1. The Supreme Court's decision allowing partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts was essentially a nonconsensual buggering of American democracy. By 5-4 vote, the craven conservative cocks, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, said, "Yeah, we don't give a rat's ass. Contort the shit out of districts, state legislatures, to ensure that your party always grabs an unfair number of the state's congressional representatives." Actually, what Roberts said was that the federal courts had no role in deciding it because that would make the court look too political, as if every fucking decision ever made by the Supreme Court isn't considered political (see 5-4 majority comprised solely of craven conservative cocks).
1a. You could bottom line the decision as "¯\_(ツ)_/¯."
2. The actual text of Roberts' opinion was even more confounding. It's like reading a letter from someone explain why he fucked your dog to death by blaming your dog for being too sexy and saying he was doing you a favor. For one, Roberts makes the usual bullshit conservative argument of bringing in the nation's founders. In this case, he says that they didn't have a gerrymandering problem: "The Founders certainly did not think proportional representation was required. For more than 50 years after ratification of the Constitution, many States elected their congressional representatives through at-large or 'general ticket' elections. Such States typically sent single-party delegations to Congress." And then they changed it. You know, whenever tries to read the minds of some rich white guys from 250 years ago, all I can think is "Those motherfuckers owned slaves, treated women as chattel, were drunk most of the time, and shit in a bowl while trying to come up with better ways to murder Indians and take their land. Why the fuck do we still pretend like every word they say applies now?"
3. Even more goddamned aggravating is how Roberts appealed to some illusion of democracy and fairness. He acts like the very notion of the court deciding issues of "fairness" is utterly beyond its scope. After listing several possible versions of "fairness" (only one of which is actually "fair"), he writes, "Even assuming the court knew which version of fairness to be looking for, there are no discernible and manageable standards for deciding whether there has been a violation." How about starting with the fact that the intent was obviously racist. Not for Roberts, though: "Unlike partisan gerrymandering claims, a racial gerrymandering claim does not ask for a fair share of political power and influence, with all the justiciability conundrums that entails. It asks instead for the elimination of a racial classification. A partisan gerrymandering claim cannot ask for the elimination of partisanship." No, but if you're carving out black and Latinx people and isolating them in weird-ass shaped districts to secure Republican seats and limit Democratic seats, that's racist. Roberts doesn't buy that shit, saying that it doesn't matter if there's racism involved as long as you can make a case that it's more partisan than racist: "A permissible intent—securing partisan advantage—does not become constitutionally impermissible, like racial discrimination, when that permissible intent 'predominates.'" As Elana Kagan says in her dissent, you're just fucking saying that one party's votes are more important than another party's and that's really unfair when each person's vote should be equal. And since those party lines are often determined by the number of people from racial groups in them, it's got a racist intent.
3a. And, by the way, one of the two cases here was about the fucked up way that Maryland gerrymanders in favor of Democrats by carving out a white people area. This shit swings both ways, but right now, because Republicans have taken over most state legislatures, it's gonna end up favoring Republicans overall. But demography is destiny and that pendulum can swing back, assholes.
4. To an extent, then, the Court's decision to postpone a final judgment on whether or not to have a citizenship question on the census is useless. If states can just carve up districts like a spastic monkey with box of crayons, what does it matter how many people are in the state? However, of course, the other part of this is that total number of citizens determines total number of representatives per state. And if you get rid of all the non-citizens too afraid to answer and citizens who don't want to answer, then states like New York and California will lose seats and they will go to the shithole states. That's why it's hilarious to see conservatives go nutzoid in anger at Roberts for not giving them every goddamn thing they wanted right now.
4a. I put it at about even odds that Trump just orders that the question be put on the census form and dares anyone to fuckin' stop him. Why wouldn't he? Really, who would stop him?
5. The real winner today is Mitch McConnell. Because of his blank-faced evil and complete lack of ethics, he wiped his ass with Senate tradition and the Constitution and told everyone to sniff it. McConnell has engineered a generational shift in the judicial system of the United States, starting with his theft of the Supreme Court seat that should have been Merrick Garland's. Gotta hand it to him: the man has said that he's a motherfucker, and he brought out a whole bunch of mothers and just fucked them in every hole he could and in a few he made himself. Because that's what motherfuckers do. They fuck mothers. It's right there in the word.
6. And, as ever, the big fucking losers are Democrats, who barely whimpered over the Garland fuckery, who have been able to do little more than sit with their fingers up their asses while Republicans fuck their faces, and who, when they have power, will probably say that it's time to be nice again because bipartisanship or comity or whatever the fuck.
6a. The fact that, so far, the Democratic National Committee has paid so little attention to winning back the Senate demonstrates an utter failure of leadership and imagination. Jesus fuck, if I had a couple of billion dollars, I'd fucking offer to move thousands of people from urban districts to suburban districts in gerrymandered states just to fuck it all up. I'd fight so fucking dirty that Karl Rove would jack off to the Machiavellian shit I would do. Democrats haven't learned that, and until we get this entrenched leadership the fuck out of there, the ones who still flinch when Republicans raise a hand, they just won't.
6/24/2019
The President of the United States Is Likely a Rapist and Nothing Is Being Done About That
I believe, as I have believed for a long time, that Donald Trump is a rapist. The allegations by E. Jean Carroll of Trump raping her in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman are horrifying, and, in any sane country, they would be the end of Trump's presidency. But we don't live in anything like a sane country anymore. We are on a steep incline now, heading faster and faster into a darkness at the end of it. Each event and allegation that we simply overlook or ignore speeds us down, and, at some point, we're not going to be able to grab onto the ground to stop our fall. It's always going to get worse, it seems.
Because every day provides evidence of this, this afternoon, in a comment on Carroll's allegations, Trump made it worse. Talking to the Hill, the President of the United States said this about a respected writer who accused him of rape: "I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?"
Think about that. Sitting in the Oval Office, the center of power for supposedly the most powerful person in the world, the first thing our president wanted us to know is that his alleged rape victim wasn't his type. At best, that means Trump doesn't like strong, self-possessed women. At worst (and most likely), it means she wasn't fuckable enough for him to rape. It was more important to him for us to hear that he has a certain taste in women than it was that he didn't rape Carroll. Putting aside the truth of the allegation, you have to be an essentially terrible man to open with a judgment on how hot your rape accuser is. (And Trump has used the "not my type" reasoning often, even talking about Stormy Daniels.) And a whole lot of people are going to believe Trump on that. I've already had people send me tweets and messages saying that Carroll wasn't attractive enough for the obviously too handsome Donald Trump, as if that really matters in any way when it comes to rape.
I believe Carroll for many reasons. I know and trust two people who know Carroll, and they say they believe her. I believe her because I know many women from Carroll's generation and the nightmare of sexism and assault they had to negotiate just to work in their chosen fields. Talk to many women who were grad students or became university professors in the 1960s and 1970s or even the 1980s, as they infiltrated the old boys networks at supposedly liberal colleges. It wasn't a minefield. It was a full-on battle.
For decades, Carroll has had an incredibly successful career as a writer, as a beloved advice columnist, as a trusted figure in the lives of many people, especially women. To just make this story up now does her no good; in fact, if she were lying, she would torch her entire life's work. And she didn't need a fake Trump story (or a fake story of any of the men she writes about) in her forthcoming book to make it successful. Her thousands of readers would likely have done that anyway. She knew that she was going to get a buzzsaw of hatred and condemnation coming at her, and it's already happening.
On the socials, the right wing commentariat are saying that Carroll discredited herself this evening on CNN in an interview with Anderson Cooper. It was a fascinating appearance, with Carroll refusing to play the part of the tearful victim. She was bitingly witty with an awareness and sensitivity to women who have experienced more violent sexual assaults than she did. I'm sure that her attitude is going to confound a whole lot of sexists and Trump apologists, but they don't get to say how a woman processes her rape. She wants to own this story, although I'm sure she knows that that is going to be impossible now. I'm betting she's getting rape and death threats constantly. That's how we live now.
One of the most depressing things Carroll told Cooper is that she believes all the accusations of sexual assault against Donald Trump actually helped his candidacy. She told a story about being out to dinner with George McGovern when Bill Clinton's affairs were being revealed in 1992 (this was prior to Paula Jones and allegations of sexual misconduct). McGovern said it would help Clinton because it makes him seem more virile and manly to many people. Carroll said she thinks the same thing happened with Trump, that it made him seem like he was so masculine that he could take any woman he wanted, and that he could have sex with anyone, like porn stars, and then pay them off. That sadly makes sense, considering his supporters.
Today, I was talking to a young woman who is a Trump voter. She was trying to tell me he was a good person because he once had his limo pull over and had his employee help her mom and aunt change a flat tire and then he paid off her aunt's mortgage. I said, "Maybe, but he's a rapist." She said she didn't know what I was talking about. I repeated, "He's a rapist. He's been credibly accused of rape. More than once." She dismissed it with a wave of her hand, saying that "people just want to hurt him." I tried to point out that no one accused Barack Obama of rape (except, you know, deranged people). She didn't care. "They're all just jealous of Trump," she said.
It doesn't matter. No one is going to do anything. The New York Times and other news outlets buried the story, although the Washington Post featured it prominently. Fox "news" doesn't have anything on its website. The New York Post was ordered to scrub it from their site. I don't know how many days this story will stay alive, what with Trump's abuse of child migrants and war mongering with Iran also dominating the news.
I believe Carroll. I believe other women who have said that Trump assaulted them. I believe Ivana Trump when she said under oath that Trump raped her when they were married. I believe the president is a rapist, that our nation is being led by a rapist. And I honestly don't know what to do with that. I don't know what we do with that. This is where our other leaders are supposed to step in and help the country. But, as we slip further down this incline, they aren't trying to toss us ropes to save us. They are sliding with us into that chaotic, dark unknown below.
(Note: If your response to Carroll and the other allegations against Trump is "Yeah, but Bill Clinton..." then you're saying that you think Trump should get away with rape because you believe Clinton got away with rape. So you are a worthless human. Oh, and Clinton isn't president now.)
Because every day provides evidence of this, this afternoon, in a comment on Carroll's allegations, Trump made it worse. Talking to the Hill, the President of the United States said this about a respected writer who accused him of rape: "I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?"
Think about that. Sitting in the Oval Office, the center of power for supposedly the most powerful person in the world, the first thing our president wanted us to know is that his alleged rape victim wasn't his type. At best, that means Trump doesn't like strong, self-possessed women. At worst (and most likely), it means she wasn't fuckable enough for him to rape. It was more important to him for us to hear that he has a certain taste in women than it was that he didn't rape Carroll. Putting aside the truth of the allegation, you have to be an essentially terrible man to open with a judgment on how hot your rape accuser is. (And Trump has used the "not my type" reasoning often, even talking about Stormy Daniels.) And a whole lot of people are going to believe Trump on that. I've already had people send me tweets and messages saying that Carroll wasn't attractive enough for the obviously too handsome Donald Trump, as if that really matters in any way when it comes to rape.
I believe Carroll for many reasons. I know and trust two people who know Carroll, and they say they believe her. I believe her because I know many women from Carroll's generation and the nightmare of sexism and assault they had to negotiate just to work in their chosen fields. Talk to many women who were grad students or became university professors in the 1960s and 1970s or even the 1980s, as they infiltrated the old boys networks at supposedly liberal colleges. It wasn't a minefield. It was a full-on battle.
For decades, Carroll has had an incredibly successful career as a writer, as a beloved advice columnist, as a trusted figure in the lives of many people, especially women. To just make this story up now does her no good; in fact, if she were lying, she would torch her entire life's work. And she didn't need a fake Trump story (or a fake story of any of the men she writes about) in her forthcoming book to make it successful. Her thousands of readers would likely have done that anyway. She knew that she was going to get a buzzsaw of hatred and condemnation coming at her, and it's already happening.
On the socials, the right wing commentariat are saying that Carroll discredited herself this evening on CNN in an interview with Anderson Cooper. It was a fascinating appearance, with Carroll refusing to play the part of the tearful victim. She was bitingly witty with an awareness and sensitivity to women who have experienced more violent sexual assaults than she did. I'm sure that her attitude is going to confound a whole lot of sexists and Trump apologists, but they don't get to say how a woman processes her rape. She wants to own this story, although I'm sure she knows that that is going to be impossible now. I'm betting she's getting rape and death threats constantly. That's how we live now.
One of the most depressing things Carroll told Cooper is that she believes all the accusations of sexual assault against Donald Trump actually helped his candidacy. She told a story about being out to dinner with George McGovern when Bill Clinton's affairs were being revealed in 1992 (this was prior to Paula Jones and allegations of sexual misconduct). McGovern said it would help Clinton because it makes him seem more virile and manly to many people. Carroll said she thinks the same thing happened with Trump, that it made him seem like he was so masculine that he could take any woman he wanted, and that he could have sex with anyone, like porn stars, and then pay them off. That sadly makes sense, considering his supporters.
Today, I was talking to a young woman who is a Trump voter. She was trying to tell me he was a good person because he once had his limo pull over and had his employee help her mom and aunt change a flat tire and then he paid off her aunt's mortgage. I said, "Maybe, but he's a rapist." She said she didn't know what I was talking about. I repeated, "He's a rapist. He's been credibly accused of rape. More than once." She dismissed it with a wave of her hand, saying that "people just want to hurt him." I tried to point out that no one accused Barack Obama of rape (except, you know, deranged people). She didn't care. "They're all just jealous of Trump," she said.
It doesn't matter. No one is going to do anything. The New York Times and other news outlets buried the story, although the Washington Post featured it prominently. Fox "news" doesn't have anything on its website. The New York Post was ordered to scrub it from their site. I don't know how many days this story will stay alive, what with Trump's abuse of child migrants and war mongering with Iran also dominating the news.
I believe Carroll. I believe other women who have said that Trump assaulted them. I believe Ivana Trump when she said under oath that Trump raped her when they were married. I believe the president is a rapist, that our nation is being led by a rapist. And I honestly don't know what to do with that. I don't know what we do with that. This is where our other leaders are supposed to step in and help the country. But, as we slip further down this incline, they aren't trying to toss us ropes to save us. They are sliding with us into that chaotic, dark unknown below.
(Note: If your response to Carroll and the other allegations against Trump is "Yeah, but Bill Clinton..." then you're saying that you think Trump should get away with rape because you believe Clinton got away with rape. So you are a worthless human. Oh, and Clinton isn't president now.)
6/21/2019
Math Is Amazing: Virtually None of the Migrants Seeking Asylum Are Violent Criminals
If you're incredibly unlucky like me and think that you need this kind of shit to stay abreast of the fuckery of the administration of Donald Trump, you will get daily briefings from the White House that are propaganda missives so clumsy and contrived that Goebbels is rolling his eyes in Hell (of course, the eyes are across the room from his head because, well, it's Hell). For instance, today's spam of the damned has links to a "column" from conservative toilet, Townhall (motto: "We're batshit fascists and barely human racists and loving it!") and the right-wing rag that gives actual rags a bad name, the Washington Examiner.
It's also got a link to a Fox "news" article, "Hundreds of migrant caravan members found to have US criminal histories." The email highlighted this passage:
Now, by my awesome ability to use a calculator, 660 criminals out of 8000 people is about 8%. But most of those "criminal convictions" are obviously not violent crimes because the next numbers talk about those. So 43 out 8000 is roughly one half of one percent. For that, the administration is running around with its hair on fire about the rapists and murderers getting into the country.
The article itself goes into more numbers, including a caravan from Honduras that has 3300 migrants. According to DHS, the total violent criminals is 53, including sexual offenses, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder. Again, using the magic of my calculator, that's 1.6% of the migrants. I'd bet there's a higher proportion of violent people in any office building.
By the way, drug offenses aside, there is no blanket prohibition on people with criminal convictions coming to the United States. It's a case-by-case thing.
Nearly half of crimes these criminals were convicted of were being in the United States illegally and traffic offenses, with another good amount being low-level drug offenses, like possession. And according to Customs and Border Patrol's own numbers, just 4.4% of the total number of migrants who came to the country in 2018 had criminal convictions. Almost none, statistically, were for violent crime, and we know who the violent criminals are because of the vetting process for asylum claims (and, sure, some probably slip through the cracks because that's how bureaucracy works).
This means that 95.6% of the migrants had no criminal record, despite the Trump administration's constant refrain that we are under some kind of existential threat. Yes, there is a humanitarian disaster at the border, but it's got to do with the criminal actions of our federal government and not the supposed criminality of the migrants.
Bear that in mind this weekend when ICE agents show up at churches to arrest families and deport them.
It's also got a link to a Fox "news" article, "Hundreds of migrant caravan members found to have US criminal histories." The email highlighted this passage:
The article itself goes into more numbers, including a caravan from Honduras that has 3300 migrants. According to DHS, the total violent criminals is 53, including sexual offenses, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder. Again, using the magic of my calculator, that's 1.6% of the migrants. I'd bet there's a higher proportion of violent people in any office building.
By the way, drug offenses aside, there is no blanket prohibition on people with criminal convictions coming to the United States. It's a case-by-case thing.
Nearly half of crimes these criminals were convicted of were being in the United States illegally and traffic offenses, with another good amount being low-level drug offenses, like possession. And according to Customs and Border Patrol's own numbers, just 4.4% of the total number of migrants who came to the country in 2018 had criminal convictions. Almost none, statistically, were for violent crime, and we know who the violent criminals are because of the vetting process for asylum claims (and, sure, some probably slip through the cracks because that's how bureaucracy works).
This means that 95.6% of the migrants had no criminal record, despite the Trump administration's constant refrain that we are under some kind of existential threat. Yes, there is a humanitarian disaster at the border, but it's got to do with the criminal actions of our federal government and not the supposed criminality of the migrants.
Bear that in mind this weekend when ICE agents show up at churches to arrest families and deport them.
6/19/2019
Last Night's Trump Campaign Orgy
They lined up early in the foul musk of the moist, fetid Orlando air, the smell of spring already having been murdered by the sharp heat of summer. The media descended on the parking lot of the civic center named for Amway, a pyramid scheme business that promises riches for all who believe with their very souls in the lies that the company sells. Reporters interviewed every Jesse, Joyce, Mary Jo, Skeeter, and Bubba willing to open their mouths. "Of course, we had to be here," they said, "this is white trash Coachella and I'm ready to shake my titties for my president." Both the men and women there appeared to be able to do that.
When the Amway Center opened at last, they sweated even more profusely in anticipation. What would happen? Would they get to break out the hits, the "Lock her up" and the "Build the wall" and more? Would they be allowed to catch a glimpse of Trump's cheap Eastern European substitute for Jackie Kennedy? Would Eric be there? Don, Jr? Might this be a rare Ivanka sighting?
The crowd went insane when a giant papier-mache' bald eagle, legs spread wide, claws holding only arrows, was lowered to the stage. Then it dawned on them that they were looking right at the eagle's pussy. "Do eagles have pussies?" they wondered and went onto their smarter phones to find out. But they didn't have time because, all of a sudden, two tiny hands emerged and grabbed the eagle's pussy. Donald Trump slowly, with some assistance, emerged, birthed onto the stage by the symbol of America. And he was dressed in professional wrestler spandex, red, white, blue, stars, stripes, the whole flag as "God Bless the USA" surged through the speakers, so loud that some ears began to bleed, but their owners didn't care. Bleed away, for God, for country.
"The American Dream is back," Trump announced, gesturing at his grotesquely padded groin. "It's bigger and better, and stronger than ever before. 2016 was not merely another four-year election. This was a defining moment in American history." Then he did a pro wrestler walk around the stage, arms up, soaking in the heaving, frothing love from the surging crowd. He gestured upward at a cage suspended above him. It held several dolls that looked like Central American migrants. "Now bring me the alligator," he said.
Two Secret Service agents came out with a large, lethargic, likely drugged alligator. They put it on the ground and stood guard with guns ready as Trump shooed them back. If it was possible, the people in the crowd went even crazier, recognizing the state sport of Florida. They tore their clothes and clawed their faces in ecstasy. The president of the United States flopped onto the alligator and rolled around with him for a little while before getting on the creature's back, pulling its head back, and putting his chin out with the alligator's upturned head held behind his chin, as one does. In that position, Trump cried out, "Many times I said, 'We would drain the swamp.' And that's exactly what we're doing right now, we're draining the swamp. And that's why the swamp is fighting back so viciously and violently." He stood up and waved at the agents to take the alligator away.
He did another winner's triumphant walk around the stage and then a man without a shirt who was wearing a Barack Obama mask came out. His obviously white skin had been half-ass coated with brown makeup, and he wore a sash that said, "Kenya's #1 son" on it. He danced around a little, shucking and jiving, doing a proper Jim Crow jig for the laughing, hooting crowd. Then he acted like he was going to wrestle Trump. But Trump had other ideas.
Once again, the Secret Service agents came out, and they handed Trump a long bullwhip. The Obama-masked man realized what was happening and tried to get away, but he was held steady by the agents. Obviously panicking, he pulled off the mask to reveal that he was Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a white man, and there was silence. Trump smirked at the crowd and gestured for them to put the Obama mask back on him, which made the crowd so much more comfortable.
As he unfurled the whip, Trump said, "Remember, President Obama's famous line caught on the open mic, secretly telling the Russian president to quote, 'Inform Vladimir that after my election I'll have more flexibility.' Okay. Remember that?" And he whipped Mulvaney/Obama's back, and the audience lost their goddamn minds with shouts and screams. "Remember that?" he repeated. And he whipped again, with Obama's cries just making Trump's supporters practically orgasmic. The Proud Boys could be seen openly weeping in joy. "Lot of people remember that, I remembered it." Whip. "I saw it happen." Whip. "I didn't like it." Whip. Welted up and slumped over, the sweat and blood washing the brown off his skin, Trump nodded and Mulvaney/Obama was taken off stage.
When the person in a pants suit and a Hillary Clinton mask came out, people wondered who it might be. Now, finally, there might be some actual wrestling because Hillary got into a wrestler's pose. Trump waddled over to Hillary and turned to the crowd to say, "The only collusion was committed by the Democrats, the fake news media and their operatives and the people who funded the phony dossier, crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC" before picking up Hillary and body slamming her onto the stage. To be fair to Hillary, it looked like she did most of the work. But it still seemed to honestly stun her. The mask slipped a bit and white hair peeked through. Obviously, it was Vice President Mike Pence.
Then he adjusted and became Hillary again, shaking her finger at Trump, facing off against her 2016 nemesis who refused to let go of his victory. Trump went on the attack again, knocking Hillary to the floor saying, ""If you want to know how the system is rigged, just compare how they came after us for three years with everything they had, versus the free pass they gave to Hillary and her aides after they set up an illegal server," Trump started to smash Hillary's head against the floor again and again. "Destroyed evidence, deleted, and acid washed 33,000 e-mails." You could hear Pence's raspy, weak voice shout, "Mother!" as if it was a safe word.
No safety would be found for Pence or his Hillary because, goddamnit, it was Trump's rally.
Slowly crawling to get off the stage, Trump pulled Pence/Hillary back, pulled down the white pants, shoved down his tights, and, just before thrusting his dick into Pence's ass (for, indeed, he may have been wearing a Hillary mask, but it was Mike Pence's ass), he said, "They called us deplorables, that was a mistake. That was a big mistake. I'll never forget. I was making a speech after Hillary used the word deplorables, and I didn't think it was that bad, you know why? She used another word. You know what the other word was?" Then, plunged in, Pence confused and, from one angle, aroused, Trump yelled, "She said, deplorables and irredeemables. I think that was worse!" as he pumped and pumped, his orange face now a deep crimson.
By this point, the entire Amway Center had become a giant fuck fest, with bellies slapping against asses and fingers in pussies and sphincters and faces buried in cock. The children there were told to watch, that this is what the real America is, that this is how real Americans behave, that women should be raped and black men should be beaten and refugees should be caged and, hey, where are the queers, we should get them, too, and, goddamnit, don't you want this America to be the America you inherit? No, don't fuckin' talk to us about climate change and how the streets of Florida towns flood every high tide. That shit's not real. You want Trump's America where reality is a myth and myth is reality and you can fuck your daughter if she's hot.
Of course, Trump came first. And then he stood up and watched, pleased at the undulating pile of white asses and the scent of cum and juices and sweat. To keep them going, he took the microphone and cried out, "Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage. They want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country, as we know it. Not acceptable, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen." The cage opened and the migrant dolls fell onto the stage, with an uncomfortably loud and convincing thud as Trump kicked them off the edge.
Then, as the mass of fucking, barely distinguishable human bodies started to disentangle, Trump cooed, "We have been blessed by God with the greatest nation on the face of the earth and we are going to keep it that way. We are going to keep it that way." Then he grabbed the eagle by the pussy again and exited through it.
After the speech, the news media rolled their eyes and laughed, saying it was just Trump being Trump and that Democrats should think about how to win over those voters.
New Episode of Another Goddamn Podcast: Fox News Poisons Us All
I've got a new episode of Another Goddamn Podcast up now. I'm talking with Reece Peck, author of Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, about how Fox "news" pissed in the well of American politics and paved the damned way for Trump's presidency. It's a fascinating, smart discussion with a fascinating, smart person.
Check it out here. Or on your own pod players. And rate this motherfucker.
Also, listen to my fellow chatterers on the Sexy Liberal Podcast Network. It's pretty awesome shit right there.
Check it out here. Or on your own pod players. And rate this motherfucker.
Also, listen to my fellow chatterers on the Sexy Liberal Podcast Network. It's pretty awesome shit right there.
6/17/2019
Random Shit from Trump's Dumb, Weird Interview on ABC
Whenever President Dementia J. Pumpkinface gives a lengthy interview, as he did with ABC's George Stephanopoulos last week, you know it's going to be the rhetorical equivalent of watching a morbidly obese nude man attempting to force his head over his gut to suck his own dick while at the same time reaming his ass out with a giant, fist-shaped dildo, and when he finally just cums on his face, he smiles at you, sweaty and jizzy, fully expecting your applause for this feat of self-pleasuring contortion when, really, you just wanted the whole thing to end before it started and you feel filthy and nauseous for even giving him the attention he wanted, regretting all the decisions in your life that brought you to this moment.
The interview had already garnered headlines for a clip where Trump pretty much invited foreign governments to give him information on his political opponents, which would be, you know, collusion, and he wouldn't report a thing to the FBI. But the whole interview is something to behold. It is a portrait of a criminal and a madman with all the power anyone in the world could possibly possess and he's so dumb that he just cares about how cool and tough he looks. Seriously, the only thing that's holding Trump back from going full Mussolini is how fucking lazy, physically and intellectually, he is.
It's hard to pinpoint the most enraging, pathetic part of the interview.
It might be Trump's response when Stephanopoulos is talking to him about whether he can trust North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Trump says, "Almost of any undeveloped country anywhere in the world, that country has the chance to be economically a behemoth." Stephanopoulos brings up how Kim is "imprisoning" and "starving" the people there. Trump scoffs, "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about from an economic standpoint. He's between China, Russia...It's all in the oceans. It's phenomenal. It's-- it's a phenomenal location. That country can be so rich. And he knows that." You hear that and you gotta think that our motherfucking president is talking to Kim about building a fucking hotel there, enslaved and tortured people be damned.
It might be when Trump goes full Mamet talking about the fact that he was trying to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow. Stephanopoulos says that Trump was "pursuing it," which leads to this line that could be out of Hell's dinner theatre version of Glengarry Glen Ross: "Excuse me, excuse me. Pursuing, what does pursuing mean? You know because someone walks in, says, 'Hey we’re looking at...' Do you know that I don’t even think they had a site? I don’t even think they knew who was going to do the deal. It was a concept of a deal, more of a concept than anything else. It was a concept of a deal someplace in Russia, probably in Moscow." Yeah, motherfucker, that's "pursuing." Words have meaning. Or maybe they don't anymore. Who fuckin' knows.
It might be one of the many times that Trump loses his shit and spouts legitimate insanity about the Mueller report, about Robert Mueller, about James Comey, about anyone he perceives is trying to get him. He says, "Did nothing wrong, George. Did nothing wrong. There was no collusion. You don't even hear Russia mentioned anymore...There was no collusion. You don't even hear Russia mentioned anymore. Russ- Russia's not mentioned. Now, it's all about obstruct-- obstruction of what? They built up a phony crime. They hired a man that hated Trump. He hired 18 people that were Democrats that hated Trump. Some of them contributed to Clinton's campaign. A couple of them worked for Clinton. I mean, what kind of a rigged deal is this? And then on top of it, after two years and after being the most transparent in history, I gave them 1.5 million pages of documents, right? I gave them four or five hundred witnesses." Trump didn't "give them" witnesses. That's how many were interviewed. Trump sees himself as controlling every fucking thing. And goes to paranoia-land rather than just shut the fuck up, which he totally could do about this. "No comment" is an answer. Not this self-aggrandizing prick. He's like Nixon on Adderall.
Beyond the dictator worship and the mob boss/tough guy bullshit and the refusal to believe that words have definitions beyond what he gives them, one consistent thread through the interview is Trump being so goddamn arrogant about what he knows. "I know more about prosecutors than you'll ever know," he tells Stephanopoulos. "People don't understand tariffs, but I understand them," he tells Stephanopoulos right after demonstrating that he doesn't understand tariffs. And, of course, his complete knowledge of America's past: "There's never been a time in the history of our country where somebody was so mistreated as I have been." This doesn't even get into the multiple times that Trump says the Mueller report exonerates him on "collusion" with Russia, which Stephanopoulos challenges him on every single time, and Trump insists that he's read the report, which, you know, c'mon.
Yet my favorite moment might be when Trump insists that Article II of the Constitution gives him the broad power to fire whoever he wants, obstruction be damned. He tells Stephanopoulos to "Read it for your audience" as Stephanopoulos insists he knows what's in it and tries to question Trump about Article II. Trump interrupts a question that was no doubt going to require actual knowledge of Article II and not just an idiot's insistence that he read it. He says, "You know what? Let's get onto another subject." Yeah, maybe let's not talk about the Constitution with the Rhodes scholar who worked in the White House for four years.
It was just one obscene degradation of the presidency and the country after another, worse than most Trump appearances because he was so obviously faking it, so obviously lying about shit he's lied about over and over, so obviously relying on a moron's bullying bravado to get him through it, so impressed by the smell of his own shit that he couldn't help himself from shitting more.
When he was done, Trump asked Mick Mulvaney, who was choking on a cough, for a towel to wipe the spunk off his face, some of the orange skin dye coming off with it. Then he winked at Stephanopoulos as he undulated away. Stephanopoulos barely made it to the Rose Garden before he started vomiting in self-hatred for having forced himself to endure that performance and for whatever part he played in making it happen.
(Note: No insult meant to people who get sexual pleasure watching morbidly obese men attempt auto-fellatio while dildo-fisting their own assholes until they ejaculate on their faces. It's a niche kink, sure, but, hey, enjoy. However, if one did not sign up for that, it would likely be a bit disturbing.)
The interview had already garnered headlines for a clip where Trump pretty much invited foreign governments to give him information on his political opponents, which would be, you know, collusion, and he wouldn't report a thing to the FBI. But the whole interview is something to behold. It is a portrait of a criminal and a madman with all the power anyone in the world could possibly possess and he's so dumb that he just cares about how cool and tough he looks. Seriously, the only thing that's holding Trump back from going full Mussolini is how fucking lazy, physically and intellectually, he is.
It's hard to pinpoint the most enraging, pathetic part of the interview.
It might be Trump's response when Stephanopoulos is talking to him about whether he can trust North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Trump says, "Almost of any undeveloped country anywhere in the world, that country has the chance to be economically a behemoth." Stephanopoulos brings up how Kim is "imprisoning" and "starving" the people there. Trump scoffs, "I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about from an economic standpoint. He's between China, Russia...It's all in the oceans. It's phenomenal. It's-- it's a phenomenal location. That country can be so rich. And he knows that." You hear that and you gotta think that our motherfucking president is talking to Kim about building a fucking hotel there, enslaved and tortured people be damned.
It might be when Trump goes full Mamet talking about the fact that he was trying to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow. Stephanopoulos says that Trump was "pursuing it," which leads to this line that could be out of Hell's dinner theatre version of Glengarry Glen Ross: "Excuse me, excuse me. Pursuing, what does pursuing mean? You know because someone walks in, says, 'Hey we’re looking at...' Do you know that I don’t even think they had a site? I don’t even think they knew who was going to do the deal. It was a concept of a deal, more of a concept than anything else. It was a concept of a deal someplace in Russia, probably in Moscow." Yeah, motherfucker, that's "pursuing." Words have meaning. Or maybe they don't anymore. Who fuckin' knows.
It might be one of the many times that Trump loses his shit and spouts legitimate insanity about the Mueller report, about Robert Mueller, about James Comey, about anyone he perceives is trying to get him. He says, "Did nothing wrong, George. Did nothing wrong. There was no collusion. You don't even hear Russia mentioned anymore...There was no collusion. You don't even hear Russia mentioned anymore. Russ- Russia's not mentioned. Now, it's all about obstruct-- obstruction of what? They built up a phony crime. They hired a man that hated Trump. He hired 18 people that were Democrats that hated Trump. Some of them contributed to Clinton's campaign. A couple of them worked for Clinton. I mean, what kind of a rigged deal is this? And then on top of it, after two years and after being the most transparent in history, I gave them 1.5 million pages of documents, right? I gave them four or five hundred witnesses." Trump didn't "give them" witnesses. That's how many were interviewed. Trump sees himself as controlling every fucking thing. And goes to paranoia-land rather than just shut the fuck up, which he totally could do about this. "No comment" is an answer. Not this self-aggrandizing prick. He's like Nixon on Adderall.
Beyond the dictator worship and the mob boss/tough guy bullshit and the refusal to believe that words have definitions beyond what he gives them, one consistent thread through the interview is Trump being so goddamn arrogant about what he knows. "I know more about prosecutors than you'll ever know," he tells Stephanopoulos. "People don't understand tariffs, but I understand them," he tells Stephanopoulos right after demonstrating that he doesn't understand tariffs. And, of course, his complete knowledge of America's past: "There's never been a time in the history of our country where somebody was so mistreated as I have been." This doesn't even get into the multiple times that Trump says the Mueller report exonerates him on "collusion" with Russia, which Stephanopoulos challenges him on every single time, and Trump insists that he's read the report, which, you know, c'mon.
Yet my favorite moment might be when Trump insists that Article II of the Constitution gives him the broad power to fire whoever he wants, obstruction be damned. He tells Stephanopoulos to "Read it for your audience" as Stephanopoulos insists he knows what's in it and tries to question Trump about Article II. Trump interrupts a question that was no doubt going to require actual knowledge of Article II and not just an idiot's insistence that he read it. He says, "You know what? Let's get onto another subject." Yeah, maybe let's not talk about the Constitution with the Rhodes scholar who worked in the White House for four years.
It was just one obscene degradation of the presidency and the country after another, worse than most Trump appearances because he was so obviously faking it, so obviously lying about shit he's lied about over and over, so obviously relying on a moron's bullying bravado to get him through it, so impressed by the smell of his own shit that he couldn't help himself from shitting more.
When he was done, Trump asked Mick Mulvaney, who was choking on a cough, for a towel to wipe the spunk off his face, some of the orange skin dye coming off with it. Then he winked at Stephanopoulos as he undulated away. Stephanopoulos barely made it to the Rose Garden before he started vomiting in self-hatred for having forced himself to endure that performance and for whatever part he played in making it happen.
(Note: No insult meant to people who get sexual pleasure watching morbidly obese men attempt auto-fellatio while dildo-fisting their own assholes until they ejaculate on their faces. It's a niche kink, sure, but, hey, enjoy. However, if one did not sign up for that, it would likely be a bit disturbing.)
6/14/2019
Bricks and Babies: You Can't Win a Fight Against the Delusional
If you ever happen to find yourself in Waskom, Texas, a tiny burg across the Louisiana state line off I-20, a place best described as "twister bait," you might wanna head on over to the Great American Mural that covers the front of the We Buy Houses 123 building in the middle of town. It's a mighty huge thing, what with its portrayal of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in a dull, gray New York City; an extraordinarily masculine Statue of Liberty; and images of Waskom's heroes, including the fire chief and Turbo, a local dog who has two purple hearts from his time in Afghanistan. This is not to mention the aircraft and helicopter on there, the Iwo Jima part, and more.
It's charming in a hyper-nationalist way. It looks like if Shepard Fairey went bankrupt and figured he'd grift the rubes for some quick cash.
Yeah, they love them some Uhmerka there in Waskom. I bet all 2200 of the locals just love the fuck out of Uhmerka. And the Waskom City Council decided to prove just how fucking much they love Uhmerka by passing a local law that defies the U.S. Supreme Court, which is absent from the mural.
Yup, the five-white-guy council unanimously voted to ban abortion in Waskom, except in cases of "rape, incest or serious risk to the mother's life." It's obviously a completely unenforceable, utterly useless law. But Waskom won't be shown up by those uppity states like Alabama and Mississippi. The council declared Waskom a "sanctuary city for the unborn," which, get it?, is a totally hilarious slap in the face to sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants. Take that, libtards.
(Question: If an undocumented immigrant in Waskom is pregnant and a fetus is a person at the time of conception, is the fetus now American? If not, is Waskom a sanctuary city for the undocumented unborn? I need to know the limitations here.)
The country is going through a period of peak madness about abortion rights. I was on the phone with a pal in a deep red part of North Carolina last night who said he generally tries to avoid talking politics down there, but he found himself in a conversation about it with a man, an acquaintance from Virginia. The man said he didn't understand how anyone could vote for Democrats because we allow doctors to take babies who are just born and kill them with a brick.
My response was "Ok, first off, that's fucking insane. Second, a brick? Who needs that mess? Babies are easier to kill with your bare hands."
Apparently, the man explained, New York passed a law that said it was cool to commit infanticide by brick. My pal said to the man, "Yeah, that's not in there. Did you read the New York law?" No, the man said, but he had heard. "That's your problem," my pal explained. "You heard. You don't know."
But no one gives a shit about science and reality. I regularly get people telling me on the Twitter machine that liberals support murdering newborns. That's where the conversation on abortion is right now for too fucking many Americans. In other words, there is no conversation. When people wholeheartedly believe something that is completely, patently, blatantly untrue, your puny facts aren't going to put a dent in that level of delusional stupidity.
Waskom, Texas, doesn't have a clinic that performs abortions. The nearest one is across the state line, in Shreveport, Louisiana, about 30 miles away. It's over 160 miles to the one in Dallas. So no woman is going to get an abortion in Waskom that she doesn't induce herself. And the jury's still out on whether that means Killion's Pharmacy is gonna carry the morning after pill. Either way, abortion isn't a an issue in Waskom.
What is a problem there is meth. They found e coli in the town's water source. There have been at least two murders this year, which gives Waskom a higher murder rate than most of the big cities in the United States, as well as a number of assaults.
Like so many other places in this damned land, the yahoos have been convinced that something that isn't an issue at all must take precedent over real issues. That protecting a fetus is more important than securing the lives of the actually living. Here is how one Waskom resident put it on Facebook: "The Town of Waskom agreed to run the city according to the will of God in regards to the Right To Life. We expect to be challenged but God is on our side so we have faith that every challenge will be overcome with prayer and steady faithfulness to do the Lord's Will."
You gotta know what you're up against. Your Twitter or Insta feeds aren't gonna tell you that. This shit is out there and it's nuts. They think we're bashing in babies' heads with bricks. You're not gonna convince that person that they're wrong. You're not gonna rationalize and present reasonable counter arguments. You gotta write them off for now and concentrate on shoring up the power of the sane people.
It's charming in a hyper-nationalist way. It looks like if Shepard Fairey went bankrupt and figured he'd grift the rubes for some quick cash.
Yeah, they love them some Uhmerka there in Waskom. I bet all 2200 of the locals just love the fuck out of Uhmerka. And the Waskom City Council decided to prove just how fucking much they love Uhmerka by passing a local law that defies the U.S. Supreme Court, which is absent from the mural.
Yup, the five-white-guy council unanimously voted to ban abortion in Waskom, except in cases of "rape, incest or serious risk to the mother's life." It's obviously a completely unenforceable, utterly useless law. But Waskom won't be shown up by those uppity states like Alabama and Mississippi. The council declared Waskom a "sanctuary city for the unborn," which, get it?, is a totally hilarious slap in the face to sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants. Take that, libtards.
(Question: If an undocumented immigrant in Waskom is pregnant and a fetus is a person at the time of conception, is the fetus now American? If not, is Waskom a sanctuary city for the undocumented unborn? I need to know the limitations here.)
The country is going through a period of peak madness about abortion rights. I was on the phone with a pal in a deep red part of North Carolina last night who said he generally tries to avoid talking politics down there, but he found himself in a conversation about it with a man, an acquaintance from Virginia. The man said he didn't understand how anyone could vote for Democrats because we allow doctors to take babies who are just born and kill them with a brick.
My response was "Ok, first off, that's fucking insane. Second, a brick? Who needs that mess? Babies are easier to kill with your bare hands."
Apparently, the man explained, New York passed a law that said it was cool to commit infanticide by brick. My pal said to the man, "Yeah, that's not in there. Did you read the New York law?" No, the man said, but he had heard. "That's your problem," my pal explained. "You heard. You don't know."
But no one gives a shit about science and reality. I regularly get people telling me on the Twitter machine that liberals support murdering newborns. That's where the conversation on abortion is right now for too fucking many Americans. In other words, there is no conversation. When people wholeheartedly believe something that is completely, patently, blatantly untrue, your puny facts aren't going to put a dent in that level of delusional stupidity.
Waskom, Texas, doesn't have a clinic that performs abortions. The nearest one is across the state line, in Shreveport, Louisiana, about 30 miles away. It's over 160 miles to the one in Dallas. So no woman is going to get an abortion in Waskom that she doesn't induce herself. And the jury's still out on whether that means Killion's Pharmacy is gonna carry the morning after pill. Either way, abortion isn't a an issue in Waskom.
What is a problem there is meth. They found e coli in the town's water source. There have been at least two murders this year, which gives Waskom a higher murder rate than most of the big cities in the United States, as well as a number of assaults.
Like so many other places in this damned land, the yahoos have been convinced that something that isn't an issue at all must take precedent over real issues. That protecting a fetus is more important than securing the lives of the actually living. Here is how one Waskom resident put it on Facebook: "The Town of Waskom agreed to run the city according to the will of God in regards to the Right To Life. We expect to be challenged but God is on our side so we have faith that every challenge will be overcome with prayer and steady faithfulness to do the Lord's Will."
You gotta know what you're up against. Your Twitter or Insta feeds aren't gonna tell you that. This shit is out there and it's nuts. They think we're bashing in babies' heads with bricks. You're not gonna convince that person that they're wrong. You're not gonna rationalize and present reasonable counter arguments. You gotta write them off for now and concentrate on shoring up the power of the sane people.
6/13/2019
Trump: Let's Do Some Collusion, Motherfuckers
President Chucklefuck McBloatface had multiple reasons for telling ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that he'd gobble up information from a foreign government about his political opponent in 2020 like an eager cum whore swallows jizz at a Pride Month circle jerk. First, if he said that he'd go to the FBI, he'd be admitting that he or Jared "Dead Boy Eyes" Kushner or "good young man" Donald Trump, Jr., did something wrong when they were offered (checks notes) information from a foreign government about his political opponent in 2016. And this vile shithead would never say he was wrong.
This is part of the strategy of declaring, repeatedly, that what was laid out in the Mueller report wasn't a crime on the Trump campaign's part, that whether or not there was "collusion" was besides the point. A few months ago, Rudy Giuliani, pausing while drinking the blood of an infant, stated flatly that taking information from a foreign government, even if that information was stolen, was not criminal. The only reason Mueller didn't charge Dead Eyes or Good Young Man with a crime is because he's pretty sure they were too fucking stupid to know that what they were doing by meeting with Russians was a crime.
One thing Trump said was kind of interesting. He compared getting this information to "oppo research," and that's led throbbing assholes like Lindsey Graham to speciously compare it to the Steele dossier, which brought the connection between Trump and Russia to the FBI's attention (via John McCain). While trying to split this really wide hair (research on an opponent that a candidate contracts someone to do is not the same as Syria showing up and saying, "I've got emails we stole. Let's have a secret meeting and boogie"), Trump said, "I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings--if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected-- on negative information about their opponent." When pressed by Stephanopoulos on even if the meetings were with agents of foreign countries, Trump said, "Possibly. Possibly. But they don’t call the FBI. You don’t call the FBI every time you hear something that maybe--now, you see the people."
Now, you could look at this as Trump covering his ass after he said he'd commit a crime. But another way to see that comment on members of Congress is as a threat. Because if the only people who can do anything to stop him are in Congress, then you can sure as shit bet that he's gonna let them know that they're gonna go down with him if they gun for him on this. Yeah, I think that was a warning that he's got the goods on (most likely) Republicans and the help they've gotten from other nations. I think that was him saying that they better build a wall with their bodies around him or he'll burn it all down before he takes the fall.
Of course, Trump was also announcing to the world that he's open for business. "C'mon, China and Russia, grab me by the pussy," Trump was saying, "I love it." You only do that shit if you're already in so far deep that it doesn't fucking matter anymore. And you're an idiot. So it's clearly Trumpian.
A couple of Republicans have spoken out to say, "Well, gee, that's not right." And Democrats have fumed a mighty fume and even tried to get a law passed that did something that doesn't matter because it was blocked by sentient turdpile Mitch McConnell.
That last part is particularly galling because Democrats should be going to fucking war today. See, one other thing that Trump did in the interview that hasn't really been reported is that he once again accused Hillary Clinton and Democrats of committing crimes. Yeah, that's right. Right after admitting that he didn't give a shit if he or any politician breaks the law, he got all self-righteous about Clinton again. In one of his verbal diarrhea blasts, Trump said, "She deleted 33,000 emails from--sent by the United States Congress. They gave a subpoena to Hillary Clinton for 33,000 emails. After the subpoena was gotten, she deleted them. That’s called obstruction. And her lawyer should also be looked at because her lawyer--she’s got to have the greatest lawyer on earth because she does that, he did the deleting, supposedly. Not only did they delete, but they acid washed them."
We don't need to go through all the lies in that. And while Trump didn't specifically say that Clinton should be in jail, he did tell Stephanopoulos, "If you did that, you would’ve been put in jail."
Jesus fuck, Democrats, at least have the guts to defend your own.
(Note: If your reaction to this is that the United States interferes in foreign elections and we're just getting payback, well, you are so very smart. Have a cookie. And shut the fuck up because a whole hell of a lot of us think that meddling in other countries' elections is wrong no matter who does it.)
This is part of the strategy of declaring, repeatedly, that what was laid out in the Mueller report wasn't a crime on the Trump campaign's part, that whether or not there was "collusion" was besides the point. A few months ago, Rudy Giuliani, pausing while drinking the blood of an infant, stated flatly that taking information from a foreign government, even if that information was stolen, was not criminal. The only reason Mueller didn't charge Dead Eyes or Good Young Man with a crime is because he's pretty sure they were too fucking stupid to know that what they were doing by meeting with Russians was a crime.
One thing Trump said was kind of interesting. He compared getting this information to "oppo research," and that's led throbbing assholes like Lindsey Graham to speciously compare it to the Steele dossier, which brought the connection between Trump and Russia to the FBI's attention (via John McCain). While trying to split this really wide hair (research on an opponent that a candidate contracts someone to do is not the same as Syria showing up and saying, "I've got emails we stole. Let's have a secret meeting and boogie"), Trump said, "I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings--if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected-- on negative information about their opponent." When pressed by Stephanopoulos on even if the meetings were with agents of foreign countries, Trump said, "Possibly. Possibly. But they don’t call the FBI. You don’t call the FBI every time you hear something that maybe--now, you see the people."
Now, you could look at this as Trump covering his ass after he said he'd commit a crime. But another way to see that comment on members of Congress is as a threat. Because if the only people who can do anything to stop him are in Congress, then you can sure as shit bet that he's gonna let them know that they're gonna go down with him if they gun for him on this. Yeah, I think that was a warning that he's got the goods on (most likely) Republicans and the help they've gotten from other nations. I think that was him saying that they better build a wall with their bodies around him or he'll burn it all down before he takes the fall.
Of course, Trump was also announcing to the world that he's open for business. "C'mon, China and Russia, grab me by the pussy," Trump was saying, "I love it." You only do that shit if you're already in so far deep that it doesn't fucking matter anymore. And you're an idiot. So it's clearly Trumpian.
A couple of Republicans have spoken out to say, "Well, gee, that's not right." And Democrats have fumed a mighty fume and even tried to get a law passed that did something that doesn't matter because it was blocked by sentient turdpile Mitch McConnell.
That last part is particularly galling because Democrats should be going to fucking war today. See, one other thing that Trump did in the interview that hasn't really been reported is that he once again accused Hillary Clinton and Democrats of committing crimes. Yeah, that's right. Right after admitting that he didn't give a shit if he or any politician breaks the law, he got all self-righteous about Clinton again. In one of his verbal diarrhea blasts, Trump said, "She deleted 33,000 emails from--sent by the United States Congress. They gave a subpoena to Hillary Clinton for 33,000 emails. After the subpoena was gotten, she deleted them. That’s called obstruction. And her lawyer should also be looked at because her lawyer--she’s got to have the greatest lawyer on earth because she does that, he did the deleting, supposedly. Not only did they delete, but they acid washed them."
We don't need to go through all the lies in that. And while Trump didn't specifically say that Clinton should be in jail, he did tell Stephanopoulos, "If you did that, you would’ve been put in jail."
Jesus fuck, Democrats, at least have the guts to defend your own.
(Note: If your reaction to this is that the United States interferes in foreign elections and we're just getting payback, well, you are so very smart. Have a cookie. And shut the fuck up because a whole hell of a lot of us think that meddling in other countries' elections is wrong no matter who does it.)
6/12/2019
Proposal: Stop Being Assholes About Immigration
Admittedly, it was an intentionally provocative comment I made yesterday in a group of people who didn't want to talk about politics. Someone had brought up how she hates Trump, other were telling her to keep it to herself, and so I said, "Well, for me, it comes down to this: You're either pro-babies in cages or you're anti-babies in cages. I happen to be anti. That shouldn't be a controversial position."
"Where are babies in cages?" another woman asked.
"We're keeping kids and babies in camps," I said, surprised that she didn't know this. "The United States. We've put kids in large cages. We just have."
A man said, "What should we do with them?"
For me, the answer was obvious. "Not put them in cages," I responded.
A second man said, "You know how many women get raped by the coyotes who are taking them across the deserts to here? Women and young girls take contraception because they know they're going to be raped." And then he started talking about rape trees, which you can look up if you want.
I said, "What's your point? That migrants are treated shitty when they're trying to get to the United States? That at least we're not raping them? Just because someone else hurts people worse doesn't mean we get a pass on hurting them less. We should be better. Way better." And I went off on how, after the torture of Iraqi prisoners and detainees by American soldiers was revealed, some people would say shit like "You should see how they treat them in Syria or Saudi Arabia," as if the fact that we're not ripping off fingernails excuses our waterboarding.
Basically, though, my point was to stop putting babies or, hell, anybody who hasn't committed a crime in a cage. And let's be as absolutely fucking clear as can be: if you travel to the United States and present yourself at a port of entry to ask for asylum, you are not committing a crime. And if you cross into the US elsewhere and ask for asylum when border agents pick you and your family up, you've committed at most a misdemeanor, illegal entry.
The nihilistic policies of the Trump administration, which basically come down to "Give us money or fuck you," whether it has to do with climate change or with aid to Central American countries, are helping to drive the rise in migrants. In other words, we are fucking up the lives of people whose lives are so fucked up that they would rather face a journey filled with potential violence and being put in a cage or concentration camp than face the starvation, violence, and misery of their homes. They're so desperate that they're crossing the flood-swollen Rio Grande River and canals near El Paso, Texas, and some are likely dying right there at the border.
So maybe we could stop that last part. Maybe we could stop being assholes, at least to the children. Because right now, we're the fucking assholes. That's a choice we're making as a country, to be assholes. We could also choose not to be assholes.
How much are we being assholes? At the Paso del Norte International Bridge in El Paso, over 100 men are being held in what one observer described as a "human dog pound." They're in an open pen in the 100 plus degree heat, and some have been there over a month without a change of clothes or shower. All for not breaking the law.
Kids are supposed to be held for no more than 20 days before being released to family or foster care, but, you know, that's not happening. And professional coprophage Lindsey Graham has proposed extending that to a punitive 100 days on the notion that "the incentives created by our laws will cease to exist;" thus, "This humanitarian disaster will begin to repair itself." Someone tell this milksop motherfucker that people who just walked thousands of miles don't give a fuck about your 100 days.
Again, this is about us. This is about who we are. We are in a situation where the number of migrants has gone up sharply, despite Donald Trump's worthless threats and mad gesticulations and spittle-spraying speeches. We can continue to respond like the assholes we're being by trying to punish our way out of it, opening more and more concentration camps, including a site where Japanese Americans were interred during World War II. We can continue hurtful policies like making migrants wait in Mexico, where they have to stay in crime-ridden border towns and face homelessness and possible deportation if they're forced to stay too long by the backlog of asylum cases in the US.
Or maybe, just maybe we could respond with humanity, with treating them like human beings seeking help and comfort. We could fund the efforts at the border fully in a way that helps migrants. We could act like we're part of a goddamn society and not a bunch of fuckin' savages trying to out-brutal the other savages.
"Where are babies in cages?" another woman asked.
"We're keeping kids and babies in camps," I said, surprised that she didn't know this. "The United States. We've put kids in large cages. We just have."
A man said, "What should we do with them?"
For me, the answer was obvious. "Not put them in cages," I responded.
A second man said, "You know how many women get raped by the coyotes who are taking them across the deserts to here? Women and young girls take contraception because they know they're going to be raped." And then he started talking about rape trees, which you can look up if you want.
I said, "What's your point? That migrants are treated shitty when they're trying to get to the United States? That at least we're not raping them? Just because someone else hurts people worse doesn't mean we get a pass on hurting them less. We should be better. Way better." And I went off on how, after the torture of Iraqi prisoners and detainees by American soldiers was revealed, some people would say shit like "You should see how they treat them in Syria or Saudi Arabia," as if the fact that we're not ripping off fingernails excuses our waterboarding.
Basically, though, my point was to stop putting babies or, hell, anybody who hasn't committed a crime in a cage. And let's be as absolutely fucking clear as can be: if you travel to the United States and present yourself at a port of entry to ask for asylum, you are not committing a crime. And if you cross into the US elsewhere and ask for asylum when border agents pick you and your family up, you've committed at most a misdemeanor, illegal entry.
The nihilistic policies of the Trump administration, which basically come down to "Give us money or fuck you," whether it has to do with climate change or with aid to Central American countries, are helping to drive the rise in migrants. In other words, we are fucking up the lives of people whose lives are so fucked up that they would rather face a journey filled with potential violence and being put in a cage or concentration camp than face the starvation, violence, and misery of their homes. They're so desperate that they're crossing the flood-swollen Rio Grande River and canals near El Paso, Texas, and some are likely dying right there at the border.
So maybe we could stop that last part. Maybe we could stop being assholes, at least to the children. Because right now, we're the fucking assholes. That's a choice we're making as a country, to be assholes. We could also choose not to be assholes.
How much are we being assholes? At the Paso del Norte International Bridge in El Paso, over 100 men are being held in what one observer described as a "human dog pound." They're in an open pen in the 100 plus degree heat, and some have been there over a month without a change of clothes or shower. All for not breaking the law.
Kids are supposed to be held for no more than 20 days before being released to family or foster care, but, you know, that's not happening. And professional coprophage Lindsey Graham has proposed extending that to a punitive 100 days on the notion that "the incentives created by our laws will cease to exist;" thus, "This humanitarian disaster will begin to repair itself." Someone tell this milksop motherfucker that people who just walked thousands of miles don't give a fuck about your 100 days.
Again, this is about us. This is about who we are. We are in a situation where the number of migrants has gone up sharply, despite Donald Trump's worthless threats and mad gesticulations and spittle-spraying speeches. We can continue to respond like the assholes we're being by trying to punish our way out of it, opening more and more concentration camps, including a site where Japanese Americans were interred during World War II. We can continue hurtful policies like making migrants wait in Mexico, where they have to stay in crime-ridden border towns and face homelessness and possible deportation if they're forced to stay too long by the backlog of asylum cases in the US.
Or maybe, just maybe we could respond with humanity, with treating them like human beings seeking help and comfort. We could fund the efforts at the border fully in a way that helps migrants. We could act like we're part of a goddamn society and not a bunch of fuckin' savages trying to out-brutal the other savages.
6/07/2019
Just Stop It: Trump Didn't Rise to Any Damn Occasion in Europe
It's absolutely ludicrous that Donald Trump is getting praise for his appearance at the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. Sure, he read a speech that a reasonably eloquent fifth-grader could have written, and he didn't even pause to say how much the property there was worth or how he could have killed Hitler single-handedly with a secret plan he had. Obviously, everyone thought Bumblefuck O'Douchenozzle was gonna saunter up to the lectern, fart into the mic, shit on the gathered leaders, and scream, "Do you love me now, Vladdy?"
But just because he acted vaguely normal, the motherfucker didn't all of a sudden become a goddamn statesman. If our mark of success is now "Oh, good, he didn't teabag the Queen," then nothing really fucking matters anymore.
Besides, in just about every other circumstance, Trump was the blithering cockknob he usually is. He said that the UK's National Health Service would be on the table for trade negotiations (before walking that back since, if true, it would probably end Brexit immediately). He didn't seem to understand that Ireland wasn't part of the UK and that a border wall with Northern Ireland would pretty much lead to an explosion of violence. He insulted Nancy Pelosi and Robert Mueller while talking to Fox "news" by those Normandy graves. And he was fucking obsessed with Queen Elizabeth and the royal family, saying that "There are those that say they have never seen the queen have a better time, a more animated time," and you just think that, if it's true, how fucking awful the queen's life must have been for her first 93 years.
Truly, being royalty who are just figureheads with almost no real power must seem like a dream for Trump. Everyone gives you money and a gold house and all you gotta do is wave from a carriage every now and then? That's a gig. Trump must love that shit.
Hell, in his hell-interview with insufferable twatflea Piers Morgan, Trump fairly jacked off, "I really like the royal family and of course headed by the queen who is a woman like few others." I hope Elizabeth had Her Majesty's Pussy Guard with her at all times to prevent any grabbing.
That interview was filled with weird and ominous and confoundingly dumb things from Trump. At one point, Morgan asked Trump if Prince Charles talked to him about climate change, an issue that Charles has been working on for years. Look at Trump's response: "He's doing this for future generations. He really feels. And this is this is real. He believes that. He wants to have a world that's good for future generations...He doesn't need that. You know he is Prince Charles. He doesn't have to worry about future generations in theory unless he's a very good person who cares about people."
That's some sociopathic shit right there. Most of us would think it's just being a goddamned human being to "worry about future generations." For a narcissistic lump of rotting scrotum skin like Trump, one has to be "a very good person who cares about people" to give a damn what happens to one's descendants.
And, hell, we all know that Trump only views things in his Trumpishly myopic mirror, admiring how incredible he is at all times, but he's so extravagantly narcissistic, like so bad that you'd think every now and then his reflection would say, "Can you give me a fuckin' break for a little while?"
Talking about the military, Trump made it seem like he alone was funding it: "I -- look $700 billion I gave last year and then this year $716 billion." Bitch, that didn't come out of your wallet. We're all fuckin' paying for it.
And when Morgan compared the Trumps to the long history of the royal family and asked, "Would you like to have a 3000-year bloodline?" Trump answered, no shit, "I think it'll be great. I don't know what I'd be doing for the rest of it but I think it would be great." Yeah, he understood the question as Morgan asking him if he'd like to live for 3000 years. God fucking damn, he's dumb.
Trump also reduced everything to money, to how successful people are, to how tough they are as negotiators. Talking about the Vietnam War, which he missed because of (bullshit) bone spurs, he said, "Nobody ever, you know, you're talking about Vietnam and at that time nobody ever heard of the country. Today they're doing very well, in fact on trade they are brutal. They're very brutal." Putting aside the fact that he's admitting he didn't know anything about Vietnam (lots of people had "heard" of it), it's like he wants us to know...what?...now they torture us in trade talks?
The most jarring moment was probably his praise of the gambling ability of the motherfucker who murdered 58 people and injured over 400 in the Las Vegas massacre. The President of the United States said of this white terrorist, "He was actually a pretty smart guy. He was supposedly a good successful gambler and there's almost no such thing as a successful gambler. And he went out and he -- what he did was incredible." I mean, sure, he's one of the biggest mass murderers in history, but, damn, that dude could rock the Texas Hold 'Em table at Caesar's Palace.
Goddamn us for electing this yutz.
Two other things from that bad acid trip of an interview.
First, of course he mentioned his 2016 election. "I had an inauguration, which I have to say was spectacular. And we had a big election night win that was, you know, one of the great evenings," he said. Yes, Gramps, we know. Now tell us again about the time you banged porn stars.
And when Morgan pressed him on banning transgender soldiers from the US military, Trump not only completely upended the supposed (bullshit) justification, which was unit cohesion or some such shit. He punked out and essentially said his hands were tied because of military regulations on drug usage. No, really: "You have very strict rules and regulations on drugs and prescription drugs and all of these different things and they [transgender soldiers] blow it out of the water."
This was one of many, many head-smacking, embarrassing moments on this loony sideshow. Yeah, Trump read a fuckin' speech and didn't accidentally knock over a D-Day veteran. Eisenhower must have been rolling over and over and over in his grave. Patton must have wanted to shove his hand up from the ground and smack Trump's smarmy, wimpy mug. Down in Hell, Hitler must have thought it was good to be represented at the ceremony.
But just because he acted vaguely normal, the motherfucker didn't all of a sudden become a goddamn statesman. If our mark of success is now "Oh, good, he didn't teabag the Queen," then nothing really fucking matters anymore.
Besides, in just about every other circumstance, Trump was the blithering cockknob he usually is. He said that the UK's National Health Service would be on the table for trade negotiations (before walking that back since, if true, it would probably end Brexit immediately). He didn't seem to understand that Ireland wasn't part of the UK and that a border wall with Northern Ireland would pretty much lead to an explosion of violence. He insulted Nancy Pelosi and Robert Mueller while talking to Fox "news" by those Normandy graves. And he was fucking obsessed with Queen Elizabeth and the royal family, saying that "There are those that say they have never seen the queen have a better time, a more animated time," and you just think that, if it's true, how fucking awful the queen's life must have been for her first 93 years.
Truly, being royalty who are just figureheads with almost no real power must seem like a dream for Trump. Everyone gives you money and a gold house and all you gotta do is wave from a carriage every now and then? That's a gig. Trump must love that shit.
Hell, in his hell-interview with insufferable twatflea Piers Morgan, Trump fairly jacked off, "I really like the royal family and of course headed by the queen who is a woman like few others." I hope Elizabeth had Her Majesty's Pussy Guard with her at all times to prevent any grabbing.
That interview was filled with weird and ominous and confoundingly dumb things from Trump. At one point, Morgan asked Trump if Prince Charles talked to him about climate change, an issue that Charles has been working on for years. Look at Trump's response: "He's doing this for future generations. He really feels. And this is this is real. He believes that. He wants to have a world that's good for future generations...He doesn't need that. You know he is Prince Charles. He doesn't have to worry about future generations in theory unless he's a very good person who cares about people."
That's some sociopathic shit right there. Most of us would think it's just being a goddamned human being to "worry about future generations." For a narcissistic lump of rotting scrotum skin like Trump, one has to be "a very good person who cares about people" to give a damn what happens to one's descendants.
And, hell, we all know that Trump only views things in his Trumpishly myopic mirror, admiring how incredible he is at all times, but he's so extravagantly narcissistic, like so bad that you'd think every now and then his reflection would say, "Can you give me a fuckin' break for a little while?"
Talking about the military, Trump made it seem like he alone was funding it: "I -- look $700 billion I gave last year and then this year $716 billion." Bitch, that didn't come out of your wallet. We're all fuckin' paying for it.
And when Morgan compared the Trumps to the long history of the royal family and asked, "Would you like to have a 3000-year bloodline?" Trump answered, no shit, "I think it'll be great. I don't know what I'd be doing for the rest of it but I think it would be great." Yeah, he understood the question as Morgan asking him if he'd like to live for 3000 years. God fucking damn, he's dumb.
Trump also reduced everything to money, to how successful people are, to how tough they are as negotiators. Talking about the Vietnam War, which he missed because of (bullshit) bone spurs, he said, "Nobody ever, you know, you're talking about Vietnam and at that time nobody ever heard of the country. Today they're doing very well, in fact on trade they are brutal. They're very brutal." Putting aside the fact that he's admitting he didn't know anything about Vietnam (lots of people had "heard" of it), it's like he wants us to know...what?...now they torture us in trade talks?
The most jarring moment was probably his praise of the gambling ability of the motherfucker who murdered 58 people and injured over 400 in the Las Vegas massacre. The President of the United States said of this white terrorist, "He was actually a pretty smart guy. He was supposedly a good successful gambler and there's almost no such thing as a successful gambler. And he went out and he -- what he did was incredible." I mean, sure, he's one of the biggest mass murderers in history, but, damn, that dude could rock the Texas Hold 'Em table at Caesar's Palace.
Goddamn us for electing this yutz.
Two other things from that bad acid trip of an interview.
First, of course he mentioned his 2016 election. "I had an inauguration, which I have to say was spectacular. And we had a big election night win that was, you know, one of the great evenings," he said. Yes, Gramps, we know. Now tell us again about the time you banged porn stars.
And when Morgan pressed him on banning transgender soldiers from the US military, Trump not only completely upended the supposed (bullshit) justification, which was unit cohesion or some such shit. He punked out and essentially said his hands were tied because of military regulations on drug usage. No, really: "You have very strict rules and regulations on drugs and prescription drugs and all of these different things and they [transgender soldiers] blow it out of the water."
This was one of many, many head-smacking, embarrassing moments on this loony sideshow. Yeah, Trump read a fuckin' speech and didn't accidentally knock over a D-Day veteran. Eisenhower must have been rolling over and over and over in his grave. Patton must have wanted to shove his hand up from the ground and smack Trump's smarmy, wimpy mug. Down in Hell, Hitler must have thought it was good to be represented at the ceremony.
6/04/2019
Our Government Is a Child Abuser
Of all the terrible fuckery undertaken by the savage cockfleas and cuntmites that make up the administration of awkwardly-dressed dump truck Donald Trump, the most clearly visible, most heinous, most just outright evil is the treatment of migrant children who cross into this country at the southern border. Whether alone or with their parents, they are almost all fleeing horrors - poverty, rape, violence - that are severe enough for them to be sent or taken on the enormous journey from, say, Guatemala to the United States, hoping to God or whoever that they will have a chance to survive in peace.
And while we've never been as high and mighty as our politicians tell us we are, while we've been assholes and fucked up on immigration policy, while we've cruelly been deporting people for minor reasons for years, it was never the actual policy of the United States to abuse children.
Right now, what else can you call the treatment of undocumented migrant children seeking asylum in the United States but child abuse, advocated, aided, and abetted by the federal government?
In the last week, a series of reports has continued to reveal that not only has the Trump administration, especially the Border Patrol, DHS, and HHS, done nothing to reform the mistreatment that occurred previously, but it has continued with the abuse and torture of children under the bullshit umbrella of "detention."
The Washington Post reported that thousands of unaccompanied children, some 12 and younger, are being held in Border Patrol facilities well past the three days that they are supposed to be held before they are released to HHS and the Office of Refugee Relocation to find them places to stay, whether with family already in the United States or foster families. And if you're thinking, "Well, a few extra days won't hurt anyone," here's what the Post said they saw on a visit to the border: "Adults and their toddler children were packed into concrete holding cells, many of them sleeping head-to-foot on the floor and along the wall-length benches....Outside in the parking lot, a chain-link fence enclosure held dozens of women and children, many of them eschewing the air-conditioned tents to lie on the pavement."
The Huffington Post reported that, at one detention facility in Homestead, Florida, according to a lawsuit recently filed, "Immigrant children described being put in isolation for eight days, deprived of physical touch and constantly sobbing." You're not allowed to touch anyone, not even a hug; you are watched by cameras at all times; you get two 10-minute calls with family a week, and tough shit if no one answers. They are living in a prison under prison-like rules without having even been accused of a crime. (Remember: It's totally legal to come here and ask for asylum.)
NBC News reported that documents they've obtained show the utter incompetence and chaos that raged when Trump's DHS was forced to reunify children with parents they had been forcefully separated from under the inhumane "Zero Tolerance" policy. These motherfuckers never had any intention of getting families back together; they wanted to punish people for daring to bring their brown, bedraggled asses to darken our virgin white City on a Hill. It was so bad that, outside one adult detention center in Texas, vans filled with children as young as five were backed up because they didn't have the people to process them. The kids were locked in the July 2018 Texas heat in the vans. "Not until 39 hours later — after two nights in a van — did the last child step out of a van to be reunited. Most spent at least 23 hours in the vehicles," the report says.
This aligns perfectly with the cruel revelation that few records were kept identifying which kids, some of whom are babies and toddlers, went with which families. It's taken nearly a year to get most of the couple of thousand kids reunited with their parents and loved ones. But they still haven't been able to do so for a few dozen. And it's not that their parents are criminals or some such shit. The government just don't know how to reunite them.
And this is not to mention the dead kids.
Or the fact that Trump wants to expand the detention centers into larger, full-fledged concentration camps rather than just release people on their own recognizance, the vast, vast majority of whom do show up for their court dates on asylum.
There's more. There's always more. About newborns separated from their mothers. About sexual abuse of kids in the detention centers. Mostly, it's about treating one category of humans as sub-human. Which, you know, is how racism works.
I'm tired of the quotidian cruelty of our leaders. The blithe assertion of brute power is one of the ugliest aspects of the grotesquely ugly ideology of conservatism. And to assert it over poor, sick, terrified kids in a nation we're constantly told is the richest, greatest, best in the history of the world just means that those leading it are abject, irredeemable dicks.
The faces of these kids should be part of any campaign against Republicans. They should have to answer for it. Because we should demand to not be a part of a country that thinks this shit is okay.
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