows it and is willing to just call a mulligan on the entire experience, no shame, maybe some awkward cuddling before calling it a night. But the older man is now pissed. He's pissed off at his dick. He's yelling at it, grabbing it, yanking it, trying to get it up again. And it's kind of freaking out the bottom guy, who, at this point, is done, but when the older guy starts accusing the bottom guy of fucking up the fucking, shit's getting out of hand and the bottom guy is wondering if the older guy is about to start getting violent with him.
That's pretty much where we are right now in the United States as the Trump election erection goes flaccid and the act of actually governing with a rogues' gallery of criminals, whores, and plague rats led by a madman is going about as disastrously as one could expect. Now that Trump's human security blanket, Hope Hicks, is gone, and Trump wants/doesn't want Ivanka and Jared out of the White House, the goddamned president is behaving even more erratically, his "fuck everyone but me" attitude making him tell Democrats he's for gun control before meeting with the NRA and having a come-to-armed-Jesus moment, his belligerence and ignorance making him announce a trade war before alerting anyone who should have known and, hey, who knows, it might not really happen because we are being "led" by a savage jellyfish and not a human.
So yesterday, Trump was in a particularly insane mood. At an event on opioid crisis policy, after exploiting a "friend" whose son died of an overdose, Trump praised countries that execute drug dealers: "Some countries have a very, very tough penalty — the ultimate penalty. And, by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do." Of course, Trump promised that "The administration is going to be rolling out policy over the next three weeks," which will likely follow the same path as his utterly ineffective opioid commission and his budget, which proposed cuts in programs that help those addicted. In other words, we will have no leadership from DC, but we'll get another photo op.
And on Wednesday, at that bullshit meeting where he said he supported gun control measures, Trump once again went on about making schools "hard": "First, we must harden our schools against attack...You know, you can harden the site to a level that nobody can get in." And then, in a moment of peak madness, he elaborated, "We’ll have nice hard sites, the door closes, and now we can’t get in. We have to send a tractor through the walls. So we have to be careful of that." The fuck? So schools become such fortresses that we now have to worry about tractors going through the walls? The fuck?
Then he just shit on his predecessors, as if he's the first president to ever try to get gun laws passed. "I asked for just a list of — I mean, when you look at Columbine, Colorado, Bill Clinton was President. Virginia Tech — George Bush. Fort Hood, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Pulse Nightclub, and so many more. It’s ridiculous." When Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has tried mightily to get legislation passed, tried to explain the power of the gun lobby, Trump dismissed it with "You went through a lot of Presidents and you didn’t get it done. You have a different President... It’s time that a President stepped up, and we haven’t had them. And I’m talking Democrat and Republican Presidents — they have not stepped up."
Yeah, motherfucker, nobody tried to do a thing. Except President Clinton, who got the assault weapons ban passed which helped fuck the Democrats in 1994, did step up. And President Obama, who tried to get a background check bill passed that was supported by over 90% of the nation but couldn't get through the gun-fellating GOP, stepped up.
Fuckin' Trump couldn't step up without holding someone's hand, and even then it would leave him breathing heavily and exhausted.
And like the aforementioned bottom guy, we all just wonder how quickly we can just throw this asshole out of our lives.
The older man should just stop. It's not gonna work. And the bottom guy knows it and is willing to just call a mulligan on the entire experience, no shame, maybe some awkward cuddling before calling it a night. But the older man is now pissed. He's pissed off at his dick. He's yelling at it, grabbing it, yanking it, trying to get it up again. And it's kind of freaking out the bottom guy, who, at this point, is done, but when the older guy starts accusing the bottom guy of fucking up the fucking, shit's getting out of hand and the bottom guy is wondering if the older guy is about to start getting violent with him.
That's pretty much where we are right now in the United States as the Trump election erection goes flaccid and the act of actually governing with a rogues' gallery of criminals, whores, and plague rats led by a madman is going about as disastrously as one could expect. Now that Trump's human security blanket, Hope Hicks, is gone, and Trump wants/doesn't want Ivanka and Jared out of the White House, the goddamned president is behaving even more erratically, his "fuck everyone but me" attitude making him tell Democrats he's for gun control before meeting with the NRA and having a come-to-armed-Jesus moment, his belligerence and ignorance making him announce a trade war before alerting anyone who should have known and, hey, who knows, it might not really happen because we are being "led" by a savage jellyfish and not a human.
So yesterday, Trump was in a particularly insane mood. At an event on opioid crisis policy, after exploiting a "friend" whose son died of an overdose, Trump praised countries that execute drug dealers: "Some countries have a very, very tough penalty — the ultimate penalty. And, by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do." Of course, Trump promised that "The administration is going to be rolling out policy over the next three weeks," which will likely follow the same path as his utterly ineffective opioid commission and his budget, which proposed cuts in programs that help those addicted. In other words, we will have no leadership from DC, but we'll get another photo op.
And on Wednesday, at that bullshit meeting where he said he supported gun control measures, Trump once again went on about making schools "hard": "First, we must harden our schools against attack...You know, you can harden the site to a level that nobody can get in." And then, in a moment of peak madness, he elaborated, "We’ll have nice hard sites, the door closes, and now we can’t get in. We have to send a tractor through the walls. So we have to be careful of that." The fuck? So schools become such fortresses that we now have to worry about tractors going through the walls? The fuck?
Then he just shit on his predecessors, as if he's the first president to ever try to get gun laws passed. "I asked for just a list of — I mean, when you look at Columbine, Colorado, Bill Clinton was President. Virginia Tech — George Bush. Fort Hood, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Pulse Nightclub, and so many more. It’s ridiculous." When Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has tried mightily to get legislation passed, tried to explain the power of the gun lobby, Trump dismissed it with "You went through a lot of Presidents and you didn’t get it done. You have a different President... It’s time that a President stepped up, and we haven’t had them. And I’m talking Democrat and Republican Presidents — they have not stepped up."
Yeah, motherfucker, nobody tried to do a thing. Except President Clinton, who got the assault weapons ban passed which helped fuck the Democrats in 1994, did step up. And President Obama, who tried to get a background check bill passed that was supported by over 90% of the nation but couldn't get through the gun-fellating GOP, stepped up.
Fuckin' Trump couldn't step up without holding someone's hand, and even then it would leave him breathing heavily and exhausted.
And like the aforementioned bottom guy, we all just wonder how quickly we can just throw this asshole out of our lives.