Let me quote something from the fuckin' epic climate change report put out last week by the (checks notes) federal goddamn government. It comes from Chapter 16, under Key Message 3: "Climate change is already affecting U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) assets by, among other impacts, damaging roads, runways, and waterfront infrastructure. DoD is working to both fully understand these threats and incorporate projected climate changes into long-term planning to reduce risks and minimize impacts. There are many examples of DoD’s planning and action for risks to its assets from climate change. DoD has performed a comprehensive scenario-driven examination of climate risks from sea level rise to all of its coastal military sites, including atolls in the Pacific Ocean. In the Arctic, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are pursuing strategies to respond to the changing geopolitical significance resulting from the projected absence of summer sea ice in the next few decades."
You got that? The Department of Defense is preparing for climate change not because it's a fantasy, but because it's real and it's happening now. By the way, the paragraph before this one says, in essence, when shit is all fucked up, people freak the fuck out and that's gonna require some military action. You think that if climate refugees or even terrorists inspired by water scarcity and searing heat in some regions, not to mention wars over shrinking access to food and water, were a possibility, we might want the Department of Defense to be ready to deal with it.
The Key Message should be "Stop being such arrogant pricks and fuckin' do something already before we're all up to our tits in ocean water while our faces burn off." Repeat after ever section.
At this point, to deny climate change is to demonstrate either ignorance or greed or both. You may wanna argue about how to solve it, but saying that this is all part of some natural cycle or "what about when they said there was gonna be an Ice Age" or assorted other bullshit should simply exclude you from the conversation. Denying climate change and denying that human activity has caused it is akin to denying there is a sun or paper or that dog you're looking at right now.
I'm reminded of a moment in my political philosophy class where a smartass douchefuck thought he was gonna get one over on the prof. She was making a point about how we need to agree on basic reality to move forward in the world and had just said, "If we all see a frog, we agree that it is a frog."
Douchefuck responded, "Well, you may say it's a frog, But I may say it's a banana."
Her response was elegant and final. She said, "You'd be wrong or ill, and either way, we shouldn't trust you." That shut Douchefuck up for a few days. And it's what we should say to so many insane, anti-science beliefs.
Still, though, the news networks insist on bringing on some godforsaken gooch scratcher to provide an illusion of balance on climate issues. For instance, on CNN, Erin Burnett had on Robert Reich and creepy-ass Stephen Moore, who said, no shit, "Can the two of you tell me one apocalyptic claim made by the environmental movement that has been true?" This is an article of faith on the right, that because no one is Nostra-fuckin'-damus and pinpointing exactly when some terrible shit will happen, climate change is a big joke.
The correct response to this is "Get the fuck off my show and get the fuck away from anywhere rational humans gather." 'Cause, see, among the shit that's been predicted that's happened is severe heat waves (talk to people in India, Canada, Egypt, Australia, and Portugal, for a start), stronger hurricanes (ya think?), and rising seas (it fucking floods during high tide regularly in a bunch of places now). Anyone denying that this is happening, that people did this, and that people need to solve that shit now needs to be whipped into the hinterlands. And if you say that we need to put jobs ahead of saving the entire planet, you should be locked in a madhouse.
This pariah status needs to extend to Republicans elected officials, too. Here's noted pig ball fondler, Senator Joni Ernst, on CNN this past Sunday: "Well, we know that our climate is changing. Our climate always changes. And we see those ebb and flows through time." Let's not even get into Donald Trump's pathetic response where he declared himself intelligent and then mouth-farted something utterly dumb, saying that his own employees are full of shit on this and he knows better because his big fuckin' gut or whatever.
Alluding to another talking point on the right, that climate scientists are making coin on the crisis, Stephen Moore gurgled something about "The climate change industrial complex." Fuck you, man. Scientists are often faculty members at universities or staff members at labs. They get a decent salary, maybe even a hundred grand, perhaps two, if they're really important. They might get a book published that makes a few bucks. The grants they get aren't for themselves. They're for studying and experimenting and traveling and paying for staff. No one's getting rich on the NSF's dime.
On the other side, though? In 2013, Charif Souki, then the CEO of Cheniere Energy, an oil and gas company made $142 million. Who's in it for the money?
Essentially, what Stephen Moore and all the climate denialists are doing is jacking off the dick of the fossil fuel industry until it spooges cash into their faces that they voraciously lap up.
It's a goddamn embarrassment that they are still treated as anything more than the lying shills or deranged morons that they are.
11/27/2018
There Are Always Migrants; They've Always Been Treated Like Garbage in the U.S.
I was looking up some things about how, during the Great Depression, in towns that were being destroyed by starvation and labor war, parents would send their children out on the road to find a better life than the one they could supply them. It reminded me of this passage from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, about Dust Bowl refugees from Oklahoma and elsewhere heading to California, where they hope to start a better life. But, of course, they are met with anger and hatred and hindrance every step of the way, crushing their American dreams.
Here ya go:
"The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them. The children without dinner changed them, the endless moving changed them. They were migrants. And the hostility changed them, welded them, united them—hostility that made the little towns group and arm as though to repel an invader, squads with pick handles, clerks and storekeepers with shotguns, guarding the world against their own people.
"In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said, These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They're degenerate, sexual maniacs. Those goddamned Okies are thieves. They'll steal anything. They've got no sense of property rights.
"And the latter was true, for how can a man without property know the ache of ownership? And the defending people said, They bring disease, they're filthy. We can't have them in the schools. They're strangers. How'd you like to have your sister go out with one of 'em?
"The local people whipped themselves into a mold of cruelty. Then they formed units, squads, and armed them—armed them with clubs, with gas, with guns. We own the country. We can't let these Okies get out of hand. And the men who were armed did not own the land, but they thought they did. And the clerks who drilled at night owned nothing, and the little storekeepers possessed only a drawerful of debts. But even a debt is something, even a job is something. The clerk thought, I get fifteen dollars a week. S'pose a goddamn Okie would work for twelve? And the little storekeeper thought, How could I compete with a debtless man?
"And the migrants streamed in on the highways and their hunger was in their eyes, and their need was in their eyes. They had no argument, no system, nothing but their numbers and their needs."
Along the way, they are beaten and thrown out of towns, and their camps are set on fire, hurting old people, kids. All because of fear and irrational hate of the other. Yes, this time, now, there is the added layer of horrific racism, but, even back then, Trump would have had the Okies tear-gassed.
"They reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad."
Same as it ever was.
Here ya go:
"The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them. The children without dinner changed them, the endless moving changed them. They were migrants. And the hostility changed them, welded them, united them—hostility that made the little towns group and arm as though to repel an invader, squads with pick handles, clerks and storekeepers with shotguns, guarding the world against their own people.
"In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said, These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They're degenerate, sexual maniacs. Those goddamned Okies are thieves. They'll steal anything. They've got no sense of property rights.
"And the latter was true, for how can a man without property know the ache of ownership? And the defending people said, They bring disease, they're filthy. We can't have them in the schools. They're strangers. How'd you like to have your sister go out with one of 'em?
"The local people whipped themselves into a mold of cruelty. Then they formed units, squads, and armed them—armed them with clubs, with gas, with guns. We own the country. We can't let these Okies get out of hand. And the men who were armed did not own the land, but they thought they did. And the clerks who drilled at night owned nothing, and the little storekeepers possessed only a drawerful of debts. But even a debt is something, even a job is something. The clerk thought, I get fifteen dollars a week. S'pose a goddamn Okie would work for twelve? And the little storekeeper thought, How could I compete with a debtless man?
"And the migrants streamed in on the highways and their hunger was in their eyes, and their need was in their eyes. They had no argument, no system, nothing but their numbers and their needs."
Along the way, they are beaten and thrown out of towns, and their camps are set on fire, hurting old people, kids. All because of fear and irrational hate of the other. Yes, this time, now, there is the added layer of horrific racism, but, even back then, Trump would have had the Okies tear-gassed.
"They reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad."
Same as it ever was.
11/26/2018
Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith Is a Shit Human
Look, I have no doubt that Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi believed she was joking when she praised a supporter by saying that "if he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." (She had started her remarks with the bizarrely bloody compliment "I would fight a circle saw for him.") I have no doubt that she never thought twice about the history of lynching of black people in her state. I have no doubt that she saw nothing wrong with what she was saying, that it was one of those things that she's heard and perhaps repeated a few times. We have a lot of phrases and sayings that are based on appalling shit. You wanna know the history of "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo"? The word "gyp"?
Of course, Hyde-Smith, being Southern and white and a Republican, refused to acknowledge there was something fucked up with what she said, aside from the anodyne bullshit of "Sorry if I offended you." She could have quickly come out and made a statement like, "I understand that some of the things we say come from a time when we did terrible things to people. I apologize for saying it, and we all need to learn to do better." But, you know, she didn't. She couldn't. She dug in her heels and said that anyone who thought she was racist was a damn liar.
It was a signal to those Southern, white Republicans who will vote for her that she has their racist, Confederacy-humping backs. "You don't have to move beyond your barbaric prejudices, you dumb fucks," she's telling them. "Your bigotry and ignorance is safe with me."
And thus, their economic anxiety soothed, the white working class went about its business of telling everyone how the Civil War wasn't about slavery.
We have learned since that moment that Cindy Hyde-Smith is not only a racist piece of shit (even if we pretty much knew that prior to the lynching remark) but that she's a shit human all around. For instance, the rest of that little talk in Tupelo on November 2 is filled with stuff that shit humans say.
There's one Planned Parenthood in all of Mississippi, in Hattiesburg, and it doesn't do abortions, but Hyde-Smith still whined, "Planned Parenthood is one of the worst things that has ever happened to us." She praised "distant relative" Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois (now quite gratifyingly dead) for the budget amendment that prevents any federal funds from being used for abortion, except the way she described him: "Many of you may have heard of Sen. Henry Hyde from Oklahoma."
And she's totally willing to use a closer relative for a political prop: "My daughter, on her second birthday, got a lifetime membership to the NRA." Yes, that's what every toddler wants. Fuck Tickle-Me-Elmo with the barrel of a shotgun. Baby loves 2A, motherfuckers.
You throw in the other things we've learned about and heard about Hyde-Smith - like dressing up like a Confederate soldier while visiting Jefferson Davis's house and declaring it "Mississippi history at its best" or "joking" again that there are "liberal folks" at historically black colleges and universities "who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult" to the revelation that she attended an all-white school that was created to get around integration laws (the fucking school mascot was a Confederate officer and that fucking flag of the defeated traitors flew there) to the fact that she sent the aforementioned NRA member daughter there - and she's just fucking awful, with a fucked up, constantly degrading and violent sense of humor, like every heinous stereotype of the dumbass, racist, hateful Southerner wrapped into one cynical package of the polite Southern belle who sounds kind and moral but is secretly poisoning the sweet tea she serves to her husband so she can get the life insurance.
How cynical? As pointed out by a whole bunch of Republicans who wanted her to lose in the primary, she was a Democrat until 2010. Yeah, she won election twice as a Democrat in the state senate in a once-Democratic district. When she decided to run for statewide office, Commissioner of Agriculture, she switched to the GOP. Republicans are so fucking terrible in Mississippi that they accused Hyde-Smith of voting for Hillary Clinton in 2008, a scarlet H that she denied.
But the worst Republican is often a born-again Republican, and Hyde-Smith has embraced the most virulent, hurtful side of the party. Wait...that's the whole party. Anyways, she has essentially become another one of Donald Trump's ass remoras, suctioned on to his corpulent buttocks and hanging on no matter how erratically he moves. Want us to vote against pre-existing condition coverage? Sure, suck, suck, suck. Want me to degrade women by voting for Brett Kavanaugh? You bet, suck, suck, suck. She's just devouring away on Trump's ass, downing dead skin scraps and parasites that she hopes will get her a few more votes.
Jesus fuckballs Christ, tonight's rally with Trump is gonna be a sight, with Hyde-Smith just stuck on Trump's pants as he bitches and preens and yells and does the rest of his tiresome shtick.
C'mon, Mississippi. You don't have to be this anymore. You can step into the goddamn light of the present with Mike Espy. You can follow Alabama, which, at least for one brief election, demonstrated that the past can fucking die. You don't have to vote for a shit human like Cindy Hyde-Smith. You can evolve.
(Note: Don't hold your breath.)
Of course, Hyde-Smith, being Southern and white and a Republican, refused to acknowledge there was something fucked up with what she said, aside from the anodyne bullshit of "Sorry if I offended you." She could have quickly come out and made a statement like, "I understand that some of the things we say come from a time when we did terrible things to people. I apologize for saying it, and we all need to learn to do better." But, you know, she didn't. She couldn't. She dug in her heels and said that anyone who thought she was racist was a damn liar.
It was a signal to those Southern, white Republicans who will vote for her that she has their racist, Confederacy-humping backs. "You don't have to move beyond your barbaric prejudices, you dumb fucks," she's telling them. "Your bigotry and ignorance is safe with me."
And thus, their economic anxiety soothed, the white working class went about its business of telling everyone how the Civil War wasn't about slavery.
We have learned since that moment that Cindy Hyde-Smith is not only a racist piece of shit (even if we pretty much knew that prior to the lynching remark) but that she's a shit human all around. For instance, the rest of that little talk in Tupelo on November 2 is filled with stuff that shit humans say.
There's one Planned Parenthood in all of Mississippi, in Hattiesburg, and it doesn't do abortions, but Hyde-Smith still whined, "Planned Parenthood is one of the worst things that has ever happened to us." She praised "distant relative" Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois (now quite gratifyingly dead) for the budget amendment that prevents any federal funds from being used for abortion, except the way she described him: "Many of you may have heard of Sen. Henry Hyde from Oklahoma."
And she's totally willing to use a closer relative for a political prop: "My daughter, on her second birthday, got a lifetime membership to the NRA." Yes, that's what every toddler wants. Fuck Tickle-Me-Elmo with the barrel of a shotgun. Baby loves 2A, motherfuckers.
You throw in the other things we've learned about and heard about Hyde-Smith - like dressing up like a Confederate soldier while visiting Jefferson Davis's house and declaring it "Mississippi history at its best" or "joking" again that there are "liberal folks" at historically black colleges and universities "who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult" to the revelation that she attended an all-white school that was created to get around integration laws (the fucking school mascot was a Confederate officer and that fucking flag of the defeated traitors flew there) to the fact that she sent the aforementioned NRA member daughter there - and she's just fucking awful, with a fucked up, constantly degrading and violent sense of humor, like every heinous stereotype of the dumbass, racist, hateful Southerner wrapped into one cynical package of the polite Southern belle who sounds kind and moral but is secretly poisoning the sweet tea she serves to her husband so she can get the life insurance.
How cynical? As pointed out by a whole bunch of Republicans who wanted her to lose in the primary, she was a Democrat until 2010. Yeah, she won election twice as a Democrat in the state senate in a once-Democratic district. When she decided to run for statewide office, Commissioner of Agriculture, she switched to the GOP. Republicans are so fucking terrible in Mississippi that they accused Hyde-Smith of voting for Hillary Clinton in 2008, a scarlet H that she denied.
But the worst Republican is often a born-again Republican, and Hyde-Smith has embraced the most virulent, hurtful side of the party. Wait...that's the whole party. Anyways, she has essentially become another one of Donald Trump's ass remoras, suctioned on to his corpulent buttocks and hanging on no matter how erratically he moves. Want us to vote against pre-existing condition coverage? Sure, suck, suck, suck. Want me to degrade women by voting for Brett Kavanaugh? You bet, suck, suck, suck. She's just devouring away on Trump's ass, downing dead skin scraps and parasites that she hopes will get her a few more votes.
Jesus fuckballs Christ, tonight's rally with Trump is gonna be a sight, with Hyde-Smith just stuck on Trump's pants as he bitches and preens and yells and does the rest of his tiresome shtick.
C'mon, Mississippi. You don't have to be this anymore. You can step into the goddamn light of the present with Mike Espy. You can follow Alabama, which, at least for one brief election, demonstrated that the past can fucking die. You don't have to vote for a shit human like Cindy Hyde-Smith. You can evolve.
(Note: Don't hold your breath.)
11/25/2018
Hell, Guess I Better Get in on This Cyber Monday Thing: Give Me Money and I'll Send You Something
"Well, shit," I said to myself.
"It's Cyber Monday, and apparently that's a thing where websites sell something or ask for money, and, well, shit," I said again.
"I've got a got-damn website. And I can give people something for money," I concluded.
So here's the deal:
There are two ways you can support his here act of bloggery and all the other audio and video accoutrements that go along with it.
You can just stab that PayPal button over there (or right here) and outright donate. Tell you what: you donate $50 or more and I'll just send you all this year's written bonus posts from Patreon. Maybe I'll even put send along a rude e-card that says, "Merry Christmas, Motherfucker" or "Happy Holidays...We're All Fucked" or something. Credit cards accepted because America, man.
If you send less, you're still a good person. I'll send you some music or whiskey recommendations.
There, that's good ol' capitalistic commerce, right?
Or, if you're inclined, you can just up and subscribe to the Rude Pundit Patreon page. For as little as a single dollar ($1, if you're number-oriented), you can get bonus posts, bonus audio, bonus video, and more. Wait, not more. That's pretty much everything.
It's a fun little community we got going there. I'd say the best bargain is the $3 level and the extravagant one is just $5, where you get bonuser audio.
Now, when you do that, you gotta go through Patreon. PayPal is for donations. Patreon is for subscribing. We clear?
Also, all donations and subscriptions go to support my slowly developing (but strangely fun) Another Goddamn Podcast. The goal is to get enough raised to pay someone to do the editing because there are a fuckton of people better and faster at that part than me. Besides, if I employ someone, then I can be a small business and, look out, Small Business Saturday, here I come.
Back tomorrow with more sweet and luscious rudeness. And more Rude Storytime over at Patreon.
(Note: Yeah, I know it ain't Cyber Monday in the U.S. yet. But it is in the UK and elsewhere. Don't be so goddamned America-centric.)
11/22/2018
A Thanksgiving Poem from the Conquered
(I think this also works as a prayer.)
"American, I Sing Back"
by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, who is from the Huron and other tribes
America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
Sing back the moment you cherished breath.
Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.
Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord beautifully beaded.
My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,
nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.
My song comforted her as she battled my reason
broke my long held footing sure, as any child might do.
Lo, as she pushed herself away, forced me to remove myself,
as I cried this country, my song grew roses in each tear’s fall.
My blood veined rivers, painted pipestone quarries
circled canyons, while she made herself maiden fine.
Oh, but here I am, here I am, here, I remain high on each and every peak,
carefully rumbling her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing—
and sing again I will, as I have always done.
Never silenced unless in the company of strangers, singing
the stoic face, polite repose, polite, while dancing deep inside, polite
Mother of her world. Sister of myself.
When my song sings aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.
Call her to peer into waters, to behold herself in dark and light,
day and night, call her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision—
Then, she will make herself over. My song will make it so
When she grows far past her self-considered purpose,
I will sing her back, sing her back. I will sing. Oh, I will—I do.
America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
"American, I Sing Back"
by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, who is from the Huron and other tribes
America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
Sing back the moment you cherished breath.
Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.
Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord beautifully beaded.
My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,
nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.
My song comforted her as she battled my reason
broke my long held footing sure, as any child might do.
Lo, as she pushed herself away, forced me to remove myself,
as I cried this country, my song grew roses in each tear’s fall.
My blood veined rivers, painted pipestone quarries
circled canyons, while she made herself maiden fine.
Oh, but here I am, here I am, here, I remain high on each and every peak,
carefully rumbling her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing—
and sing again I will, as I have always done.
Never silenced unless in the company of strangers, singing
the stoic face, polite repose, polite, while dancing deep inside, polite
Mother of her world. Sister of myself.
When my song sings aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.
Call her to peer into waters, to behold herself in dark and light,
day and night, call her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision—
Then, she will make herself over. My song will make it so
When she grows far past her self-considered purpose,
I will sing her back, sing her back. I will sing. Oh, I will—I do.
America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
11/20/2018
Trump's Completely Batshit and Evil Statement About Saudi Arabia and the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi
(Note: There were about 20 other things I was thinking of writing about today, but when you're living in times of fast-paced dumbfuckery, sometimes the newest, shittiest object has to be discussed.)
The White House released a statement today that is the rhetorical equivalent of President Donald Trump performing analingus on Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince (seriously, fuck that title) Mohammad bin Salman while bin Salman jacks off on Stephen Miller's bald head. Essentially, Trump is telling the world that Saudi Arabia and bin Salman have bought their way out of any culpability. And he's telling the intelligence agencies of the United States that they can go fuck themselves with their assessments.
It's an honestly stunning document, one that actually seems as if Trump was involved in writing because of its psychotic combination of ignorance, blindness, and apathy, like a bunch of his tweets strung together. Also, it reads like fucking moron dictated it to Stephen Miller, who added his special sauce of dickishness.
For one, it's got sentences that end in exclamation points. Who the fuck does that in an official release about anything, let alone a murder? The thing is titled (or epigraphed - who can tell?), no shit, "America First!" That's followed by the idiot bray of "The world is a very dangerous place!" Thanks for that update.
Trump starts by saying that Iran is the worst of the worst of the worstest worsts that every worsted worstness. It's a paragraph filled with easily proven lies, like "the Iranians have killed many Americans." No, they haven't. And then Trump goes on about how Saudi Arabia is a peace-loving nation that just wants to end the war in Yemen if only those mean Iranians would let it happen: "Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave." The Iranian military is not in Yemen. There is some support of the Houthi rebels. But when the Houthis wanted to calm shit down, Saudi Arabia responded by bombing the fuck out of them some more with U.S.-made weapons, which they are gonna need to buy more of from us.
Hey, did you know that Saudi Arabia has promised to spend shit-tons of money, according to Trump? Yeah, he repeats the lie that the Saudis are gonna "invest $450 billion in the United States" which "will create hundreds of thousands of jobs." What are we gonna do? Let China and Russia get all that filthy lucre? How can a motherfucker get a kickback if that happens?
Getting down on his knees and Chapstiking up his lips, Trump finally gets to the savage murder of American resident Jamal Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Trump shits all over Khashoggi, who, one might be reminded, can't defend himself since he's in multiple pieces somewhere. See, though, it's not Trump saying it. He's just quoting the Saudis, who are saying Khashoggi "was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood" and, what else, a werewolf, that's right - a fuckin' werewolf. Can you blame anyone for killing a werewolf?
Once again, though, Trump goes to his usual postmodern take on truth (with another fucking exclamation point, the vape pen of punctuation): "It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!"
Who can ever know truth in a crime? What kind of magic would that involve? It's unpossible. Besides, Trump says, fuck you: "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region." And if anyone, like, say, some dickhole members of Congress, wants to do something about it, well, "As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!" (Yes, one more exclamation point because goddamn imbeciles only understand you when you yell.)
There you go. The President of the United States told a country of medieval barbarians that everything's cool as long as Donald gets paid. "America First!" means we are no longer going to even pretend to be a beacon for freedom and justice. We are fine with the extrajudiciary murders of legal residents as long as it's done by someone who Trump wants to curry favor with for whatever obscene project Don, Jr. or Jared are working on. American capitalism first, really.
The rule of law has always meant nothing to these awful people. It merely gets in the way of grotesque profit-mongering. These fuckers would sell the kidneys of their children if they thought it would net them a buck. The rest of us don't stand a chance. This is evil shit right here.
The pathetic hope I have now is that the IC is so fucking pissed off at this fucker that they finally go apeshit on him. "You wanna see the Deep State in action, motherfucker? Buckle up, buttercup!"
The White House released a statement today that is the rhetorical equivalent of President Donald Trump performing analingus on Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince (seriously, fuck that title) Mohammad bin Salman while bin Salman jacks off on Stephen Miller's bald head. Essentially, Trump is telling the world that Saudi Arabia and bin Salman have bought their way out of any culpability. And he's telling the intelligence agencies of the United States that they can go fuck themselves with their assessments.
It's an honestly stunning document, one that actually seems as if Trump was involved in writing because of its psychotic combination of ignorance, blindness, and apathy, like a bunch of his tweets strung together. Also, it reads like fucking moron dictated it to Stephen Miller, who added his special sauce of dickishness.
For one, it's got sentences that end in exclamation points. Who the fuck does that in an official release about anything, let alone a murder? The thing is titled (or epigraphed - who can tell?), no shit, "America First!" That's followed by the idiot bray of "The world is a very dangerous place!" Thanks for that update.
Trump starts by saying that Iran is the worst of the worst of the worstest worsts that every worsted worstness. It's a paragraph filled with easily proven lies, like "the Iranians have killed many Americans." No, they haven't. And then Trump goes on about how Saudi Arabia is a peace-loving nation that just wants to end the war in Yemen if only those mean Iranians would let it happen: "Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave." The Iranian military is not in Yemen. There is some support of the Houthi rebels. But when the Houthis wanted to calm shit down, Saudi Arabia responded by bombing the fuck out of them some more with U.S.-made weapons, which they are gonna need to buy more of from us.
Hey, did you know that Saudi Arabia has promised to spend shit-tons of money, according to Trump? Yeah, he repeats the lie that the Saudis are gonna "invest $450 billion in the United States" which "will create hundreds of thousands of jobs." What are we gonna do? Let China and Russia get all that filthy lucre? How can a motherfucker get a kickback if that happens?
Getting down on his knees and Chapstiking up his lips, Trump finally gets to the savage murder of American resident Jamal Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Trump shits all over Khashoggi, who, one might be reminded, can't defend himself since he's in multiple pieces somewhere. See, though, it's not Trump saying it. He's just quoting the Saudis, who are saying Khashoggi "was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood" and, what else, a werewolf, that's right - a fuckin' werewolf. Can you blame anyone for killing a werewolf?
Once again, though, Trump goes to his usual postmodern take on truth (with another fucking exclamation point, the vape pen of punctuation): "It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!"
Who can ever know truth in a crime? What kind of magic would that involve? It's unpossible. Besides, Trump says, fuck you: "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region." And if anyone, like, say, some dickhole members of Congress, wants to do something about it, well, "As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!" (Yes, one more exclamation point because goddamn imbeciles only understand you when you yell.)
There you go. The President of the United States told a country of medieval barbarians that everything's cool as long as Donald gets paid. "America First!" means we are no longer going to even pretend to be a beacon for freedom and justice. We are fine with the extrajudiciary murders of legal residents as long as it's done by someone who Trump wants to curry favor with for whatever obscene project Don, Jr. or Jared are working on. American capitalism first, really.
The rule of law has always meant nothing to these awful people. It merely gets in the way of grotesque profit-mongering. These fuckers would sell the kidneys of their children if they thought it would net them a buck. The rest of us don't stand a chance. This is evil shit right here.
The pathetic hope I have now is that the IC is so fucking pissed off at this fucker that they finally go apeshit on him. "You wanna see the Deep State in action, motherfucker? Buckle up, buttercup!"
11/19/2018
Stop Fearing Primary Challenges (and Stop Fearing Incumbents)
In Texas in 1994, Sheila Jackson Lee won office after winning the Democratic primary against incumbent Congressman Craig Washington.
In Texas again, this time in 2002 in a race for the state's House of Representatives, Joaquin Castro defeated incumbent Arthur Reyna in the Democratic primary. Castro was going to run against Democrat Lloyd Doggett for Congress, but a retirement opened up a seat in a neighboring district.
And, hey, look, in Texas in 2012, a young unknown named Beto O'Rourke defeated incumbent Congressman Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary before winning office.
In California in 2016, Ro Khanna won office after defeating his opponent in the Democratic primary, Congressman Mike Honda.
This is obviously a partial list.
When newly-elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that she would back primary opponents to Democratic incumbents in Congress, it wasn't the least bit surprising. Ocasio-Cortez won precisely because she did that. Why wouldn't she want to convert that upset into more elections for the Justice Democrats' movement? I mean, it was fucking obvious from the start that Ocasio-Cortez wasn't gonna be a reticent and quiet new legislator. She wasn't elected to not kick some asses.
I'm all for getting rid of some dusty motherfuckers in Congress. I'm all for greater representation of women and non-whites in the House of, you know, Representatives and in the Senate. And Republicans sure as shit ain't gonna help with that. I'm not sure how anyone can think that having Ayanna Pressley in the House next year is not a good thing. Sorry to Michael Capuano, thanks for your service, and all that. But this is how politics ought to work. It's how you hold our elected Democrats accountable.
The flip side of this is for progressives who support primary opponents against more moderate incumbents. If those moderates win the Democratic primary, then the supporters of the primary opponent need to suck it the fuck up and vote for that moderate Democrat. None of this "Boo-hoo, i can't vote for them; they're corporate/neoliberal/Wall Street" (or whatever fuckin' buzz-insult you wanna toss) bullshit. It's too important now in our Trump-fucked time to hold the seat. That's part of the deal: primary away, but accept the outcome, even if you lose. Or fuck off with your primary challenge. You don't care about strengthening the party, just your part of it. (By the way, the same goes for supporters of the incumbent if the primary challenger wins. Pull the D, people.)
And, by the way, if you're getting all upset about Ocasio-Cortez, that's because you're buying the right-wing spin that she's some kind of out-of-control, raging socialist fiend. That's a lie. As a long-term Democratic congressional aide described it, "Ocasio-Cortez had been respectful to members and constructive in internal party debates. Out of the three full meetings of the Democratic caucus that have taken place this week, Ocasio-Cortez has spoken up in just one of them, to advocate for the new climate committee." That last part is not a bad thing, either.
And, while I'm at it, I have no problem with the debate over whether or not Nancy Pelosi should be speaker. I support her because there is no one else with her abilities or her tenacity. She's a fuck of a lot more progressive than most Democrats. And she goddamn well earned it with this election. Besides, what we should really be talking about is replacing Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader. Get someone new in that position to tee them up for a future speakership.
It's all about the future. There is a chance we might have one.
In Texas again, this time in 2002 in a race for the state's House of Representatives, Joaquin Castro defeated incumbent Arthur Reyna in the Democratic primary. Castro was going to run against Democrat Lloyd Doggett for Congress, but a retirement opened up a seat in a neighboring district.
And, hey, look, in Texas in 2012, a young unknown named Beto O'Rourke defeated incumbent Congressman Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary before winning office.
In California in 2016, Ro Khanna won office after defeating his opponent in the Democratic primary, Congressman Mike Honda.
This is obviously a partial list.
When newly-elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that she would back primary opponents to Democratic incumbents in Congress, it wasn't the least bit surprising. Ocasio-Cortez won precisely because she did that. Why wouldn't she want to convert that upset into more elections for the Justice Democrats' movement? I mean, it was fucking obvious from the start that Ocasio-Cortez wasn't gonna be a reticent and quiet new legislator. She wasn't elected to not kick some asses.
I'm all for getting rid of some dusty motherfuckers in Congress. I'm all for greater representation of women and non-whites in the House of, you know, Representatives and in the Senate. And Republicans sure as shit ain't gonna help with that. I'm not sure how anyone can think that having Ayanna Pressley in the House next year is not a good thing. Sorry to Michael Capuano, thanks for your service, and all that. But this is how politics ought to work. It's how you hold our elected Democrats accountable.
The flip side of this is for progressives who support primary opponents against more moderate incumbents. If those moderates win the Democratic primary, then the supporters of the primary opponent need to suck it the fuck up and vote for that moderate Democrat. None of this "Boo-hoo, i can't vote for them; they're corporate/neoliberal/Wall Street" (or whatever fuckin' buzz-insult you wanna toss) bullshit. It's too important now in our Trump-fucked time to hold the seat. That's part of the deal: primary away, but accept the outcome, even if you lose. Or fuck off with your primary challenge. You don't care about strengthening the party, just your part of it. (By the way, the same goes for supporters of the incumbent if the primary challenger wins. Pull the D, people.)
And, by the way, if you're getting all upset about Ocasio-Cortez, that's because you're buying the right-wing spin that she's some kind of out-of-control, raging socialist fiend. That's a lie. As a long-term Democratic congressional aide described it, "Ocasio-Cortez had been respectful to members and constructive in internal party debates. Out of the three full meetings of the Democratic caucus that have taken place this week, Ocasio-Cortez has spoken up in just one of them, to advocate for the new climate committee." That last part is not a bad thing, either.
And, while I'm at it, I have no problem with the debate over whether or not Nancy Pelosi should be speaker. I support her because there is no one else with her abilities or her tenacity. She's a fuck of a lot more progressive than most Democrats. And she goddamn well earned it with this election. Besides, what we should really be talking about is replacing Steny Hoyer for Majority Leader. Get someone new in that position to tee them up for a future speakership.
It's all about the future. There is a chance we might have one.
11/15/2018
Weird Shit from Trump's Weird-Ass Interview with the Daily Caller
So two industrious reporters who work for The Daily Caller (motto: "We're Breitbart with boobs, much like Tucker Carlson") got to interview President Donald Trump, who is really just a baby whale that swam through toxic waste. As is always the case whenever Trump grants an interview, it was the typical saute' of stupidity, incompetence, and cruelty, all mixed in a pan made of an idiot's arrogance. But beyond the dumbfuckery, what comes through most is that Trump's brain is just fuckin' weird. The toxic combination of spray tan chemicals and age-related dementia has left him unable to keep to a single thought, or it makes him just say weird shit.
For instance, early on, the reporters (who I'm not gonna name because, fuck them, they work for The Daily Caller) ask him about replacing Chief of Staff John Kelly and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. After saying how great his cabinet is, Trump, for no reason, jumps to "Uh, we’ve been doing incredibly on trade deals and trade with my whole staff of traders, because that’s what they are" and then jumps back to how great his cabinet is.
Really, the next line in the transcript should be one of the reporters muttering, "The fuck?" while the other says, "Forget it, man. We don't work for a real news website."
Trump credits himself for saving the news media, talking again about how everything was failing until he came along. He creepily says, "You know, cable television was supposed to be a dying medium. And because of me it’s now hotter than it’s ever been. But someday I won’t be here and it will die like you’ve never seen. And so will The New York Times — will die — and every one of them will just be dead." Not "go out of business" or "go off the air." No, those fuckers are gonna be dead.
He just kept going about the Times. Seriously, this is some weird shit: "I remember picking up before I announced for president, I picked up The New York Times and I said to somebody, ‘Boy, this paper is dead, look at it.’ The paper was dead. It was like a leaflet that you hand out at the supermarket." Um, I subscribed to the print edition for years. It was never like a grocery store ad. But I'm guessing that he was just mad there was no comics page.
The derangement continued when he was asked about the possibility of shutting down the government over funding for his stupid fucking wall. Trump bounced from subject to subject like a gecko on meth. He talked about borders and then, for some reason, who knows, Robert Mueller's investigation crept into his shrinking brain: "Just like the witch hunt, the Mueller witch hunt. It’s pure harassment. It’s horrible. It’s horrible that they’re allowed to get away with it. Again, not Senate confirmed but, you know. You have 17 people — half, many of them worked for Hillary Clinton, some on the Foundation. The Hillary Clinton Foundation." There is no Hillary Clinton Foundation, just a Clinton Foundation.
Then, right before he bizarrely said that you need a photo i.d. to buy a box of cereal (maybe Oxy Krispies?), he offered about "illegal" voting, "And I’ve seen it, I’ve had friends talk about it when people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again."
Let's pause for a second here: First he says he saw this happen. Then he realized that was too much of a lie, so he goes with his more reliable lie that others told him they saw it. Then, discussing how people go all Dopey by running around and getting back in line to vote, he seems to have no idea how voting occurs. Also, how fucking dumb does someone have to be to be a non-citizen or something and not only vote, but vote multiple times? That's some major effort at criminality with little payoff.
Moving on, in a quote that's gotten precious little attention, Trump essentially advocates for white supremacists to beat up Antifa protesters: "They better hope that the opposition to Antifa decides not to mobilize. Because if they do, they’re much tougher. Much stronger. Potentially much more violent. And Antifa’s going to be in big trouble."
Trump ended the interview by bragging about how big his crowds were at his rallies of the damned, how he got Republicans to win, and how he is the greatest. He may as well have unzipped his pants and said, "Fellas, I'm gonna jack off on you. And you're gonna sit there however long it takes. Then you can walk out with my jizz on you."
And the two Daily Caller reporters would have sat smiling as they awaited their blessing from Donald Trump.
For instance, early on, the reporters (who I'm not gonna name because, fuck them, they work for The Daily Caller) ask him about replacing Chief of Staff John Kelly and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. After saying how great his cabinet is, Trump, for no reason, jumps to "Uh, we’ve been doing incredibly on trade deals and trade with my whole staff of traders, because that’s what they are" and then jumps back to how great his cabinet is.
Really, the next line in the transcript should be one of the reporters muttering, "The fuck?" while the other says, "Forget it, man. We don't work for a real news website."
Trump credits himself for saving the news media, talking again about how everything was failing until he came along. He creepily says, "You know, cable television was supposed to be a dying medium. And because of me it’s now hotter than it’s ever been. But someday I won’t be here and it will die like you’ve never seen. And so will The New York Times — will die — and every one of them will just be dead." Not "go out of business" or "go off the air." No, those fuckers are gonna be dead.
He just kept going about the Times. Seriously, this is some weird shit: "I remember picking up before I announced for president, I picked up The New York Times and I said to somebody, ‘Boy, this paper is dead, look at it.’ The paper was dead. It was like a leaflet that you hand out at the supermarket." Um, I subscribed to the print edition for years. It was never like a grocery store ad. But I'm guessing that he was just mad there was no comics page.
The derangement continued when he was asked about the possibility of shutting down the government over funding for his stupid fucking wall. Trump bounced from subject to subject like a gecko on meth. He talked about borders and then, for some reason, who knows, Robert Mueller's investigation crept into his shrinking brain: "Just like the witch hunt, the Mueller witch hunt. It’s pure harassment. It’s horrible. It’s horrible that they’re allowed to get away with it. Again, not Senate confirmed but, you know. You have 17 people — half, many of them worked for Hillary Clinton, some on the Foundation. The Hillary Clinton Foundation." There is no Hillary Clinton Foundation, just a Clinton Foundation.
Then, right before he bizarrely said that you need a photo i.d. to buy a box of cereal (maybe Oxy Krispies?), he offered about "illegal" voting, "And I’ve seen it, I’ve had friends talk about it when people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again."
Let's pause for a second here: First he says he saw this happen. Then he realized that was too much of a lie, so he goes with his more reliable lie that others told him they saw it. Then, discussing how people go all Dopey by running around and getting back in line to vote, he seems to have no idea how voting occurs. Also, how fucking dumb does someone have to be to be a non-citizen or something and not only vote, but vote multiple times? That's some major effort at criminality with little payoff.
Moving on, in a quote that's gotten precious little attention, Trump essentially advocates for white supremacists to beat up Antifa protesters: "They better hope that the opposition to Antifa decides not to mobilize. Because if they do, they’re much tougher. Much stronger. Potentially much more violent. And Antifa’s going to be in big trouble."
Trump ended the interview by bragging about how big his crowds were at his rallies of the damned, how he got Republicans to win, and how he is the greatest. He may as well have unzipped his pants and said, "Fellas, I'm gonna jack off on you. And you're gonna sit there however long it takes. Then you can walk out with my jizz on you."
And the two Daily Caller reporters would have sat smiling as they awaited their blessing from Donald Trump.
11/14/2018
Donald Trump's Soul Is Troubled
Donald Trump's soul sits in a tiny apartment in the basement of an old condo development in the Bronx. Pelham Bay, to be exact. It's a decent enough joint. It's not like Donald Trump's soul needs much space. Every day, he grows just a little smaller, and he knows it's just a matter of time before he disappears completely, when demon thugs, probably with Russian accents for the joke of it, will come to take him down to where he's going to stay for all eternity.
When Trump made his deal with the Devil back in the mid-1970s, he was very specific. Yes, he was selling his soul for the ability to make people believe whatever he wanted them to believe, but he wanted his soul out of his body for the duration. "Put it somewhere it won't ever bother me again," Trump negotiated with Lucifer.
The Devil was impressed that Trump hadn't asked for riches outright. "Most of you human cocksuckers want everything easy. You're willing to give it all away for a few piles of cash, but you?" Satan said, pointing at Trump, "You're something special. You're gonna go places. And, man, I'm gonna enjoy reaming you out with a ram's horn when you finally give up the ghost. Gonna twist the fucker all the way in."
Trump had stopped listening by this point. Once a deal was made, he was finished. Later, he would tell his bodyguard, "It's the greatest deal anyone ever made with the Devil. I mean, I can say whatever the hell I want and a whole lot of people will think it's fantastic and smart and they'll give me money for it. What could be better than that? The best part is that my soul, that pussy, it's gonna be far, far away from me. I'm free."
Donald Trump's soul watches his body on television all the time. He reads about the ways in which his body is squandering the coming damnation. Being a soul, he is capable of human empathy, something that Trump hasn't experience in all these decades. But Donald Trump's soul knows that Trump is unhappy, floundering, burdened, flailing about, looking for ways to make everything right before the body expires.
He wishes he could get free of this basement apartment, with its cabinets and appliances never updated, the wallpaper with its orange pattern that is fading now, stuck in the past. Donald Trump's soul wishes he could go to Trump, to the shell that was never really a full man, but at least once had the hope of redemption, just to tell him that he needs to unburden himself, that to truly have the freedom he believed he could have he should just go to Robert Mueller or Nancy Pelosi and reveal it all, all the dirty laundry, from the semen-stained underwear to the blood-stained jackets, all of it, all the mobsters, all the dirty deals, all the bribes and graft, all the ways in which he dicked over people. Here, take the taxes and the bank records and the emails and everything. Use the power the Devil gave him for good. It might mean that his damned children take the fall with him, but that is the price for believing in a soulless man, even if that man is your father.
Right now, this existence that Trump has is no existence at all. Donald Trump's soul has read about Trump raging about feeling disrespected by other world leaders, about how no one appreciates the things he's done, about his own appointees being incompetent or criminal or, worst of all, independent, about the elections he can't control, about the rallies that amounted to so few victories, about a Congress that's about to start probing every part of his life, about the Republicans who can barely stand his presence, about his constant errors which he can't bring himself to see as errors, his failures that he knows are failures but refuses to acknowledge that he has failed. It makes Donald Trump's soul weep, mostly alone, in the Bronx.
Lucifer comes by the apartment sometimes. Usually it's to taunt Donald Trump's soul with various implements that he'll be sodomized with: golf clubs, rolled-up Time magazines, Ivanka's tibia. But occasionally Lucifer just wants to chat. "You can have the entire world at your feet and can still feel the walls closing in and the floor give way," Lucifer said the other day, talking like a being who knows from great falls. "I said people would believe him. I didn't say they'd all love him. Gotta think these things through, right?" Donald Trump's soul was downcast. That made Lucifer laugh. "You think shit's bad now? You think he's upset? Don't you know him? He's gonna lose his fucking mind when he realizes how trapped he is. He's gonna try to take everyone down with him. I'd give you odds that he'll start a war before the end of 2019, but, shit, you've got nothing to bet that I don't already have."
Donald Trump's soul does know Trump. He just tries not to think about how much worse things will get, how we're just in the prelude to genuine Hell.
When Trump made his deal with the Devil back in the mid-1970s, he was very specific. Yes, he was selling his soul for the ability to make people believe whatever he wanted them to believe, but he wanted his soul out of his body for the duration. "Put it somewhere it won't ever bother me again," Trump negotiated with Lucifer.
The Devil was impressed that Trump hadn't asked for riches outright. "Most of you human cocksuckers want everything easy. You're willing to give it all away for a few piles of cash, but you?" Satan said, pointing at Trump, "You're something special. You're gonna go places. And, man, I'm gonna enjoy reaming you out with a ram's horn when you finally give up the ghost. Gonna twist the fucker all the way in."
Trump had stopped listening by this point. Once a deal was made, he was finished. Later, he would tell his bodyguard, "It's the greatest deal anyone ever made with the Devil. I mean, I can say whatever the hell I want and a whole lot of people will think it's fantastic and smart and they'll give me money for it. What could be better than that? The best part is that my soul, that pussy, it's gonna be far, far away from me. I'm free."
Donald Trump's soul watches his body on television all the time. He reads about the ways in which his body is squandering the coming damnation. Being a soul, he is capable of human empathy, something that Trump hasn't experience in all these decades. But Donald Trump's soul knows that Trump is unhappy, floundering, burdened, flailing about, looking for ways to make everything right before the body expires.
He wishes he could get free of this basement apartment, with its cabinets and appliances never updated, the wallpaper with its orange pattern that is fading now, stuck in the past. Donald Trump's soul wishes he could go to Trump, to the shell that was never really a full man, but at least once had the hope of redemption, just to tell him that he needs to unburden himself, that to truly have the freedom he believed he could have he should just go to Robert Mueller or Nancy Pelosi and reveal it all, all the dirty laundry, from the semen-stained underwear to the blood-stained jackets, all of it, all the mobsters, all the dirty deals, all the bribes and graft, all the ways in which he dicked over people. Here, take the taxes and the bank records and the emails and everything. Use the power the Devil gave him for good. It might mean that his damned children take the fall with him, but that is the price for believing in a soulless man, even if that man is your father.
Right now, this existence that Trump has is no existence at all. Donald Trump's soul has read about Trump raging about feeling disrespected by other world leaders, about how no one appreciates the things he's done, about his own appointees being incompetent or criminal or, worst of all, independent, about the elections he can't control, about the rallies that amounted to so few victories, about a Congress that's about to start probing every part of his life, about the Republicans who can barely stand his presence, about his constant errors which he can't bring himself to see as errors, his failures that he knows are failures but refuses to acknowledge that he has failed. It makes Donald Trump's soul weep, mostly alone, in the Bronx.
Lucifer comes by the apartment sometimes. Usually it's to taunt Donald Trump's soul with various implements that he'll be sodomized with: golf clubs, rolled-up Time magazines, Ivanka's tibia. But occasionally Lucifer just wants to chat. "You can have the entire world at your feet and can still feel the walls closing in and the floor give way," Lucifer said the other day, talking like a being who knows from great falls. "I said people would believe him. I didn't say they'd all love him. Gotta think these things through, right?" Donald Trump's soul was downcast. That made Lucifer laugh. "You think shit's bad now? You think he's upset? Don't you know him? He's gonna lose his fucking mind when he realizes how trapped he is. He's gonna try to take everyone down with him. I'd give you odds that he'll start a war before the end of 2019, but, shit, you've got nothing to bet that I don't already have."
Donald Trump's soul does know Trump. He just tries not to think about how much worse things will get, how we're just in the prelude to genuine Hell.
11/12/2018
For Veterans Day, Trump Serial-Insults Veterans, Troops, Everyone
Our goddamn president, Donald Trump, bumblefucked his way through the last couple of days, essentially lumbering over to Paris in order to loudly fart at our allies before smiling at Vladimir Putin the way one smiles at one's bookie while trying to convince him not to have your kneecaps broken. In the course of the weekend and today, which included Veterans Day (or, you know, Armistice Day), Trump and his administration of boobs, twits, and fuck-ups managed to insult and degrade veterans and U.S. troops.
Let's start with the rank narcissism. At this point, to call Trump "narcissistic" is like calling the Catholic Church "a child-raping ring pretending to be a religion." We know. All you gotta say is the name and we get it. So it's not surprising that Trump makes everything about himself. True to form, he wished the Marine Corps a "Happy Birthday" on the 243rd anniversary of its creation and he did it with a picture of himself speaking to some Marines at an air base in Florida. Then, for Veterans Day, he tweeted a picture of himself hugging a vet. He celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of Poland with a picture of himself speaking in that country. Then fuckin' Melania posted a photo of both her and her lump of a husband at an event in Paris for the end of World War I as a way to "remember the brave actions of our troops."
In France on Saturday, Trump wouldn't leave his hotel to go out in a slight drizzle to honor those troops, including over 1000 Marines, whose "birthday" he had just tweet-celebrated, at an event at the Aisne-Marne Cemetery 30 miles outside Paris. The White House gave various excuses, like that the weather was too bad for his helicopter (which, as Malcolm Nance said this morning, was designed to track ships in monsoons and can land on the ocean, if needed). They said that a motorcade would have been disruptive, although it wasn't for the president of, you know, France. Let's be real: Trump was going to have walk more than a few steps and he can barely get his lardass up the stairs to Air Force One without looking like he's gonna vomit on himself from the effort. His only movement is swinging a golf club before getting back into the cart.
For extra head-smackingly sad hilarity, here's what Trump actually said in a speech the next day in France: "Through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar, they held the line, and pushed onward to victory — it was a great, great victory; costly victory but a great victory." That's right. The soldiers walked through shit pits with Hell raining down around them, but President Sugartits can't handle a little moisture.
Oh, and then, today, when Veterans Day is being observed, Trump is doing not a goddamn thing to honor the dead. He's not going to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath. Why? Fuckin' rain, man. (Note: It didn't rain.)
This is all symbolic stuff, even if the actual symbolism is Trump shitting on a grave and wiping his ass on the marble cross that marks it. But there is something that directly affects the lives of living veterans going on that the Trump administration is responsible for. His Veterans Day Proclamation is filled with self-praise about how awesome he has deluded himself into thinking he's been for vets. It says, "My Administration is also processing veteran claims and appeals more quickly than ever before, and veterans can now use their GI Bill benefits at any point in their lives." Funny thing about that is it's a lie.
Yeah, thanks to the clusterfuck of incompetence and apathy that is the hallmark of the Trump presidency, payments to vets from the GI Bill have been delayed "for months," according to NBC News. Indeed, the housing stipend that vets are supposed to receive has been delayed so much that some vets may have become or are about to become homeless because they can't afford their rent. The big reason is that Trump signed some mighty bill that accelerated vets getting benefits, but the bill didn't provide for updating the computers and software that would help process all the claims. And we're talking hundreds of thousands of vets being affected by this, unable to pay for their homes and their education.
So, you know, maybe instead of letting him get away with hiding and hunching over his phone, tweeting while watching Fox "news," someone can actually get this fuckin' fraud of a man to pretend he gives a shit about something other than himself. Hell, by this point in his presidency, Barack Obama had visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, actual war zones.
Trump can't even take a limo ride to a graveyard.
One last thing: This doesn't even get into Trump's call for Florida to ignore the votes of active troops in the midterm count. Not the recount. The count. Yeah, overseas ballots can come in until Friday. Man, those soldiers make awesome props.
In France on Saturday, Trump wouldn't leave his hotel to go out in a slight drizzle to honor those troops, including over 1000 Marines, whose "birthday" he had just tweet-celebrated, at an event at the Aisne-Marne Cemetery 30 miles outside Paris. The White House gave various excuses, like that the weather was too bad for his helicopter (which, as Malcolm Nance said this morning, was designed to track ships in monsoons and can land on the ocean, if needed). They said that a motorcade would have been disruptive, although it wasn't for the president of, you know, France. Let's be real: Trump was going to have walk more than a few steps and he can barely get his lardass up the stairs to Air Force One without looking like he's gonna vomit on himself from the effort. His only movement is swinging a golf club before getting back into the cart.
For extra head-smackingly sad hilarity, here's what Trump actually said in a speech the next day in France: "Through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar, they held the line, and pushed onward to victory — it was a great, great victory; costly victory but a great victory." That's right. The soldiers walked through shit pits with Hell raining down around them, but President Sugartits can't handle a little moisture.
Oh, and then, today, when Veterans Day is being observed, Trump is doing not a goddamn thing to honor the dead. He's not going to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath. Why? Fuckin' rain, man. (Note: It didn't rain.)
This is all symbolic stuff, even if the actual symbolism is Trump shitting on a grave and wiping his ass on the marble cross that marks it. But there is something that directly affects the lives of living veterans going on that the Trump administration is responsible for. His Veterans Day Proclamation is filled with self-praise about how awesome he has deluded himself into thinking he's been for vets. It says, "My Administration is also processing veteran claims and appeals more quickly than ever before, and veterans can now use their GI Bill benefits at any point in their lives." Funny thing about that is it's a lie.
Yeah, thanks to the clusterfuck of incompetence and apathy that is the hallmark of the Trump presidency, payments to vets from the GI Bill have been delayed "for months," according to NBC News. Indeed, the housing stipend that vets are supposed to receive has been delayed so much that some vets may have become or are about to become homeless because they can't afford their rent. The big reason is that Trump signed some mighty bill that accelerated vets getting benefits, but the bill didn't provide for updating the computers and software that would help process all the claims. And we're talking hundreds of thousands of vets being affected by this, unable to pay for their homes and their education.
So, you know, maybe instead of letting him get away with hiding and hunching over his phone, tweeting while watching Fox "news," someone can actually get this fuckin' fraud of a man to pretend he gives a shit about something other than himself. Hell, by this point in his presidency, Barack Obama had visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, actual war zones.
Trump can't even take a limo ride to a graveyard.
One last thing: This doesn't even get into Trump's call for Florida to ignore the votes of active troops in the midterm count. Not the recount. The count. Yeah, overseas ballots can come in until Friday. Man, those soldiers make awesome props.
11/09/2018
Random Observations... (Part 2): How Crazy Will Shit Get?
As we tumble and twist to the end of the year and into the new one with Democrats having a whole fuckload of power more than they've had since the end of 2016, you gotta understand that shit's about to go fuckin' crazy. We have a crazy motherfucker in the White House who is getting crazier and crankier every day. He's surrounded by crazy motherfuckers, and the people who believe in him are crazy motherfuckers. And, as I've said so many times before, a motherfucker will fuck mothers. That is a motherfucker's primary purpose. So a whole bunch of mothers are about to get fucked in a motherfucking rage orgy. And when Democrats take over the House, it's gonna get even fuckier.
1. Shit's gonna get crazy in the lame duck session of Congress. The Republicans get to keep the House for four weeks of scheduled sessions before the Christmas break. You can bet that Paul Ryan and the Trump spunk gobblers in his caucus are gonna try to ram through an Affordable Care Act repeal, more tax cuts (or more permanent tax cuts), and whatever else they can. The honest-to-fuck shock is that there are some bipartisan bills that might pass, like criminal justice reform and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Hell, things might be just bizarro enough that they make a deal on immigration: DACA kids for the funding for the bullshit wall (the same deal that was negotiated before that Trump walked away from). But the Senate is gonna amp up the judge approvals, and they'll rubber stamp the asses of anyone Trump nominates to any post. He could send Roy Cohn's skull up for Attorney General, and Lindsey Graham would screech about how qualified it is and how Democrats are jerks for pointing out that it's not alive, Jeff Flake would sigh and tweet how wrong it is, and Orrin Hatch would tongue fuck the eyeholes, all before making Roy Cohn's skull AG.
2. Shit's gonna get crazy in the Justice Department. Right now, with the firing of America's most racist leprechaun, Jeff Sessions, we have a bugfuck insane, walking cockknob as Attorney General. Matthew Whitaker is a repulsive idiot, a filthy con man, and another Trump dick lamprey. Not only does the nation have to deal with the fallout of Sessions' bullshit approach to criminal justice, like ignoring the threat of far-right violence and gutting consent decrees on police brutality, but now we've got an asshole in there who is a walking conflict of interest. Whether or not the investigation of Robert Mueller gets to continue is now in the hands of Kingpin the AG. This is not to mention that we get to look forward to the confirmation hearing of, perhaps, Chris Christie, which will primarily consist of Republicans fighting each other to suckle at his man teats while Christie insults Democrats.
3. Shit's gonna get crazy with Trump's voters. The MAGA chodes have been told over and over that they will always be winning. Like monkeys who just had their favorite toy taken away, they're going to be confused by Democrats being able to subpoena their orange dolt god and force officials to testify under oath. Monkeys will break shit. They are in full death threat mode already, against Christine Blasey Ford, who dared to tell her story of sexual abuse by Brett Kavanaugh, and against any reporter that Trump calls out, especially April Ryan and Jim Acosta. You might have forgotten, but a MAGA puke sent a dozen bombs to Democrats and liberals opposed to the president just a week or so ago. These assholes have no chill. They are itching for the chance to take down some libtards. I promise you that right now, they're breaking out their ape memes to attack Michelle Obama for daring to say that Trump was full of shit about birther nonsense. I would lay money down that some piece of shit is locked and loaded and ready to go to Florida (or, more likely, is already living there) to stop the counting of ballots.
4. Trump's gonna go full apeshit. Or he's already doing it. Jesus, at that press conference thing, he mocked Republicans who lost, he shit-talked the media constantly when not being outright abusive, and his self-aggrandizement was the kind of ego rant that one usually associates with a high school student council member who wants more credit for putting together the homecoming dance decorations. One quick example: On North Korea, he said, "We made more progress in that four or five months than they’ve made in 70 years. And nobody else could have done what I’ve done." Bitch, we had actual deals with North Korea and they fell apart. You haven't done shit but put your tiny hand in Kim Jong-un's tiny hand and traded palm sweat. But watch for Trump to lash out even more harshly, as he did today, calling a reporter's question on the Mueller investigation "stupid," and look for executive orders piling up. Frankly, if we're not in a war by the end of 2019, I'll be surprised. Trump is a coward at heart. It's why he has always crumbled whenever he's been questioned under oath. He talks a good game about fighting, but he's one of those punk-ass mob bosses who never got his hands dirty. He's always had goons and lackeys do his bidding. When his family starts being arrested, he's gonna scream and throw shit around and demand his idiot horde battle for his honor.
5. How do you respond to shit going crazy? Simple: You keep poking the crazy until their crazy is clear. Trump and the GOP are gonna say that Democrats are "harassing" them by investigating. It won't matter if Democrats are probing the most obvious shit, like voter suppression. The second some official is forced to produce documents, Trump will say how "no man was ever treated worse." It won't matter. Every Democratic bill will be labeled "socialism." Every opposition to a nominee will be called "obstruction." He is going to war. So be in a war posture. Go on the offense (and I talked how to do that Wednesday), ignore the right-wing noise machine, and bring a modicum of sanity back.
Gird yer loins, sweet Americans. If you thought times have been intense already, we're about to barrel into maelstrom.
1. Shit's gonna get crazy in the lame duck session of Congress. The Republicans get to keep the House for four weeks of scheduled sessions before the Christmas break. You can bet that Paul Ryan and the Trump spunk gobblers in his caucus are gonna try to ram through an Affordable Care Act repeal, more tax cuts (or more permanent tax cuts), and whatever else they can. The honest-to-fuck shock is that there are some bipartisan bills that might pass, like criminal justice reform and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Hell, things might be just bizarro enough that they make a deal on immigration: DACA kids for the funding for the bullshit wall (the same deal that was negotiated before that Trump walked away from). But the Senate is gonna amp up the judge approvals, and they'll rubber stamp the asses of anyone Trump nominates to any post. He could send Roy Cohn's skull up for Attorney General, and Lindsey Graham would screech about how qualified it is and how Democrats are jerks for pointing out that it's not alive, Jeff Flake would sigh and tweet how wrong it is, and Orrin Hatch would tongue fuck the eyeholes, all before making Roy Cohn's skull AG.
2. Shit's gonna get crazy in the Justice Department. Right now, with the firing of America's most racist leprechaun, Jeff Sessions, we have a bugfuck insane, walking cockknob as Attorney General. Matthew Whitaker is a repulsive idiot, a filthy con man, and another Trump dick lamprey. Not only does the nation have to deal with the fallout of Sessions' bullshit approach to criminal justice, like ignoring the threat of far-right violence and gutting consent decrees on police brutality, but now we've got an asshole in there who is a walking conflict of interest. Whether or not the investigation of Robert Mueller gets to continue is now in the hands of Kingpin the AG. This is not to mention that we get to look forward to the confirmation hearing of, perhaps, Chris Christie, which will primarily consist of Republicans fighting each other to suckle at his man teats while Christie insults Democrats.
3. Shit's gonna get crazy with Trump's voters. The MAGA chodes have been told over and over that they will always be winning. Like monkeys who just had their favorite toy taken away, they're going to be confused by Democrats being able to subpoena their orange dolt god and force officials to testify under oath. Monkeys will break shit. They are in full death threat mode already, against Christine Blasey Ford, who dared to tell her story of sexual abuse by Brett Kavanaugh, and against any reporter that Trump calls out, especially April Ryan and Jim Acosta. You might have forgotten, but a MAGA puke sent a dozen bombs to Democrats and liberals opposed to the president just a week or so ago. These assholes have no chill. They are itching for the chance to take down some libtards. I promise you that right now, they're breaking out their ape memes to attack Michelle Obama for daring to say that Trump was full of shit about birther nonsense. I would lay money down that some piece of shit is locked and loaded and ready to go to Florida (or, more likely, is already living there) to stop the counting of ballots.
4. Trump's gonna go full apeshit. Or he's already doing it. Jesus, at that press conference thing, he mocked Republicans who lost, he shit-talked the media constantly when not being outright abusive, and his self-aggrandizement was the kind of ego rant that one usually associates with a high school student council member who wants more credit for putting together the homecoming dance decorations. One quick example: On North Korea, he said, "We made more progress in that four or five months than they’ve made in 70 years. And nobody else could have done what I’ve done." Bitch, we had actual deals with North Korea and they fell apart. You haven't done shit but put your tiny hand in Kim Jong-un's tiny hand and traded palm sweat. But watch for Trump to lash out even more harshly, as he did today, calling a reporter's question on the Mueller investigation "stupid," and look for executive orders piling up. Frankly, if we're not in a war by the end of 2019, I'll be surprised. Trump is a coward at heart. It's why he has always crumbled whenever he's been questioned under oath. He talks a good game about fighting, but he's one of those punk-ass mob bosses who never got his hands dirty. He's always had goons and lackeys do his bidding. When his family starts being arrested, he's gonna scream and throw shit around and demand his idiot horde battle for his honor.
5. How do you respond to shit going crazy? Simple: You keep poking the crazy until their crazy is clear. Trump and the GOP are gonna say that Democrats are "harassing" them by investigating. It won't matter if Democrats are probing the most obvious shit, like voter suppression. The second some official is forced to produce documents, Trump will say how "no man was ever treated worse." It won't matter. Every Democratic bill will be labeled "socialism." Every opposition to a nominee will be called "obstruction." He is going to war. So be in a war posture. Go on the offense (and I talked how to do that Wednesday), ignore the right-wing noise machine, and bring a modicum of sanity back.
Gird yer loins, sweet Americans. If you thought times have been intense already, we're about to barrel into maelstrom.
11/08/2018
Today's Post Will Be Tomorrow
Okay, this day got away from me. Sometimes a grown-up's job is work. And today was one of those days. I gotta stop ending posts with "I'll talk about this tomorrow." 15 years and I haven't learned that lesson.
Anyway, back tomorrow (really) with a post on how shit's going crazy.
Anyway, back tomorrow (really) with a post on how shit's going crazy.
11/07/2018
Random Observations on the Democrats Getting a Win and Trump Losing (Part 1)
1. Democrats won. Don't let any motherfuckers spin it any other way. It's that simple. No, Democrats didn't win as much as we would have wanted. Yes, they lost a couple of seats in the Senate. Yes, there were some heartbreakers, like Beto O'Rourke losing to the desert skink in a human skin suit, Ted Cruz. But, in the light of day, after all the counting is done, Democrats began Tuesday by having no power in federal government (beyond the Senate filibuster) and ended it with full subpoena and investigative power as the majority in the House of Representatives. That's a fucking unequivocal win, taking some longtime seats from the filthy hands of the GOP. And bathe yourself in the blood of the deaths of the political careers of Kris Kobach, Dana Rohrbacher, and Scott Walker, among so many other fucknuts. So quit bitching about the losses, hang in there for the recounts, get jazzed about the local and state victories, and get ready for the coming war.
2. We all want Nancy Pelosi to put on the deluxe spiked strap-on and ream the assholes of the Trump Administration. God, their yowls of pain would be like sweet music for the next two years. Lemme lay out a better strategy.
- Target the most corrupt cockmites in the White House, like Ryan Zinke and Wilbur Ross (although look for their resignations soon).
- Wreck the scumfucks in the GOP caucus, like Devin Nunes, Steve King, and Chris Collins, with ethics investigations. Demonstrate that we don't want traitors and Nazis and thieves in power.
- Shove a hearing enema into the sphincter of things like white nationalism, voter suppression, immigration fuckery, and anything that can shine a light on the shitpile of cruelty, negligence, and outright evil committed by the GOP and conservative nutzoids.
- And release the fuckin' hounds on judicial nominees. Yeah, the House doesn't vote on 'em, but it can sure as shit investigate if someone's a damn sexual predator.
3a. But pick the battles with Trump. Goddamn, I want him to suffer subpoena and arrests so fucking much that I can taste the orange tanning spray dripping off his sweaty face. I want him to watch his horrible jizzstain children sent to prison. I want him to see his fake empire burned to the fucking ground with lawsuits and bankruptcies until he is just another pathetic, poor old racist, mumbling to himself in some stinking room that he used to be someone. But the risk is turning Trump into a martyr because he loves playing the victim who needs his idiot hordes to defend him. Start with his taxes. Find out if he's really under "continuous audit," as he said today (Note: He's not because that's not a thing). Use that info to say he's a lying dickhole and should release his taxes. Then subpoena them. Then have a fuckin' fight. And when the Mueller report is issued (well, if it's issued now), use that as the basis for an investigation into how the Russians own Trump.
3b. The counter to this is that Trump is gonna whine and attack Democrats for any investigating at all, so, fuck it, may as well go whole hog. Go after all of 'em, from dumb thug Eric to skeevy thug Don, Jr. to incest model Ivanka, and make Jared cry. Go after Trump's finances, from his money-laundering to his hotels used as bribe machines to his dicking over of investors. Scorched earth this motherfucker. Fuck it. What do you think Trump's gonna do? Play nice? Make deals? Democrats won the House precisely to be a check on Trump. So fuckin' check away. And impeach the bitch.
4. Trump was a quivering, desperate little jelly man today at whatever the fuck that press conference was. He was lashing out at any reporters who dared to challenge him, going so far as calling an African American reporter "racist" for asking him about racism. You know he wanted to send goons to break CNN's Jim Acosta's legs. He was ranting and sweating and threatening and then trying to say he'd work with Democrats. He praised himself endlessly, going so far as to say that the only lesson he learned from the midterms was that "People really like me." He really said, "God plays a big role in my life." He claimed that candidates who he campaigned for won, despite the fact that that is objectively not true (he went to Montana four times, but Jon Tester won, for example). What we were watching were the wheels coming off the wagon as he realized that Democrats would now be able to show the Americans people that he really is just a tiny mushroom dick.
5. Shit's gonna get crazy pretty quickly. More on that tomorrow.
2. We all want Nancy Pelosi to put on the deluxe spiked strap-on and ream the assholes of the Trump Administration. God, their yowls of pain would be like sweet music for the next two years. Lemme lay out a better strategy.
- Target the most corrupt cockmites in the White House, like Ryan Zinke and Wilbur Ross (although look for their resignations soon).
- Wreck the scumfucks in the GOP caucus, like Devin Nunes, Steve King, and Chris Collins, with ethics investigations. Demonstrate that we don't want traitors and Nazis and thieves in power.
- Shove a hearing enema into the sphincter of things like white nationalism, voter suppression, immigration fuckery, and anything that can shine a light on the shitpile of cruelty, negligence, and outright evil committed by the GOP and conservative nutzoids.
- And release the fuckin' hounds on judicial nominees. Yeah, the House doesn't vote on 'em, but it can sure as shit investigate if someone's a damn sexual predator.
3a. But pick the battles with Trump. Goddamn, I want him to suffer subpoena and arrests so fucking much that I can taste the orange tanning spray dripping off his sweaty face. I want him to watch his horrible jizzstain children sent to prison. I want him to see his fake empire burned to the fucking ground with lawsuits and bankruptcies until he is just another pathetic, poor old racist, mumbling to himself in some stinking room that he used to be someone. But the risk is turning Trump into a martyr because he loves playing the victim who needs his idiot hordes to defend him. Start with his taxes. Find out if he's really under "continuous audit," as he said today (Note: He's not because that's not a thing). Use that info to say he's a lying dickhole and should release his taxes. Then subpoena them. Then have a fuckin' fight. And when the Mueller report is issued (well, if it's issued now), use that as the basis for an investigation into how the Russians own Trump.
3b. The counter to this is that Trump is gonna whine and attack Democrats for any investigating at all, so, fuck it, may as well go whole hog. Go after all of 'em, from dumb thug Eric to skeevy thug Don, Jr. to incest model Ivanka, and make Jared cry. Go after Trump's finances, from his money-laundering to his hotels used as bribe machines to his dicking over of investors. Scorched earth this motherfucker. Fuck it. What do you think Trump's gonna do? Play nice? Make deals? Democrats won the House precisely to be a check on Trump. So fuckin' check away. And impeach the bitch.
4. Trump was a quivering, desperate little jelly man today at whatever the fuck that press conference was. He was lashing out at any reporters who dared to challenge him, going so far as calling an African American reporter "racist" for asking him about racism. You know he wanted to send goons to break CNN's Jim Acosta's legs. He was ranting and sweating and threatening and then trying to say he'd work with Democrats. He praised himself endlessly, going so far as to say that the only lesson he learned from the midterms was that "People really like me." He really said, "God plays a big role in my life." He claimed that candidates who he campaigned for won, despite the fact that that is objectively not true (he went to Montana four times, but Jon Tester won, for example). What we were watching were the wheels coming off the wagon as he realized that Democrats would now be able to show the Americans people that he really is just a tiny mushroom dick.
5. Shit's gonna get crazy pretty quickly. More on that tomorrow.
11/05/2018
Why People Who Vote for Republicans in the Midterms Deserve Your Anger and Spite
Let me tell you about my weekend.
I was at a reunion of a lovely, kind, generous family who I am fortunate to know. There were over 100 people there, all related to Irish immigrants who came to the United States at the start of the 20th century. A very old man walked over to the PA system that our hosts had set up, took the mic, and introduced himself as the oldest living family member there. He was the 90 year-old grandson of the first member of the family to come to the United States.
That immigrant, that young woman, Mary, arrived when she was 15, and she settled in Connecticut. "Then she worked and sent money home. And when she had earned enough, she was able to bring her sister over," he said. "And then they worked and sent money home. When they sent enough, their other sister came over." That's how it went with the family. They came to America, arrived in Boston or New York, and they worked and they sent money home to help their families and they brought relatives over when they could. That's the story of this country. There is no America without this story, multiplied millions of times over.
Now, this very large family contained multitudes. They had married people of other nationalities. They had married people of other races - black, Hispanic. There were same sex couples. Many of these couples had children, mixed race and mixed background, some adopted and some through IVF. There were physically and developmentally disabled people. There was an entire range of political beliefs. There was even a bagpiper. Every single person there accepted every single other one. That is also the story of this country. And there is no America without this story, multiplied millions of times over.
When we talk about "the American dream," we mostly think that it's something capitalistic, that if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll be comfortable, maybe even wealthy, and you'll be able to buy shit and do shit and you'll be happy because of it. But we know that's nonsense. We know that that American dream is just a hamster wheel that you run on endlessly for the amusement of people who don't have to worry about dreams.
Instead, what we should be talking about is the dream of America, something akin to Martin Luther King's dream, one that is about the way in which the United States is constructed. If you do not understand that this is a nation that only exists because of immigrants, that family unification (not the bullshit term "chain immigration") is the foundational way in which communities are organized and end up flourishing, that people deserve to be treated like people no matter where the hell they are from, that one group of immigrants, be they from Mexico, Somalia, or Ireland, is not superior to another, or if you think that we shouldn't allow refugees asylum here or that we should tear children away from their parents to teach them all a lesson in daring to believe in the fucking myth that the world is fed constantly about this nation, then you don't understand a goddamn thing about what makes America American. It's the fucking ability to live with each other without getting in each other's shit about who people are. It's learning that difference isn't scary.
My reason for being abjectly enraged by Trump supporters is not that I disagree with their politics, although I do. It's not even that I think they're assholes, although they proudly are. They enrage me because they don't want to even try anymore to pretend any of this has to do with anything other than racism and hatred. They enrage me because they want to take the one thing that actually does make America great - our openness to people from all over the world - and shitcan it.
And I know that the country has fucked up time and again when it comes to treatment of immigrants. I know that the Irish were once considered animals, and then the Italians, and then, and then, and then. There has always been the groups of people that were feared and reviled and discriminated against and deported and expelled. Same as it ever was.
Despite all of that, immigrants want to come here. And it's not because they get to try to negotiate a barbaric residency process or work shit jobs or any of that. It's for the reason that anyone would do it. It's the reason there is a caravan. It's so their kids can maybe have a better life, maybe even as Americans. Same as it ever was.
The sisters who came here in the early 1900s when Ireland was a shithole country worked awful jobs. They arrived during a time of higher unemployment than we have now, and during periods of recession and depression. They worked. They had American kids. It wasn't even a question. They had American kids. Now, generations later, a few of their descendants are rich. A few even work for the local and state and federal governments. Some have remained working class. Most are comfortably middle class. The dream, man. Why would we deny it to people now? How childish. How absurd. How fucked.
If you had any hopes two terrible years ago that Donald Trump would govern as anything other than the rank dick he has been his entire life, you know better now. If you had any hopes that Republicans would rise to the occasion and hold Trump to the same standards they held Democrats, you know better. You know the only way to slow Trump down is to elect Democrats. The only reason to vote Republican is because you want the America Trump and the GOP want.
Because of that, you deserve our contempt and our rage. You are the thugs. You are the gangs. You are the terrorists. You are anti-American.
And when I vote tomorrow, it will be to tell you to go back underground and wallow in your own hatred and filth and leave the rest of us the fuck alone. We've got work to do. Together.
I was at a reunion of a lovely, kind, generous family who I am fortunate to know. There were over 100 people there, all related to Irish immigrants who came to the United States at the start of the 20th century. A very old man walked over to the PA system that our hosts had set up, took the mic, and introduced himself as the oldest living family member there. He was the 90 year-old grandson of the first member of the family to come to the United States.
That immigrant, that young woman, Mary, arrived when she was 15, and she settled in Connecticut. "Then she worked and sent money home. And when she had earned enough, she was able to bring her sister over," he said. "And then they worked and sent money home. When they sent enough, their other sister came over." That's how it went with the family. They came to America, arrived in Boston or New York, and they worked and they sent money home to help their families and they brought relatives over when they could. That's the story of this country. There is no America without this story, multiplied millions of times over.
Now, this very large family contained multitudes. They had married people of other nationalities. They had married people of other races - black, Hispanic. There were same sex couples. Many of these couples had children, mixed race and mixed background, some adopted and some through IVF. There were physically and developmentally disabled people. There was an entire range of political beliefs. There was even a bagpiper. Every single person there accepted every single other one. That is also the story of this country. And there is no America without this story, multiplied millions of times over.
When we talk about "the American dream," we mostly think that it's something capitalistic, that if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll be comfortable, maybe even wealthy, and you'll be able to buy shit and do shit and you'll be happy because of it. But we know that's nonsense. We know that that American dream is just a hamster wheel that you run on endlessly for the amusement of people who don't have to worry about dreams.
Instead, what we should be talking about is the dream of America, something akin to Martin Luther King's dream, one that is about the way in which the United States is constructed. If you do not understand that this is a nation that only exists because of immigrants, that family unification (not the bullshit term "chain immigration") is the foundational way in which communities are organized and end up flourishing, that people deserve to be treated like people no matter where the hell they are from, that one group of immigrants, be they from Mexico, Somalia, or Ireland, is not superior to another, or if you think that we shouldn't allow refugees asylum here or that we should tear children away from their parents to teach them all a lesson in daring to believe in the fucking myth that the world is fed constantly about this nation, then you don't understand a goddamn thing about what makes America American. It's the fucking ability to live with each other without getting in each other's shit about who people are. It's learning that difference isn't scary.
My reason for being abjectly enraged by Trump supporters is not that I disagree with their politics, although I do. It's not even that I think they're assholes, although they proudly are. They enrage me because they don't want to even try anymore to pretend any of this has to do with anything other than racism and hatred. They enrage me because they want to take the one thing that actually does make America great - our openness to people from all over the world - and shitcan it.
And I know that the country has fucked up time and again when it comes to treatment of immigrants. I know that the Irish were once considered animals, and then the Italians, and then, and then, and then. There has always been the groups of people that were feared and reviled and discriminated against and deported and expelled. Same as it ever was.
Despite all of that, immigrants want to come here. And it's not because they get to try to negotiate a barbaric residency process or work shit jobs or any of that. It's for the reason that anyone would do it. It's the reason there is a caravan. It's so their kids can maybe have a better life, maybe even as Americans. Same as it ever was.
The sisters who came here in the early 1900s when Ireland was a shithole country worked awful jobs. They arrived during a time of higher unemployment than we have now, and during periods of recession and depression. They worked. They had American kids. It wasn't even a question. They had American kids. Now, generations later, a few of their descendants are rich. A few even work for the local and state and federal governments. Some have remained working class. Most are comfortably middle class. The dream, man. Why would we deny it to people now? How childish. How absurd. How fucked.
If you had any hopes two terrible years ago that Donald Trump would govern as anything other than the rank dick he has been his entire life, you know better now. If you had any hopes that Republicans would rise to the occasion and hold Trump to the same standards they held Democrats, you know better. You know the only way to slow Trump down is to elect Democrats. The only reason to vote Republican is because you want the America Trump and the GOP want.
Because of that, you deserve our contempt and our rage. You are the thugs. You are the gangs. You are the terrorists. You are anti-American.
And when I vote tomorrow, it will be to tell you to go back underground and wallow in your own hatred and filth and leave the rest of us the fuck alone. We've got work to do. Together.
11/02/2018
It's Not "Vote-Shaming"; It's Telling You Not to Be an Asshole
Let's put aside some very real and insidious impediments to voting. Let's put aside those affected by the vile voter i.d. laws that target the poor and non-white. Let's put aside those who have been purged from voter rolls by the corrupt fuckers who run elections in their states. Let's put aside people for whom poverty has made voting almost impossible, people who live in rural areas without transportation, people forced to work multiple jobs to just fucking live in this cruel economy, people who haven't gotten the education they need to do things like vote absentee. Put all of those citizens aside for this argument. This isn't directed at any of them because outside forces have screwed up their right to vote, which shouldn't happen in anything we want to call "democracy."
Hell, let's even put aside people who, for some fuckin' reason or other, can't negotiate our admittedly and absurdly baroque and broken patchwork of voter registration procedures.
No, this is directed at every wannabe leftist rebel or liberal louche slacker who thinks it's cool to be anti-establishment and who express that wannabe rebellion or coolness by not voting.
You think withholding your vote is some kinda fuckin' grand statement, that the Democratic Party is a corrupt machine that doesn't respond to real progressive goals; that you aren't going to participate in a system that is so fucked up; that money in politics, from Wall Street, from polluters, from billionaires, has screwed the electoral pooch and then turned it over screwed it again; that the Democratic candidate in your state or district pisses you off because they don't agree with you on everything?
Well, fuckin' welcome to the house of American politics. The Democratic Party is a corrupt machine, the system is fucked up, that electoral pooch keeps getting screwed by wads of cash, and every candidate will piss you off in some way. Yeah, it sucks shit to have to vote for Joe fuckin' Manchin. We know the joint's a mess, but it's the place where we gotta live. You can try to build another place, which means you gotta buy the building material, hire the labor, and get all the permits. Or you can pick up a broom and help clean up this one right now.
Not voting when you are ready and able to vote is privilege taken to the hilt. The non-voters on the left have decided that their beliefs trump (goddamn him for taking that word from us) whatever good can be done through elections as the parties stand now. If you don't vote and that causes Republicans to keep both houses of Congress, you have condemned yourself and all the people you think you're taking a stand for to at least two more years and the lingering effects of gutted social programs, of a war on women and non-whites, of an openly racist immigration policy, of inaction on climate change, and so very much more. You will be deciding that you would rather that happen, you would rather fuck up real lives of real people, than you compromised.
That makes you an asshole. That makes anyone you know who's doing the same an asshole. You are being a bunch of assholes. You have a choice here. You can choose to not be an asshole.
No, a Democratic Party with some power isn't going to change everything. But it's sure as shit all we've got right now. And I know, I know, I fuckin' know that every election is important. We should have learned that in 2010, when the failure of Obama's voters to show up at the polls brought us to this fucked point. Yet lemme pull the old man card: This one feels different. This one feels as if we have a chance to pull the country back from a precipice, and that if we don't, if Trump has his power affirmed, we're gonna head down some dark-ass paths that won't let you start a third party or whatever the fuck you wanna do. Dictators and their supporters tend not to like that shit.
By the way, dear disenchanted progressives and socialists, there is already a movement for change within the Democratic Party. The primary victories of Ayanna Pressley in Massachusetts and Andrew Gillum in Florida, not to mention Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, will transform the party in those areas. Florida? You got that. Fuckin' Florida will likely go progressive. That's how you do it. You fuckin' gut the house you're in and rebuild that shit from the inside. If it can be done in Florida, it can be done everywhere.
Inevitably, someone will bring up that I'm "vote shaming" them. First off, fuck that phrase. When you fat shame or kink shame or slut shame, you are condemning someone for something that doesn't affect you at all. You feel uncomfortable so you lash out like a child. But voting is an action that has a direct effect on millions of other people. I'm criticizing you as a fellow citizen. As an equal. As an adult whose decisions have consequences.
Fuckin' vote. Fuckin' vote like it might be the last time you get to vote. Fuckin' vote because you know, in your heart of hearts, that Trump is a goddamn plague. Fuckin' vote to get some sanity back in our federal government. Fuckin' vote because you can.
Note: I don't believe this is about a large group of people. But elections have been so close lately that all votes matter.
Last note: If you're just too lazy to vote, go fuck yourself.
(On Monday, I'll talk about having the right to abjectly despise people who vote for Trump-supporting Republicans.)
Hell, let's even put aside people who, for some fuckin' reason or other, can't negotiate our admittedly and absurdly baroque and broken patchwork of voter registration procedures.
No, this is directed at every wannabe leftist rebel or liberal louche slacker who thinks it's cool to be anti-establishment and who express that wannabe rebellion or coolness by not voting.
You think withholding your vote is some kinda fuckin' grand statement, that the Democratic Party is a corrupt machine that doesn't respond to real progressive goals; that you aren't going to participate in a system that is so fucked up; that money in politics, from Wall Street, from polluters, from billionaires, has screwed the electoral pooch and then turned it over screwed it again; that the Democratic candidate in your state or district pisses you off because they don't agree with you on everything?
Well, fuckin' welcome to the house of American politics. The Democratic Party is a corrupt machine, the system is fucked up, that electoral pooch keeps getting screwed by wads of cash, and every candidate will piss you off in some way. Yeah, it sucks shit to have to vote for Joe fuckin' Manchin. We know the joint's a mess, but it's the place where we gotta live. You can try to build another place, which means you gotta buy the building material, hire the labor, and get all the permits. Or you can pick up a broom and help clean up this one right now.
Not voting when you are ready and able to vote is privilege taken to the hilt. The non-voters on the left have decided that their beliefs trump (goddamn him for taking that word from us) whatever good can be done through elections as the parties stand now. If you don't vote and that causes Republicans to keep both houses of Congress, you have condemned yourself and all the people you think you're taking a stand for to at least two more years and the lingering effects of gutted social programs, of a war on women and non-whites, of an openly racist immigration policy, of inaction on climate change, and so very much more. You will be deciding that you would rather that happen, you would rather fuck up real lives of real people, than you compromised.
That makes you an asshole. That makes anyone you know who's doing the same an asshole. You are being a bunch of assholes. You have a choice here. You can choose to not be an asshole.
No, a Democratic Party with some power isn't going to change everything. But it's sure as shit all we've got right now. And I know, I know, I fuckin' know that every election is important. We should have learned that in 2010, when the failure of Obama's voters to show up at the polls brought us to this fucked point. Yet lemme pull the old man card: This one feels different. This one feels as if we have a chance to pull the country back from a precipice, and that if we don't, if Trump has his power affirmed, we're gonna head down some dark-ass paths that won't let you start a third party or whatever the fuck you wanna do. Dictators and their supporters tend not to like that shit.
By the way, dear disenchanted progressives and socialists, there is already a movement for change within the Democratic Party. The primary victories of Ayanna Pressley in Massachusetts and Andrew Gillum in Florida, not to mention Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, will transform the party in those areas. Florida? You got that. Fuckin' Florida will likely go progressive. That's how you do it. You fuckin' gut the house you're in and rebuild that shit from the inside. If it can be done in Florida, it can be done everywhere.
Inevitably, someone will bring up that I'm "vote shaming" them. First off, fuck that phrase. When you fat shame or kink shame or slut shame, you are condemning someone for something that doesn't affect you at all. You feel uncomfortable so you lash out like a child. But voting is an action that has a direct effect on millions of other people. I'm criticizing you as a fellow citizen. As an equal. As an adult whose decisions have consequences.
Fuckin' vote. Fuckin' vote like it might be the last time you get to vote. Fuckin' vote because you know, in your heart of hearts, that Trump is a goddamn plague. Fuckin' vote to get some sanity back in our federal government. Fuckin' vote because you can.
Note: I don't believe this is about a large group of people. But elections have been so close lately that all votes matter.
Last note: If you're just too lazy to vote, go fuck yourself.
(On Monday, I'll talk about having the right to abjectly despise people who vote for Trump-supporting Republicans.)
11/01/2018
The Rude Pundit on Patreon: Join Up and Get More Rudeness in Your Lap, on Your Hand, and in Your Ear
Just a not-so-little reminder here that you can join the Rude Pundit Patreon page for as little as a buck a month and as much as, oh, hell, let's say a gajillion. What do your dollars get you?
For $1, you get a bonus post and one Rude Storytime each month. Like the recent "Rush Limbaugh Loses His Goddamned Mind (Again) When the MAGABomber Is Caught" and the audio story of when I was physically attacked by performance artist Karen Finley (it's a funny one).
For $3 a month, you get a bonus post a week and a Rude Storytime every other week. Like the recent History of Rudeness series, including "That Time a Lot of People Wanted to Kill Me" and the audio tale of how I lost my job at Sears.
This is not to mention posts where I dove into the QAnon Reddit cellar of crazy and where I recommend shit I like - music, movies, TV, maybe even a book.
For $5, you get all that shit plus extended versions of the interviews from Another Goddamn Podcast, like the most recent one with Kaili Joy Gray of Shareblue.
For $10, you get all that plus tickets to any upcoming Rude Pundit events (and I'm working on a new stage thing).
I'm gonna do an online hangout soon, and maybe, if the interest and love is there, some hangout hangouts IRL.
For $100 a month, I might be obligated to go down on you. I have to check the rules of Patreon.
And when you join, you get access to everything at that level posted so far. A whole buncha nasty, funny, occasionally sad, and sometimes even uplifting pieces.
The money isn't just going to booze and drugs and condoms. Oh, no. When the total reaches an amount where I can, I wanna do more video stuff and I wanna pay people to help out with the podcast (and maybe even a writer or two). We can create an Empire of the Rude together.
And, sweet rudesters, we will need an empire heading towards 2020.
For $1, you get a bonus post and one Rude Storytime each month. Like the recent "Rush Limbaugh Loses His Goddamned Mind (Again) When the MAGABomber Is Caught" and the audio story of when I was physically attacked by performance artist Karen Finley (it's a funny one).
For $3 a month, you get a bonus post a week and a Rude Storytime every other week. Like the recent History of Rudeness series, including "That Time a Lot of People Wanted to Kill Me" and the audio tale of how I lost my job at Sears.
This is not to mention posts where I dove into the QAnon Reddit cellar of crazy and where I recommend shit I like - music, movies, TV, maybe even a book.
For $5, you get all that shit plus extended versions of the interviews from Another Goddamn Podcast, like the most recent one with Kaili Joy Gray of Shareblue.
For $10, you get all that plus tickets to any upcoming Rude Pundit events (and I'm working on a new stage thing).
I'm gonna do an online hangout soon, and maybe, if the interest and love is there, some hangout hangouts IRL.
For $100 a month, I might be obligated to go down on you. I have to check the rules of Patreon.
And when you join, you get access to everything at that level posted so far. A whole buncha nasty, funny, occasionally sad, and sometimes even uplifting pieces.
The money isn't just going to booze and drugs and condoms. Oh, no. When the total reaches an amount where I can, I wanna do more video stuff and I wanna pay people to help out with the podcast (and maybe even a writer or two). We can create an Empire of the Rude together.
And, sweet rudesters, we will need an empire heading towards 2020.
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