Sweet Jesus, you all want to write some damn haiku. Since the call went out the last two days, I've gotten about 200 haiku and, even when it's just 3 short lines, that's a lot of fuckin' poetry reading. It's also been tough choosing the ones to post here because, well, you have all upped your haiku game, almost as if the rank fuckery going on around us has inspired you.
Here we go:
From Cerato:
Despite the bullshit
A man of integrity
Schiff laid out the facts
From Fuggly in NH:
Wish I Hadn't Asked
I asked a Trump guy,
"What could you hear to lose faith?"
He just said, "Nothing"
From Jack in a sea of red in a blue state:
Mueller testified
But failed to entertain us
Lady Justice wept
From Pauline in Indiana:
Twenty nineteen gone
Just before I realized
Twenty twenty comes
From Steve L.:
sewerline of hate
open Twitter and drink deep
oh, the endorphins
From Gummo in Brooklyn:
Only now can frogs
Boil their own pot of water
That takes a BIG brain
From T. Mangrove in Wisconsin:
Grands were immigrants.
Parents worked hard, and I thrived.
My kids are so fucked.
From Mary S. in Massachusetts:
Once again the chant.
"The Jews will not replace us"!
Tiki torches march.
From LegendaryStickFigure:
Rashida's Lament
A perfect phone call
impeaches motherfucker
not above the law
From RR in Rhode Island:
In Iowa's 4th,
Medicare is socialist,
But not their bailouts.
Alright, one more day of this tomorrow and then back to the semi-regular bloggery you've known to semi-love and semi-expect.
12/30/2019
Haiku Review of 2019 (Part 2): The Haiku Awakens
Damn, in one short day, you all have sent in dozens and dozens of haiku. Things have taken a turn into the dark as we see 2020 steering towards us at full speed, ready to smash us into the pavement. Until then, though, let's get haiku-ing.
Here are some of the best so far, from sea to shining sea and a Canadian.
From Bewildered in Toronto:
Our old friend believes
Trump is A-O.K. We ask,
"The man's crazy, right?"
From longtime haiku-inator Rabbitearz in Los Angeles (I'm not sure if it's "Rabbit Ears" or "Rabbi Tears," but, sadly, both work):
That British fat toad
Boris "the spider" Johnson
Weaves a web of sloth.
From Ms. L.B. in New York City:
I Got Your Pitchforks and Torches Right Here
Trump yammers "Witch hunt!"
We explain, "It doesn't mean
What you think it means."
From Twangling Jack in Rain City:
Melania's Blues
Hard-faced First Lady
Swatting away orange hands,
How can you "Be Best?"
From Sarah in Seattle:
Faith
They clutch their Bibles
which were printed without the
Sermon on the Mount.
From Brad in Dallas:
The next century
Is one Trump then another
If he gets away.
From Robert J.:
"Anal fistula,"
Stephen Miller's new nickname,
Is still far too kind.
From Vicki in Philadelphia:
Impeachment is writ
On Trump’s permanent record
In big black Sharpie.
From Doug, no longer in Oakland:
Gentrification
All of this snow beats
Wildfire evacuation
Two forced moves this year
From VJ in NJ:
A Wish for a New Decade
The NRA dead,
Trump gone, McConnell run out
Bankrupt and erased
Keep 'em coming. Another bunch tomorrow. Once again: 5-7-5 syllables. Titled or untitled. Send 'em to: rudepundit (at) yahoo.com.
Here are some of the best so far, from sea to shining sea and a Canadian.
From Bewildered in Toronto:
Our old friend believes
Trump is A-O.K. We ask,
"The man's crazy, right?"
From longtime haiku-inator Rabbitearz in Los Angeles (I'm not sure if it's "Rabbit Ears" or "Rabbi Tears," but, sadly, both work):
That British fat toad
Boris "the spider" Johnson
Weaves a web of sloth.
From Ms. L.B. in New York City:
I Got Your Pitchforks and Torches Right Here
Trump yammers "Witch hunt!"
We explain, "It doesn't mean
What you think it means."
From Twangling Jack in Rain City:
Melania's Blues
Hard-faced First Lady
Swatting away orange hands,
How can you "Be Best?"
From Sarah in Seattle:
Faith
They clutch their Bibles
which were printed without the
Sermon on the Mount.
From Brad in Dallas:
The next century
Is one Trump then another
If he gets away.
From Robert J.:
"Anal fistula,"
Stephen Miller's new nickname,
Is still far too kind.
From Vicki in Philadelphia:
Impeachment is writ
On Trump’s permanent record
In big black Sharpie.
From Doug, no longer in Oakland:
Gentrification
All of this snow beats
Wildfire evacuation
Two forced moves this year
From VJ in NJ:
A Wish for a New Decade
The NRA dead,
Trump gone, McConnell run out
Bankrupt and erased
Keep 'em coming. Another bunch tomorrow. Once again: 5-7-5 syllables. Titled or untitled. Send 'em to: rudepundit (at) yahoo.com.
12/29/2019
Haiku Review of 2019: Out of the Blue and Into the Black
This fucked-up year is going to seem like an amuse-bouche of insanity by the time 2020's shit fight in a monkey house is over. As both impeachment and election pressure amps up for President Dumbfuck McRageface, I wouldn't be surprised if we see even more violence against racial and ethnic groups, against trans people and migrants, against liberals in general. Because that's what these motherfuckers want. They want a purge, man.
But, hey, that journey into the inevitable dark void at the center of Trumpism is still a few days away. So, as we always do in this little corner of the ever-shrinking patch of Left Blogsylvania, let's close out the year with the simplest of commentary. It's haiku time once again, a tradition in this joint that goes back to 2004. Oh, shit, this is the 15th anniversary of it.
Submit your haiku about events in fuckin' 2019 to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com." I'm the only judge and jury here, and I am generally fickle, drunk, high, and susceptible to fits of despair.
I'm also a stickler for the form: one line of 5 syllables, one line of 7 syllables, and one line of 5 syllables, in that order. They can be as filthy, funny, or fucked-up as you like. You can be serious, silly, or sanctimonious. Titled or untitled. The ones I like the best get published on here over the next few days, so lemme know what name you want on it (in case your boss or mate or Mom sees it) and where you're from. Like "Trump's Stinky Taint" from Fuckmonkey, TN" or "Linda from San Francisco" or something.
I'm also a stickler for the form: one line of 5 syllables, one line of 7 syllables, and one line of 5 syllables, in that order. They can be as filthy, funny, or fucked-up as you like. You can be serious, silly, or sanctimonious. Titled or untitled. The ones I like the best get published on here over the next few days, so lemme know what name you want on it (in case your boss or mate or Mom sees it) and where you're from. Like "Trump's Stinky Taint" from Fuckmonkey, TN" or "Linda from San Francisco" or something.
Here are a couple to inspire you and get the brain pan churning:
Armed Cowards
"White genocide" is
Just another way to say,
"Brown people scare me."
At the Rally
Trump spits angry bile.
Idiot hordes open mouths,
Thirsty for more hate.
The Hearings Circus
Schiff brooked no bullshit
Which made Nunes and Jordan
Into sad, failed clowns.
That was quick and easy. So bring it on. Give 2019 your best poetic middle-finger. Or celebrate. Positive shit is welcome. Send you haiku in.
12/26/2019
Things That Didn't Suck in 2019
Every goddamn day, every single goddamn day of this fucking year has been a bloody-knee crawl through the trash heap of an America that is increasingly deformed by Trump and his enablers and their idiot hordes of freaks and fascists who want to make a home in the wasteland they're trying to dry hump into being. Each bit of joy I felt this year seemed like a rebellion, like a raised middle finger to these fuckers.
In 2019, you had to find nuggets of golden peace in the raging, rocky river.
1a. The best television forced you to see the world in a new, wondrous, and/or terrifying way. The end of Mr. Robot was both cathartic and disorienting, and the final season was a nonstop heightening of tensions to almost unbearable levels. You're the Worst made a case for an unhappy ending before pulling the rug out and giving us the happy ending we secretly really wanted. And Broad City showed that growing up doesn't have to mean giving up (and was really fuckin' funny). You could read the end of Catastrophe as death or rebirth or just two people out for a swim (and was really fuckin' funny). Finally, Silicon Valley nailed its conclusion by showing that wealth and power not only do not equal happiness, but that we are going to inadvertently kill ourselves if we don't figure out how to exist in harmony with technology (and, yeah, was really fuckin' funny). (Yeah, yeah, Fleabag, too.)
1b. There was an embarrassment of great television this season, and I haven't even had a chance to watch some things yet. But of the new shows, Watchmen blew open the doors on how to use pop culture to interrogate the shameful racist history of this sick nation. Meanwhile, When They See Us tore the filthy bandage off our recent past in a searing indictment of a justice system rigged against young black men. Russian Doll and Undone created new narrative forms to explore how two women respond to a world they feel alienated from. The Boys was a face-blast of violence and rage against the idiocy of hero worship. Los Espookys gave us a deadpan, hilarious group of artists whose art is horror. Lastly, The Other Two was about two siblings of a teen pop star that gave up simple cringe comedy and irony in favor of a more complex cringe comedy and sincerity. It totally worked.
1c. This is not to mention the continued awesomeness of Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Succession, The Good Place...we're all watching too much TV.
2. On the music front, the album that blew me away this year was Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten, a yearning, rocking record about learning to get older and grappling with the bullshit around love. For sheer joy, nothing I heard topped Lizzo's Cuz I Love You. Yeah, we all love Lizzo now, but, goddamn, the album just bangs, start to finish. I loved the danceable weirdness of FKA twigs' MAGDALENE, the unabashed propulsive rock of Sturgill Simpson's Sound & Fury, the barely contained emotion of Yola's Walk Through Fire, the naked desperation of Big Thief's Two Hands, the assured folk rock of Strand of Oaks' Eraserland, and...okay, I'll stop there.
2b. Gonna put in a special plug for my daughter's band in the UK, who put out their first EP this year. Natalie and the Monarchy's Pretty Little Flower is the grunge/music hall synthesis you didn't know you need. Their live shows are goddamn intense and fun, with a great group of young musicians jamming out. Go see them when they hit your town in England. (Yeah, I'm biased. And?)
3. Speaking of live music, the other best concerts I saw this year were ones that let you dance and bounce and scream like you were trying to purge yourself of all the bullshit swirling around. At the tiny Brooklyn club Barbes, Slavic Soul Party, which has a weekly gig there, just blew our faces off with brass jazz. David Byrne's American Utopia is a Broadway show that's also a goddamn David Byrne concert and as affirming a celebration of life, both its highs and lows, as you're gonna get. The young band The Wrecks put on a crazy good straight-up rock show at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey. And Bikini Kill's savage comeback show was a reminder that, sometimes, all you need is some punk rock shot straight into your veins.
4. Continuing with live stuff, two radical versions of classics blew me away. In New York, Red Bull Theatre's Macbeth framed its production as a game that high school girls were playing, but it captured the danger and passion of the show in a way that was absolutely radical. This was probably the tenth time I've seen the play, and this intense, funny, carnal production made more sense than any other I've seen. In London, the Yard Theatre's deconstruction of Arthur Miller's The Crucible was propulsive and unnerving, and Caoilfhionn Dunne's John Proctor ripped your heart out. Back in NYC, Is This a Room, a play that's a verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation of whistleblower Reality Winner was a caustic reminder of the way the power of the state can destroy someone. Finally, Our Dear Dead Drug Lord by Alexis Scheer was another exploration of how teenage girls search for meaning. In this case, it's through their shared and destructive worship of Pablo Escobar.
5. Movies? Let's do this quickly (and, again, I haven't seen a bunch): Parasite and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are everything you've heard they are. The Perfection and Tigers Are Not Afraid are two very different but equally bizarre, heartbreaking, and fucked-up horror films. Us has gotten better in my mind as I've thought about it through the year. Booksmart and Dolemite Is My Name are both just hilarious and human. Knives Out and John Wick 3 are pure pop culture popcorn, fun from beginning to end without making you feel dumb or that a giant marketing machine is making you feel obligated to show up.
5. I've gotta throw in a special mention of a couple of faraway places. I visited Barcelona this past summer and fell madly, unexpectedly in love with the city. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to see the Sagrada Familia, the gargantuan cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi, so visiting that transcendent space was overwhelming. Sometimes, things live up to or go beyond your expectations, and this was one of those times. Also, at the Center for Contemporary Culture, the extensive Feminisms exhibit was a bracing, insightful, and confrontational look at women artists in the 1970s, when fucking with the gender hierarchy was a new world for art to conquer.
(Note: I'm sure I'll remember some shit that I forgot and add it later.)
Look, 2020 is gonna fuck with us mightily. Don't forget to cleanse and reboot your brain as needed. We're gonna need to be strong. Take a break or fill your tank. Asses will need kicking.
In 2019, you had to find nuggets of golden peace in the raging, rocky river.
1a. The best television forced you to see the world in a new, wondrous, and/or terrifying way. The end of Mr. Robot was both cathartic and disorienting, and the final season was a nonstop heightening of tensions to almost unbearable levels. You're the Worst made a case for an unhappy ending before pulling the rug out and giving us the happy ending we secretly really wanted. And Broad City showed that growing up doesn't have to mean giving up (and was really fuckin' funny). You could read the end of Catastrophe as death or rebirth or just two people out for a swim (and was really fuckin' funny). Finally, Silicon Valley nailed its conclusion by showing that wealth and power not only do not equal happiness, but that we are going to inadvertently kill ourselves if we don't figure out how to exist in harmony with technology (and, yeah, was really fuckin' funny). (Yeah, yeah, Fleabag, too.)
1b. There was an embarrassment of great television this season, and I haven't even had a chance to watch some things yet. But of the new shows, Watchmen blew open the doors on how to use pop culture to interrogate the shameful racist history of this sick nation. Meanwhile, When They See Us tore the filthy bandage off our recent past in a searing indictment of a justice system rigged against young black men. Russian Doll and Undone created new narrative forms to explore how two women respond to a world they feel alienated from. The Boys was a face-blast of violence and rage against the idiocy of hero worship. Los Espookys gave us a deadpan, hilarious group of artists whose art is horror. Lastly, The Other Two was about two siblings of a teen pop star that gave up simple cringe comedy and irony in favor of a more complex cringe comedy and sincerity. It totally worked.
1c. This is not to mention the continued awesomeness of Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Succession, The Good Place...we're all watching too much TV.
2. On the music front, the album that blew me away this year was Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten, a yearning, rocking record about learning to get older and grappling with the bullshit around love. For sheer joy, nothing I heard topped Lizzo's Cuz I Love You. Yeah, we all love Lizzo now, but, goddamn, the album just bangs, start to finish. I loved the danceable weirdness of FKA twigs' MAGDALENE, the unabashed propulsive rock of Sturgill Simpson's Sound & Fury, the barely contained emotion of Yola's Walk Through Fire, the naked desperation of Big Thief's Two Hands, the assured folk rock of Strand of Oaks' Eraserland, and...okay, I'll stop there.
2b. Gonna put in a special plug for my daughter's band in the UK, who put out their first EP this year. Natalie and the Monarchy's Pretty Little Flower is the grunge/music hall synthesis you didn't know you need. Their live shows are goddamn intense and fun, with a great group of young musicians jamming out. Go see them when they hit your town in England. (Yeah, I'm biased. And?)
3. Speaking of live music, the other best concerts I saw this year were ones that let you dance and bounce and scream like you were trying to purge yourself of all the bullshit swirling around. At the tiny Brooklyn club Barbes, Slavic Soul Party, which has a weekly gig there, just blew our faces off with brass jazz. David Byrne's American Utopia is a Broadway show that's also a goddamn David Byrne concert and as affirming a celebration of life, both its highs and lows, as you're gonna get. The young band The Wrecks put on a crazy good straight-up rock show at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey. And Bikini Kill's savage comeback show was a reminder that, sometimes, all you need is some punk rock shot straight into your veins.
4. Continuing with live stuff, two radical versions of classics blew me away. In New York, Red Bull Theatre's Macbeth framed its production as a game that high school girls were playing, but it captured the danger and passion of the show in a way that was absolutely radical. This was probably the tenth time I've seen the play, and this intense, funny, carnal production made more sense than any other I've seen. In London, the Yard Theatre's deconstruction of Arthur Miller's The Crucible was propulsive and unnerving, and Caoilfhionn Dunne's John Proctor ripped your heart out. Back in NYC, Is This a Room, a play that's a verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation of whistleblower Reality Winner was a caustic reminder of the way the power of the state can destroy someone. Finally, Our Dear Dead Drug Lord by Alexis Scheer was another exploration of how teenage girls search for meaning. In this case, it's through their shared and destructive worship of Pablo Escobar.
5. Movies? Let's do this quickly (and, again, I haven't seen a bunch): Parasite and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are everything you've heard they are. The Perfection and Tigers Are Not Afraid are two very different but equally bizarre, heartbreaking, and fucked-up horror films. Us has gotten better in my mind as I've thought about it through the year. Booksmart and Dolemite Is My Name are both just hilarious and human. Knives Out and John Wick 3 are pure pop culture popcorn, fun from beginning to end without making you feel dumb or that a giant marketing machine is making you feel obligated to show up.
5. I've gotta throw in a special mention of a couple of faraway places. I visited Barcelona this past summer and fell madly, unexpectedly in love with the city. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to see the Sagrada Familia, the gargantuan cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi, so visiting that transcendent space was overwhelming. Sometimes, things live up to or go beyond your expectations, and this was one of those times. Also, at the Center for Contemporary Culture, the extensive Feminisms exhibit was a bracing, insightful, and confrontational look at women artists in the 1970s, when fucking with the gender hierarchy was a new world for art to conquer.
(Note: I'm sure I'll remember some shit that I forgot and add it later.)
Look, 2020 is gonna fuck with us mightily. Don't forget to cleanse and reboot your brain as needed. We're gonna need to be strong. Take a break or fill your tank. Asses will need kicking.
12/25/2019
Christmas Nativities 2019: Now with Zombies (Because Sure, Why Not?)
Like movies about suicidal snowmen and tortured ghosts and pole-frozen tongues, some things are a tradition around the rude house. Beloved reruns are good for the soul. My favorites to trot out this week are the Invader Zim Christmas episode and Olive the Other Reindeer. Even here, in Left Blogsylvania, we can indulge in revisiting old posts.
Before Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and many other places you can get your fix of weird shit, I posted this Christmas blast back in 2004, updated yearly with new bits of freakishness (some links might not work anymore, but they were or are all real and are not meant to be ironic):
Xmas - And, lo, a small teddy bear will lead them:
In the days before Christmas, the Rude Pundit roamed his neighborhood, looking at the displays in the charming stores and corner markets. There he saw the agony of so many dichotomous feelings about this holiday. One window had a kneeling, praying Santa next to a baby Jesus in the manger. Santa's hat was off. He was balding. Another display had the jolly old fat man landing his sleigh and reindeer on the roof of the manger. Surprisingly, neither Mary nor Joseph seemed rattled by the noise, although a camel was looking upward, as if asking, "What the fuck?" The Rude Pundit loved that camel.
Ah, sweet camel, what the fuck, indeed. Christ and commerce, Alleluia. The Savior has been born and he thanks you for your presents. Santa showing that he'll even honor the king of the Jews in the land of Islam. There's no telling what it means (and don't get all up in the Rude Pundit's face about St. Nicholas). Except this: we want to embrace both things, good deconstructionists that we are: Santa, who soothes our greed, and Jesus, who promises us peace. Either way, we want them both to tell us we're good people, nice people. And, of course, guilt-ridden Christians want to make sure that Santa toes the party line, you know.
For the holiday, here's a few of the Rude Pundit's favorite nativity sets, none of which are intended to be mocking of the event:
That right there is the Veggie Tales Nativity. In case you don't know, Veggie Tales are cute vegetables who love Christ and salad tossing. The newborn savior up there is a carrot. Get it? A baby carrot? What a delight.
Holy shit, that bear nativity is one of the creepiest fucking things the Rude Pundit's ever seen. Staring straight ahead with their dead eyes, it looks like a satanic cult sacrifice to some horrible bear-demon. Although, the three wise bears have provided snacks for the blood rite: salmon, honey, and berries. All go well with cub entrails.
Every year, I think, "I wonder if there's an even weirder nativity set that I can find" and every year I come across something where I think, "Yeah, that's friggin' crazy shit, man." Here, it's the snow people nativity, with a snow angel, a snow Joseph, a snow Mary, and horrible half-snow, half-flesh sheep chimera. Did Snow Mary give birth to Snow Baby Jesus? Or did they all just make Snow Baby Jesus out of snow?
You know how gnomes used to be just those creepy little bitches you put out on your lawn and forgot about? Well, now they can apparently give birth to the Gnome God's child, who will, no doubt, be crucified on a cute little cross one day for the sins of all gnomes. Oh, so many sins.
What I love about the cardinal nativity is that they're morbidly obese birds, every one of them. In fact, Baby Jesus cardinal looks like he's a tubby little bastard who's stuck in his nest/cradle. Also, all of them look kind of pissed off about the whole event.
That goddamn nightmare fuel isn't a lab experiment gone horrible awry. It's a bunch of white mice with eyes so wide they look like someone laced some cheese with meth and let the little bastards go crazy. It's gonna be horrible when baby Jesus mouse gets crucified in trap.
This is not to mention the Chickentivity, the Moosetivity, the Barntivity, the Native American Nativity, and the various Beartivities, all available unironically for your Christmas consumption.
And, finally, the baby nativity:
You might think, "Oh, that's adorable. What's so wrong with it?" To which I can only inform you that the implication of it is that a baby Mary shoved a baby Jesus out of her baby vagina.
And to all a good night.
Oh, wait. What's that you say? You think that last one was kind of a weak one to end on? Well, then, fuck you. Here's the Day of the Dead nativity:
Yeah, they're all screaming in horror and pain. Essentially, that's Christmas in the time of Trump.
Oh, wait. What's that? Those aren't that bad after all we've suffered? Then how about these terrifying motherfuckers:
Or maybe that's just how we'll all look after climate change has its way with us.
No? Too terrifying? Then how about this hopeful nativity, where Joseph is about to go all Ninja on some zombie night visitors in order to protect his own future-zombie not-offspring.
Merry Christmas, baby.
(Note: Previous editions of the nativity post have included the Dogtivity, the Boyd's Bears Nativity, and the Rubber Duck...oh, fuck, you get the idea.)
Before Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and many other places you can get your fix of weird shit, I posted this Christmas blast back in 2004, updated yearly with new bits of freakishness (some links might not work anymore, but they were or are all real and are not meant to be ironic):
Xmas - And, lo, a small teddy bear will lead them:
In the days before Christmas, the Rude Pundit roamed his neighborhood, looking at the displays in the charming stores and corner markets. There he saw the agony of so many dichotomous feelings about this holiday. One window had a kneeling, praying Santa next to a baby Jesus in the manger. Santa's hat was off. He was balding. Another display had the jolly old fat man landing his sleigh and reindeer on the roof of the manger. Surprisingly, neither Mary nor Joseph seemed rattled by the noise, although a camel was looking upward, as if asking, "What the fuck?" The Rude Pundit loved that camel.
Ah, sweet camel, what the fuck, indeed. Christ and commerce, Alleluia. The Savior has been born and he thanks you for your presents. Santa showing that he'll even honor the king of the Jews in the land of Islam. There's no telling what it means (and don't get all up in the Rude Pundit's face about St. Nicholas). Except this: we want to embrace both things, good deconstructionists that we are: Santa, who soothes our greed, and Jesus, who promises us peace. Either way, we want them both to tell us we're good people, nice people. And, of course, guilt-ridden Christians want to make sure that Santa toes the party line, you know.
For the holiday, here's a few of the Rude Pundit's favorite nativity sets, none of which are intended to be mocking of the event:
That right there is the Veggie Tales Nativity. In case you don't know, Veggie Tales are cute vegetables who love Christ and salad tossing. The newborn savior up there is a carrot. Get it? A baby carrot? What a delight.
Holy shit, that bear nativity is one of the creepiest fucking things the Rude Pundit's ever seen. Staring straight ahead with their dead eyes, it looks like a satanic cult sacrifice to some horrible bear-demon. Although, the three wise bears have provided snacks for the blood rite: salmon, honey, and berries. All go well with cub entrails.
You know how gnomes used to be just those creepy little bitches you put out on your lawn and forgot about? Well, now they can apparently give birth to the Gnome God's child, who will, no doubt, be crucified on a cute little cross one day for the sins of all gnomes. Oh, so many sins.
That goddamn nightmare fuel isn't a lab experiment gone horrible awry. It's a bunch of white mice with eyes so wide they look like someone laced some cheese with meth and let the little bastards go crazy. It's gonna be horrible when baby Jesus mouse gets crucified in trap.
And, finally, the baby nativity:
You might think, "Oh, that's adorable. What's so wrong with it?" To which I can only inform you that the implication of it is that a baby Mary shoved a baby Jesus out of her baby vagina.
And to all a good night.
Oh, wait. What's that you say? You think that last one was kind of a weak one to end on? Well, then, fuck you. Here's the Day of the Dead nativity:
Yeah, they're all screaming in horror and pain. Essentially, that's Christmas in the time of Trump.
Oh, wait. What's that? Those aren't that bad after all we've suffered? Then how about these terrifying motherfuckers:
Or maybe that's just how we'll all look after climate change has its way with us.
No? Too terrifying? Then how about this hopeful nativity, where Joseph is about to go all Ninja on some zombie night visitors in order to protect his own future-zombie not-offspring.
Merry Christmas, baby.
(Note: Previous editions of the nativity post have included the Dogtivity, the Boyd's Bears Nativity, and the Rubber Duck...oh, fuck, you get the idea.)
12/19/2019
Note to Democrats: Don’t Fuck Up the Post-Impeachment Process
Every once in an increasingly regular while, I just feel like someone needs to sit Democratic leaders and members of Congress down and explain to them How the World Works Now. See, they are approaching the completed impeachment and the hopefully forthcoming trial of Donald Trump as a solemn and serious occasion for reflection on one’s Oath of Office and the Constitution, hoping that their solemnity and seriousness will be the gravity that brings Americans to earth with the understanding that, yes, obviously, Donald Trump has as much business being president as he does doing anything other than handing out shopping carts at Home Depot and telling customers about great deals on paint. Even then, he’d probably be a dick about it.
So, while one might think that seriousness is the proper response to the political turmoil and the potential removal of a president for the first time in our nation’s history, that’s not How the World Works Now.
Right now, Republicans are going full dickhole on opposing Trump's impeachment, trial, and removal. Since well before the vote yesterday, the GOP and allied groups have been running ads about how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to use a strap-on on Uncle Sam and the Do-Nothing Democrats are literally masturbating in the House chamber rather than passing everything that their Lord and Savior Trump wants. Democrats and their groups, meanwhile, are essentially buying into the Republican narrative by releasing ads touting all the shit they are doing on health care and other stuff, like little brothers insisting, "We're not do-nuttin'" to their noogying older siblings.
Messaging for Democrats has never been a strong suit. When we have swept into office in wave elections, like in 2006, 2008, and 2018, it's been because Republicans were finally so abjectly awful that most voters could no longer live with themselves voting for them. But the thing is that Republicans are masterful at disinformation, and they will lie and lie and lie some more in order to pound a lie into the brains of anyone paying even scant attention. "Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election" and "Joe Biden got the prosecutor fired to protect his son" will be crammed down the same throats who eagerly swallowed the load of whatever the fuck Hillary Clinton supposedly did in Benghazi, despite multiple hearings exonerating her, and, of course, now and forever, her emails.
Don't fuck this up, Democrats. That's the message here. We already fucked up on the Mueller Report, and now it's an article of faith among the faithless that Trump did nothing wrong in the "Russia hoax," despite the report very clearly and thoroughly explaining that he did a shit-ton wrong and that Congress needed to get off its ass and do something about it. Democrats let it go because it was too complicated and because the Mueller show wasn't entertaining enough.
I cannot begin to catalog all the ways Democrats have fucked up. The list of grievances here would be so long and so enraging that it'd make calm heads burst and spray viscera all over their nice Christmas trees or menorahs or cornucopias or whatever the fuck you have up. It would include the failure of the left to fund a liberal media message delivery system in the same way that the right has talk radio and Fox "news" and its devolved children, OANN and others. All that shit was and still is propped up by rich fucks like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch cocks. It would include the failure to force the country into an electoral reckoning over the 2000 election. It would include the failure to go to the barricades over Merrick fucking Garland.
Time and again, Democrats have played this game like there is honor in it instead of playing it to fucking destroy the opposition. Time and again, we have let Republicans set the terms of the contract and just signed along. Time and again, they dared Democrats to vary from a pre-ordained set of responses, going full force after any Democrat that dared to call "bullshit" on them.
The fact that Nancy Pelosi is holding back on sending the impeachment articles over to the Senate has enraged Republicans because it upset the script and showed that maybe, just maybe, this time Democrats weren't going to accept the Republican rules in this game. It's the smart play, and they have no idea how the hell to respond. Now, it's time to mobilize the public and market the shit out of the removal of Donald Trump from office.
Democrats need to be gearing up for the greatest battle of our recent lives. They need to go big, with everything from billboards on the highways to ads out the wazoo. I mean pounding the fucking message until it drowns out other shit. This is How the World Works Now. We are never out of campaign mode, and nothing is so serious or important that it can't be marketed to the hilt. To pretend otherwise is to cede the ground on convincing everyone to the Republicans. It would once again allow them to set the terms of the argument.
Fuck that. Create a new playing field, one where the dominant message is this: "You are only a good American if you support removing Donald Trump from office." It's that simple. We punish criminals, and Trump is a criminal; ergo, get him the fuck out of there. Hell, the column from Christianity Today that calls for Trump's removal from office is incredible support for that stance.
This will require a massive amount of spending, as well as Democrats sucking up their reticence to really get down in the shit pool with Republicans and slug it out. But if you don't get dirty, the GOP will take it as weakness and exploit that until there is nothing to impeachment and the whole thing will have been just to put an asterisk next to Trump's name.
Sure, it's something. But it's not enough. If you win this messaging war, you can shift the narrative, and that's the real game changer. It means that even if not a single GOP Senator changes their closed, Trump-owned minds, the voters will know what the deal is.
Barring a miracle, Trump won't be removed by the Senate. But if Democrats succeed only a bit at this war, they will finish the job in November.
So, while one might think that seriousness is the proper response to the political turmoil and the potential removal of a president for the first time in our nation’s history, that’s not How the World Works Now.
Right now, Republicans are going full dickhole on opposing Trump's impeachment, trial, and removal. Since well before the vote yesterday, the GOP and allied groups have been running ads about how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to use a strap-on on Uncle Sam and the Do-Nothing Democrats are literally masturbating in the House chamber rather than passing everything that their Lord and Savior Trump wants. Democrats and their groups, meanwhile, are essentially buying into the Republican narrative by releasing ads touting all the shit they are doing on health care and other stuff, like little brothers insisting, "We're not do-nuttin'" to their noogying older siblings.
Messaging for Democrats has never been a strong suit. When we have swept into office in wave elections, like in 2006, 2008, and 2018, it's been because Republicans were finally so abjectly awful that most voters could no longer live with themselves voting for them. But the thing is that Republicans are masterful at disinformation, and they will lie and lie and lie some more in order to pound a lie into the brains of anyone paying even scant attention. "Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election" and "Joe Biden got the prosecutor fired to protect his son" will be crammed down the same throats who eagerly swallowed the load of whatever the fuck Hillary Clinton supposedly did in Benghazi, despite multiple hearings exonerating her, and, of course, now and forever, her emails.
Don't fuck this up, Democrats. That's the message here. We already fucked up on the Mueller Report, and now it's an article of faith among the faithless that Trump did nothing wrong in the "Russia hoax," despite the report very clearly and thoroughly explaining that he did a shit-ton wrong and that Congress needed to get off its ass and do something about it. Democrats let it go because it was too complicated and because the Mueller show wasn't entertaining enough.
I cannot begin to catalog all the ways Democrats have fucked up. The list of grievances here would be so long and so enraging that it'd make calm heads burst and spray viscera all over their nice Christmas trees or menorahs or cornucopias or whatever the fuck you have up. It would include the failure of the left to fund a liberal media message delivery system in the same way that the right has talk radio and Fox "news" and its devolved children, OANN and others. All that shit was and still is propped up by rich fucks like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch cocks. It would include the failure to force the country into an electoral reckoning over the 2000 election. It would include the failure to go to the barricades over Merrick fucking Garland.
Time and again, Democrats have played this game like there is honor in it instead of playing it to fucking destroy the opposition. Time and again, we have let Republicans set the terms of the contract and just signed along. Time and again, they dared Democrats to vary from a pre-ordained set of responses, going full force after any Democrat that dared to call "bullshit" on them.
The fact that Nancy Pelosi is holding back on sending the impeachment articles over to the Senate has enraged Republicans because it upset the script and showed that maybe, just maybe, this time Democrats weren't going to accept the Republican rules in this game. It's the smart play, and they have no idea how the hell to respond. Now, it's time to mobilize the public and market the shit out of the removal of Donald Trump from office.
Democrats need to be gearing up for the greatest battle of our recent lives. They need to go big, with everything from billboards on the highways to ads out the wazoo. I mean pounding the fucking message until it drowns out other shit. This is How the World Works Now. We are never out of campaign mode, and nothing is so serious or important that it can't be marketed to the hilt. To pretend otherwise is to cede the ground on convincing everyone to the Republicans. It would once again allow them to set the terms of the argument.
Fuck that. Create a new playing field, one where the dominant message is this: "You are only a good American if you support removing Donald Trump from office." It's that simple. We punish criminals, and Trump is a criminal; ergo, get him the fuck out of there. Hell, the column from Christianity Today that calls for Trump's removal from office is incredible support for that stance.
This will require a massive amount of spending, as well as Democrats sucking up their reticence to really get down in the shit pool with Republicans and slug it out. But if you don't get dirty, the GOP will take it as weakness and exploit that until there is nothing to impeachment and the whole thing will have been just to put an asterisk next to Trump's name.
Sure, it's something. But it's not enough. If you win this messaging war, you can shift the narrative, and that's the real game changer. It means that even if not a single GOP Senator changes their closed, Trump-owned minds, the voters will know what the deal is.
Barring a miracle, Trump won't be removed by the Senate. But if Democrats succeed only a bit at this war, they will finish the job in November.
12/17/2019
Random Observations on Trump's Completely Bugnuts Insane "Letter" on Impeachment Eve
President Donald Trump, who will be impeached tomorrow by the Democrats in the House of Representatives because he doesn't give a single dribble of his leaky dick about the country or the Constitution, "wrote" a "letter" to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, excoriating her and the Democrats for daring to call him to account. A collaboration with aides like the cretinous ass scab Stephen Miller, the only way to read the thing is as an account of madness worthy of a ranting low-level comic book villain who has been thrown into a rubber room. It is, without a doubt, one of the most desperate, pathetic, barking mad things any president has ever done, including Woodrow Wilson post-stroke.
And it's filled with an array of bizarre statements, blatant lies, and babbling nonsense. In other words, Trump distilled to his purest form. Just a sampling:
1. Any attempt to parse this sentence is doomed to failure: "You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!" I mean, putting aside the punctuation issues, what the fucking fuck does that even mean? So a very ugly word can be important? And what makes "impeachment" ugly? In fact, what cheapens the word "impeachment" is calling it "very ugly," like a sad little insult can take away the very serious implications of it.
2. Trump says, "By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy." Except here's the deal: The Constitution doesn't give a fuck about the circumstances of an impeachment. Everything is up to the House of Representatives. Period. In fact, the only way an impeachment could be "invalid" is if someone other than the House impeaches. Otherwise? The Constitution is impressively vague about everything else in the impeachment process. In fact, by having an impeachment hearing and vote, the House is doing everything by the Constitution, and the only ones declaring war are those who think it's unconstitutional.
3. I mean, c'mon: "[Y]ou are offending Americans of faith by continually saying 'I pray for the President,' when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!" Trump being insulted by Nancy Pelosi saying she prays for him is just...(chef's kiss)...beautiful. And all his nutzoid fundamentalist worshippers will agree with him that Pelosi's prayers are mean.
4. Trump so outright lies about Joe Biden and the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin that Biden ought to sue the fuck out of Trump for slander. The intentional malice is dripping off the assertions that Biden was trying to stop an investigation of his son, something that is objectively false. Sue his ass.
5. Trump declares his victory in 2016 "an Electoral College landslide." If that's true (and it's not), then what were Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012, which were by bigger Electoral College margins, along with over 50% of the popular vote each time? Somehow, that didn't stop Republicans from being abject dickholes to Obama. Also, fun fact, Richard Nixon was reelected in a legit landslide: he won 49 states and over 60% of the popular vote. Yet I seem to remember that didn't stop Congress from moving to impeach him.
6. Oh, I know what you're wondering. Did Trump bring up Rep. Adam Schiff parodying his phone call with Ukraine's president? After all, he has been obsessed with that September 26 opening statement by Schiff for months now. Well, shit, of course he did: "Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me." He will not let that mocking go. And Trump's started to lie about the timeline, saying that the "transcript" of the July 25 call was released after Schiff's statement. That's absolutely untrue. Schiff was making fun of the "transcript" (which isn't a transcript - it's a memo of the call).
7. After a yadda-yadda-yadda list of shit he claims as accomplishments (and just about anything to do with the economy still has more to do with him not fucking up Obama's economy), Trump uses the old "rubber-glue" gambit: "You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice." By the way, they're "Obstructing Justice" because, Trump says, "I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution." Except, well, see point 2 above. The Constitution gives the president zero rights when it comes to impeachment. He gets his rights at the trial in the Senate, but the Founders didn't want a president to be able to do jackshit about impeachment.
8. He writes, "More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials," which might be sexist, ahistorical, and laughable. But, hey, let's fuckin' dunk Trump and see if he floats.
9. You fuckin' well know that Hillary Clinton makes an appearance: "You forced our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to assault our democracy." This is about the Steele dossier, which, for the millionth motherfuckin' time, was commissioned by Republicans against Trump. It was half completed before Trump won the nomination.
10. Towards the end, he says, "You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party." Goddamn, I hope that's right.
Tonight, the streets of America were filled with thousands of people fed up with this unending bullshit tossing game. It's time to put an end to this. Or, if not, to state loudly and clearly that a whole fuck-ton of us thought this was just wrong. At least history will record some of us gave a damn.
12/10/2019
A Few Questions for Enraged Republicans
In the wake of Democrats finally loading the cannon on actual articles of impeachment, Republicans are somewhere between frantic denial and explosive apoplexy as they insist that Donald Trump did nothing wrong in his dealings with Ukraine and Congress. So I have a few questions for 'em.
1. If Ukraine is so corrupt, why was no funding held up in 2017 and 2018? And why was corruption in Ukraine not a significant part of any hearings in the House of Representatives in those years, when Republicans were in the majority? (And in hearings in the Senate, corruption in Ukraine was seen as directly being influenced by Russia.)
2. If Ukraine continues to be so corrupt, why were the funds even released in 2019 when they made no tangible additional effort to fight corruption between July and September?
3. If Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election in the United States, why did the Republican-run committees in the House ignore that in 2017 and 2018? Not a single hearing looked into that in those years, although hearings did focus on how Ukraine needed the support of the United States against Russia.
4. If Hunter Biden did something so awful, how come Republicans in the House didn't investigate it in 2017 or 2018? Devin Nunes was the chair of the Intelligence Committee, and Republicans chaired the Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees. But the name "Biden" barely comes up in hearings, mostly in a historical context. And "Hunter Biden" is simply nowhere to be found. What made him more corrupt in 2019?
5. You ask rhetorically if the United States shouldn't pursue an investigation against Burisma and Hunter Biden just because he's the son of the president's political opponent. President Trump was asked if he had asked for investigations of a single other person or entity in Ukraine, and he couldn't answer. Do you have an answer? Why didn't you pursue those in 2017 and 2018? Do you think it's okay to only investigate Hunter Biden?
6. When a Democratic president's staff is subpoenaed to come before Congress, do you agree that that president should be allowed to order them to defy the subpoena?
7. When a Democratic president refuses to allow any documents to be given to Congress during investigations, do you support that?
8. If a Democratic president asks for a favor from the leader of, perhaps, Israel to look into, say, business deals of the Trump family because Israel is so corrupt, are you okay with that? Would you support that president withholding aid to Israel until they dealt with the issue?
These are all ridiculous questions because Republicans have decided that any sense of consistency, dignity, or honesty must be subsumed in their deeply depraved defense of Donald Trump. They are all his willing bitches and he's their enthusiastic pimp, sending them out to fuck the country, knock it out, and take its wallet.
1. If Ukraine is so corrupt, why was no funding held up in 2017 and 2018? And why was corruption in Ukraine not a significant part of any hearings in the House of Representatives in those years, when Republicans were in the majority? (And in hearings in the Senate, corruption in Ukraine was seen as directly being influenced by Russia.)
2. If Ukraine continues to be so corrupt, why were the funds even released in 2019 when they made no tangible additional effort to fight corruption between July and September?
3. If Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election in the United States, why did the Republican-run committees in the House ignore that in 2017 and 2018? Not a single hearing looked into that in those years, although hearings did focus on how Ukraine needed the support of the United States against Russia.
4. If Hunter Biden did something so awful, how come Republicans in the House didn't investigate it in 2017 or 2018? Devin Nunes was the chair of the Intelligence Committee, and Republicans chaired the Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees. But the name "Biden" barely comes up in hearings, mostly in a historical context. And "Hunter Biden" is simply nowhere to be found. What made him more corrupt in 2019?
5. You ask rhetorically if the United States shouldn't pursue an investigation against Burisma and Hunter Biden just because he's the son of the president's political opponent. President Trump was asked if he had asked for investigations of a single other person or entity in Ukraine, and he couldn't answer. Do you have an answer? Why didn't you pursue those in 2017 and 2018? Do you think it's okay to only investigate Hunter Biden?
6. When a Democratic president's staff is subpoenaed to come before Congress, do you agree that that president should be allowed to order them to defy the subpoena?
7. When a Democratic president refuses to allow any documents to be given to Congress during investigations, do you support that?
8. If a Democratic president asks for a favor from the leader of, perhaps, Israel to look into, say, business deals of the Trump family because Israel is so corrupt, are you okay with that? Would you support that president withholding aid to Israel until they dealt with the issue?
These are all ridiculous questions because Republicans have decided that any sense of consistency, dignity, or honesty must be subsumed in their deeply depraved defense of Donald Trump. They are all his willing bitches and he's their enthusiastic pimp, sending them out to fuck the country, knock it out, and take its wallet.
12/06/2019
Nikki Haley Said One of the Stupidest Fucking Things I've Heard a Politician Say in a Long Time
Former South Carolina governor, former UN ambassador, and the hope of every Republican who believes their party is so much more than Trump ("See? A woman! And she's not white! We're not racist or sexist now!") Nikki Haley was talking to Glenn "Fooled you with that brief bout of sanity" Beck on his internet concern, The Blaze, about her decision to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the SC state capital. She did this in the wake of racist Dylann Roof's mass shooting of the members of the congregation of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a traditionally black place of worship, in Charleston in 2015. Roof hoped to start a race war, as he said in his racist manifesto.
And Haley's response to Beck today is one of the stupidest fucking things I've heard a supposedly mainstream politician say in a long time. She said, "Here is this guy who comes out with this manifesto, holding the Confederate flag and had just hijacked everything that people had thought of [it]...People saw it as service and sacrifice and heritage. But once he did that, there was no way to overcome it."
Not once did Haley acknowledge that those who saw it as "service and sacrifice and heritage" are fucking wrong, that they are the very racist fuckholes who helped create someone like Dylann Roof. No, she's gotta kiss the asses of the racists in her party if she hopes to have any career as an elected official, whether in South Carolina or the nation, and so she's gonna go with this bullshit. She's gonna say with utter seriousness that the flag was just fine until Roof massacred a bunch of black people.
Haley wasn't done, though. She continued, "And the national media came in in droves—they wanted to define what happened. They wanted it to make this about racism. They wanted to make it about gun control. They wanted to make it about the death penalty." That's right. It wasn't the racist with a gun who made it about racism and guns. It was the media reporting that the racist with a gun was a fucking racist with a fucking gun. This blaming the media for every time a reporter calls out something for being fucked up is shameless. But that's Haley. It's always been Haley. It's how she could say, "We don't have hateful people in South Carolina" with a straight face. Anyone who displays a Confederate flag is, by definition, hateful. That's a fuck-ton of people in the state.
She talked about how she believes South Carolinians behaved after the shooting. She told Beck, "We didn't have protests. We had hugs." And that would be totally right if it weren't totally wrong. See, there were protests. In Charleston, there was a "March for Black Lives" three days after the shooting. In the capital, Columbia, there was a protest against the display of the Confederate flag on the same day. It's just a fuckin' lie to say that it was all hugs after the racist murder of 9 people.
Haley tried to defend herself on Twitter by saying she was proud of having had the flag removed from the grounds of the state capital. Despite the "national media" being the problem, she linked to a New York Times transcript of her speech calling for its removal. And even that speech was more about appeasing the racists. "The hate filled murderer who massacred our brothers and sisters in Charleston has a sick and twisted view of the flag," she said in 2015. "In no way does he reflect the people in our state who respect and, in many ways, revere it." The flag itself is sick and twisted. If you view it any other way, you are sick and twisted. It is a flag that represents racism and violence and traitors. If you "revere it," you are a violent, racist traitor or you don't have a problem with violent, racist traitors.
And, as I've said before, who gives a fuck if your family died fighting for the South in the Civil War and you want to honor them? Who gives a fuck? Your family was fighting to keep slavery legal. Your ancestors were wrong. They're assholes. Fuck 'em. (I grew up in the south. I know my people.)
Why call this one of the stupidest fucking things I've heard lately, especially on a day when Trump complained about how much some people have to flush a toilet? Is this being graded on a curve? Sure. Haley is allegedly part of the sane sect of the Republican Party, the intellectual center of it or some such shit. But what Haley's comments show is that the GOP cannot escape its racist heart. Without the racists assholes who elected Trump, there is no Republican Party. And we should be grateful that they're not even trying to hide that fact anymore.
The line from Dylann Roof to Donald Trump is not very long.
And Haley's response to Beck today is one of the stupidest fucking things I've heard a supposedly mainstream politician say in a long time. She said, "Here is this guy who comes out with this manifesto, holding the Confederate flag and had just hijacked everything that people had thought of [it]...People saw it as service and sacrifice and heritage. But once he did that, there was no way to overcome it."
Not once did Haley acknowledge that those who saw it as "service and sacrifice and heritage" are fucking wrong, that they are the very racist fuckholes who helped create someone like Dylann Roof. No, she's gotta kiss the asses of the racists in her party if she hopes to have any career as an elected official, whether in South Carolina or the nation, and so she's gonna go with this bullshit. She's gonna say with utter seriousness that the flag was just fine until Roof massacred a bunch of black people.
Haley wasn't done, though. She continued, "And the national media came in in droves—they wanted to define what happened. They wanted it to make this about racism. They wanted to make it about gun control. They wanted to make it about the death penalty." That's right. It wasn't the racist with a gun who made it about racism and guns. It was the media reporting that the racist with a gun was a fucking racist with a fucking gun. This blaming the media for every time a reporter calls out something for being fucked up is shameless. But that's Haley. It's always been Haley. It's how she could say, "We don't have hateful people in South Carolina" with a straight face. Anyone who displays a Confederate flag is, by definition, hateful. That's a fuck-ton of people in the state.
She talked about how she believes South Carolinians behaved after the shooting. She told Beck, "We didn't have protests. We had hugs." And that would be totally right if it weren't totally wrong. See, there were protests. In Charleston, there was a "March for Black Lives" three days after the shooting. In the capital, Columbia, there was a protest against the display of the Confederate flag on the same day. It's just a fuckin' lie to say that it was all hugs after the racist murder of 9 people.
Haley tried to defend herself on Twitter by saying she was proud of having had the flag removed from the grounds of the state capital. Despite the "national media" being the problem, she linked to a New York Times transcript of her speech calling for its removal. And even that speech was more about appeasing the racists. "The hate filled murderer who massacred our brothers and sisters in Charleston has a sick and twisted view of the flag," she said in 2015. "In no way does he reflect the people in our state who respect and, in many ways, revere it." The flag itself is sick and twisted. If you view it any other way, you are sick and twisted. It is a flag that represents racism and violence and traitors. If you "revere it," you are a violent, racist traitor or you don't have a problem with violent, racist traitors.
And, as I've said before, who gives a fuck if your family died fighting for the South in the Civil War and you want to honor them? Who gives a fuck? Your family was fighting to keep slavery legal. Your ancestors were wrong. They're assholes. Fuck 'em. (I grew up in the south. I know my people.)
Why call this one of the stupidest fucking things I've heard lately, especially on a day when Trump complained about how much some people have to flush a toilet? Is this being graded on a curve? Sure. Haley is allegedly part of the sane sect of the Republican Party, the intellectual center of it or some such shit. But what Haley's comments show is that the GOP cannot escape its racist heart. Without the racists assholes who elected Trump, there is no Republican Party. And we should be grateful that they're not even trying to hide that fact anymore.
The line from Dylann Roof to Donald Trump is not very long.
12/05/2019
It's My Birthday: Sign Up for My Patreon and Listen to My Podcast
So today is the big next step on the increasingly speedy road to my death. Yep, it's my birthday, and the bestest thing you can get me is to sign up for the Rude Pundit Patreon page.
Starting at a buck a month, you get bonus posts, including personal stories (like about that time I genuinely saw the future - and it involved Muppet babies - and I don't even believe in that shit), political stuff (like how Trump's rage is wrecking him), recommendations for music and other relaxing stuff, and pieces of my new stage show, It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fucked), premiering in Calgary in January. Most recently, I posted about how Stormy Daniels is a better business person than Donald Trump.
Join on up. I'll have a new audio clip from the show posted tomorrow for all $5 a month and up donors. And a new blog post is up for all donors.
You can also check out (for free!) the latest episode of The Rude Pundit Podcast over on the Sexy Liberal Podcast Network. I'm riffing on a recent blog post about calling the Republicans' bluff on their bullshit Ukraine conspiracy theories. Subscribe, motherfuckers, and rate it and review it on the iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify and every other place.
Hell, you can listen right the fuck here:
Back tomorrow with more lubricated rudeness.
Starting at a buck a month, you get bonus posts, including personal stories (like about that time I genuinely saw the future - and it involved Muppet babies - and I don't even believe in that shit), political stuff (like how Trump's rage is wrecking him), recommendations for music and other relaxing stuff, and pieces of my new stage show, It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fucked), premiering in Calgary in January. Most recently, I posted about how Stormy Daniels is a better business person than Donald Trump.
Join on up. I'll have a new audio clip from the show posted tomorrow for all $5 a month and up donors. And a new blog post is up for all donors.
You can also check out (for free!) the latest episode of The Rude Pundit Podcast over on the Sexy Liberal Podcast Network. I'm riffing on a recent blog post about calling the Republicans' bluff on their bullshit Ukraine conspiracy theories. Subscribe, motherfuckers, and rate it and review it on the iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify and every other place.
Hell, you can listen right the fuck here:
Back tomorrow with more lubricated rudeness.
12/04/2019
No, Biden: An Argument Against Joe Because of Impeachment
(Usual caveat: I'll vote for a leprous toad if it wins the Democratic nomination, so, yeah, if it's Biden, I'm going for him.)
There's a reason to vote for someone other than Joe Biden in the primaries that has nothing to do with his age, although a rational country should be able to talk openly about the very real degenerative effects of aging, especially as five candidates (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg, and Trump) are 70 and up. There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his gaffes and misspeaks and "malarkey." There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his moderate-to-conservative views on issues like health care, college tuition, and taxation.
It's simple, really: Joe Biden wants to make nice with Republicans. In fact, he totally believes that, if he wins, he can bring out the shiny-toothed charm offensive, work in partnership with Republicans, and get things done once that awful Donald Trump is gone. Here he is at his CNN Town Hall last month: "With Trump out of the way, I predict to you now, my 89 opponents are running for the nomination are going to say something different. But let me just say, I honest to God believe, with Trump out of the way, you're going to find people screwing up a lot more courage than they had before to say, 'OK, OK, I can -- I can move now, I -- I -- I have more leeway.'" Earlier in November, at a fundraiser, he had said, "With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words...It’s going to take two things: One is somebody who in fact, knows how to reach across the aisle and get things done."
Now, it is entirely possible that Biden has some inside skinny on Republicans who tell him that they'll be happy once Uncle Joe has safely taken back the Oval Office from the orange menace, but it's pretty unlikely. These are the same Republicans, especially in the Senate, who refused to pass legislation, negotiate over bills, and blocked a Supreme Court pick for the last Democrat, Barack Obama. Maybe he thinks they'll work with a white Democrat?
Biden believes that his capacity to forgive and forget with Republicans is an asset. But it's a fundamental misreading of Democrats right now, just as Obama misread his victory in 2008. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: Obama screwed up by not punishing Republicans, especially Bush administration officials, for what they did to the nation with the Iraq War and torture, as well as the financial crisis. He thought that looking forward would get him some credit with the GOP, but, instead, it emboldened them to block Obama's plans, demonize him, and destroy Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 with the 2010 midterms and the miserable Tea Party. And I happen to think that one reason Obama took this path is because Biden advised him to (I don't have evidence of that, but, man, Biden's talking like someone who's believed this, well, malarkey for a while).
What does this have to do with impeachment? Right now, Republicans are stubbornly refusing to believe what the entire intelligence community of the United States and the Justice Department and congressional committees (even ones led by Republicans) have concluded when it comes to the facts about who was involved in hacking our election, who benefited, and who wants to mess with the election in 2020. Republicans ignore the criminality surrounding Donald Trump and his inner circle. They are enabling those crimes, from the emoluments violations to the bribery to the witness intimidation and more. And they won't lift a finger, as a group or even as individuals, to stop Trump.
I've been writing about politics since the heady days of the Reagan era, and these sons of bitches are going down a dangerous road, one that pulls the rug out from not just the legislative branch, but from the actual laws of the nation. And this is just on impeachment. It doesn't even get into the dangerously unqualified but appropriately nutzoid conservative judges that Mitch McConnell and the GOP-led Senate are rubber-stamping faster than they can keep the ink pad wet. That will pervert the legal system even further than allowing Trump to do whatever crimes he wants.
Republicans have decided to shit where everyone eats. And should Democrats win back the presidency and the Senate, as well as keep the House, Republicans will need to be punished for what they have done and what they are currently doing. That doesn't mean rounding them up and spanking them and telling them that you hope they learned their lesson. It means investigating and prosecuting those who need to be prosecuted (looking at you, Barr and Nunes), censuring and expelling those who deserve it, stripping them of power within the Congress, and undoing as much as can possibly be undone. They are traitors and they need to be treated like traitors.
It'll mean not pretending like Republicans are going to all of a sudden discover their consciences or souls or patriotism or what-the-fuck-ever. It's gonna take a president who wants to fuck their shit up, who wants to consign the party of Trump to history's garbage heap, who wants to burn down their side of the aisle, not reach across it.
By his own words, Joe Biden is obviously incapable of being that president. A president who is incapable of seeing who the enemy is will be unable to stop that enemy and will allow that enemy to regroup and flourish again. And that is reason enough to not vote for Biden.
(Note: I don't know that Democrats as a whole have the stones to clean house the way it needs to be cleaned, but, at the very least, let's have a president who will give it a shot.)
There's a reason to vote for someone other than Joe Biden in the primaries that has nothing to do with his age, although a rational country should be able to talk openly about the very real degenerative effects of aging, especially as five candidates (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg, and Trump) are 70 and up. There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his gaffes and misspeaks and "malarkey." There's a reason to vote for someone other than Biden that has nothing to do with his moderate-to-conservative views on issues like health care, college tuition, and taxation.
It's simple, really: Joe Biden wants to make nice with Republicans. In fact, he totally believes that, if he wins, he can bring out the shiny-toothed charm offensive, work in partnership with Republicans, and get things done once that awful Donald Trump is gone. Here he is at his CNN Town Hall last month: "With Trump out of the way, I predict to you now, my 89 opponents are running for the nomination are going to say something different. But let me just say, I honest to God believe, with Trump out of the way, you're going to find people screwing up a lot more courage than they had before to say, 'OK, OK, I can -- I can move now, I -- I -- I have more leeway.'" Earlier in November, at a fundraiser, he had said, "With Donald Trump out of the way, you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words...It’s going to take two things: One is somebody who in fact, knows how to reach across the aisle and get things done."
Now, it is entirely possible that Biden has some inside skinny on Republicans who tell him that they'll be happy once Uncle Joe has safely taken back the Oval Office from the orange menace, but it's pretty unlikely. These are the same Republicans, especially in the Senate, who refused to pass legislation, negotiate over bills, and blocked a Supreme Court pick for the last Democrat, Barack Obama. Maybe he thinks they'll work with a white Democrat?
Biden believes that his capacity to forgive and forget with Republicans is an asset. But it's a fundamental misreading of Democrats right now, just as Obama misread his victory in 2008. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: Obama screwed up by not punishing Republicans, especially Bush administration officials, for what they did to the nation with the Iraq War and torture, as well as the financial crisis. He thought that looking forward would get him some credit with the GOP, but, instead, it emboldened them to block Obama's plans, demonize him, and destroy Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 with the 2010 midterms and the miserable Tea Party. And I happen to think that one reason Obama took this path is because Biden advised him to (I don't have evidence of that, but, man, Biden's talking like someone who's believed this, well, malarkey for a while).
What does this have to do with impeachment? Right now, Republicans are stubbornly refusing to believe what the entire intelligence community of the United States and the Justice Department and congressional committees (even ones led by Republicans) have concluded when it comes to the facts about who was involved in hacking our election, who benefited, and who wants to mess with the election in 2020. Republicans ignore the criminality surrounding Donald Trump and his inner circle. They are enabling those crimes, from the emoluments violations to the bribery to the witness intimidation and more. And they won't lift a finger, as a group or even as individuals, to stop Trump.
I've been writing about politics since the heady days of the Reagan era, and these sons of bitches are going down a dangerous road, one that pulls the rug out from not just the legislative branch, but from the actual laws of the nation. And this is just on impeachment. It doesn't even get into the dangerously unqualified but appropriately nutzoid conservative judges that Mitch McConnell and the GOP-led Senate are rubber-stamping faster than they can keep the ink pad wet. That will pervert the legal system even further than allowing Trump to do whatever crimes he wants.
Republicans have decided to shit where everyone eats. And should Democrats win back the presidency and the Senate, as well as keep the House, Republicans will need to be punished for what they have done and what they are currently doing. That doesn't mean rounding them up and spanking them and telling them that you hope they learned their lesson. It means investigating and prosecuting those who need to be prosecuted (looking at you, Barr and Nunes), censuring and expelling those who deserve it, stripping them of power within the Congress, and undoing as much as can possibly be undone. They are traitors and they need to be treated like traitors.
It'll mean not pretending like Republicans are going to all of a sudden discover their consciences or souls or patriotism or what-the-fuck-ever. It's gonna take a president who wants to fuck their shit up, who wants to consign the party of Trump to history's garbage heap, who wants to burn down their side of the aisle, not reach across it.
By his own words, Joe Biden is obviously incapable of being that president. A president who is incapable of seeing who the enemy is will be unable to stop that enemy and will allow that enemy to regroup and flourish again. And that is reason enough to not vote for Biden.
(Note: I don't know that Democrats as a whole have the stones to clean house the way it needs to be cleaned, but, at the very least, let's have a president who will give it a shot.)
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