Fighting dirty doesn't mean doing illegal shit. It does mean you might have to stretch laws and ethics to their breaking point. It definitely means doing shit that will make you hate yourself. But if you want to win a war, you have to be willing to get filthy in the trenches. As I said yesterday, Democrats have to stop acting like any rules govern our politics anymore.
So it must go for the battle over the Supreme Court and after. While it's almost a certainty that the rabid bitch hounds of the GOP will get their second pound of judicial flesh onto the court in the wake of Anthony Kennedy's resignation, Democrats can and must fight like it's life or death. Because it really is about life and death, flesh and blood. Bodies, especially the bodies of women and people of color, are on the goddamn line. Fight because losing this fight is what can win the next one. Throwing every fucking rule and bylaw at Republicans to slow down the process is a start.
And here's what else can we do now (in descending order of dirtiness):
1. Stop trying to convince everyone that Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are a bunch of fucking hypocrites because they're all of a sudden fine with voting on a Supreme Court justice in an election year. To say that Republicans are hypocrites is like saying that dogs eat shit. It's what they do. They're Republicans.
The real fight is over who Trump is. A man who may have a personal case before the court should not get to appoint a judge on that court. See how simple that is? See that fuckin' messaging? It's clear and concise. It's not the complex "President Trump is current under investigation and we should await the Robert Mueller's report on whether or not Trump or people around him committed crimes." Fuck that. Go with "You don't get to appoint your judge. Why should Trump?"
It's not gonna stop shit, but it will set up a way to delegitimize any Supreme Court decision that, say, allows Trump to pardon himself.
2. Let's call this the Susan Collins/Lisa Murkowski Hail Mary. These two GOP senators have both expressed support for Roe v. Wade, and there is no way in the deepest circle of Hell that Trump is not going to nominate someone who can't wait piss on the corpses of women who die of botched back alley abortions. One or both might be willing to vote against an anti-choice nominee. And with McCain not being able to vote, that'd be enough.
But, more likely, if they're part of the Republican caucus, they're just gonna suck it up and take their Mitch marching orders. So Democrats need to get them to leave their caucus. It's not that unusual for politicians to switch parties. Collins, in particular, might be an easy get for Democrats. Clinton won Maine in 2016 (well, in the apportioned electors there, she got 3 and Trump got 1), and the one district in the state, hell, in all of New England, that did go for Trump now gives him a 43% approval rating, with 52% disapproving. Overall, the state has Trump around 39% approval. Maine also consistently has supported abortion rights by big majorities. If Collins says that she doesn't want to belong to the party of Trump, that's a fucking compelling argument that her constituents would hear.
Democrats should push hard here. And I mean fucking hard, like offering Collins and Murkowski (Alaskans, while a bit more enamored of Trump, are also big supporters of abortion rights) or any other stray Republican who might want to awake in the morning with an ounce of self-respect just about anything they want to either become Democrats or independents who caucus with the Democrats. And I mean fuckin' anything, from committee chairs to a night of passion with Joe Kennedy III. Promise no primary candidate and offer tons of cash to campaigns and SuperPACs.
Get fuckin' skeevy on this, Democrats. And if you get both Collins and Murkowski, you can take back the Senate until at least the midterms.
3. But now we're gonna get even skeevier. Rumors are that Donald Trump paid for at least one abortion for one of his fuckmates. And you know that not only is he responsible for at least a handful of abortions, but that a shit-ton of righteous Christians in the GOP have paid for abortions, had an abortion, or have family who have, and all are relieved it was safe and legal. Statistically, it's just fucking likely. So it's time for the media (not Democratic politicians) to call them out, as many as you can find, all the fetus-loving saints who want abortion on demand when they demand it and then want to deny it for others.
This is the really big hypocrisy. You think that Tim Murphy, who resigned over telling his mistress to get an abortion, is an outlier? Fuck no. Is it really beyond the pale to out people like this? Well, it's also beyond the pale to want to get rid of abortion rights for a large number of women in this country. It's also beyond the pale to support a president who has no problem taking children from their parents or naming people enemies of the state. Lots of shit we thought was beyond the pale is now part of the pale. This is the country we have. You play on the field you've got.
You might say that this could backfire, that it could lead to other invasions of privacy. Yeah. And? I said this was dirty. Republicans want to invade the most intimate aspects of our existence and fuck them up. You think that anti-choice nutzoids don't want to get to a point where they're publishing lists of women who've had abortions? Because, motherfuckers, they're already trying to do that. We're a hop, skip, and fruit-blessed jump from Gilead.
Look, I'm not an idiot. None of this is likely to work. It's something of a thought experiment, maybe even a fantasy. But it's a set-up for the next and potentially the biggest battle, the midterms.
(Note: I get that some of this might inspire the right and, especially, evangelicals to vote heavily in the midterms. But that can be mitigated by exciting the Democratic voters and independents. More on that tomorrow.)
6/28/2018
6/27/2018
When There Are No Rules and the Game Is Rigged, You Have No Choice But to Fight Dirty (Part 1)
Chess is a helluva game. It's meant to imitate war, of course, but in a civilized fashion. The best strategies are born of an instinct to think far ahead about the ripple effect of a single move. Your decision on whether to move your pawn one or two spaces initially can decide the entire thing. It takes patience, concentration, and planning.
Of course, there's one way to make sure you always win your chess game. That's to walk up to the table, slap the pieces to the floor, pick up the board and beat your opponent bloody with it, set the pieces on fire and shove them up your opponent's ass, and, if necessary, slam the table itself down on your opponent until they resign from the game.
This is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats will get another chess set and place the pieces nicely in their rows and await a rousing match. And when Republicans shit all over the game and sphincter-plant the pieces, Democrats still crawl back to the table and set up for the next time. Oh, and if Democrats attempt to pull a flaming knight out of their ass, Republicans will accuse Democrats of cheating by moving the pieces and Democrats will agree and sadly shove the knight back into their ass.
I've been saying this shit for nearly 15 years now. Democrats keep pretending there are rules. That didn't start with Trump. Democrats were playing badminton while Republicans were playing with flamethrowers during the Clinton administration. There are no rules except the ones Democrats keep making themselves follow. That's all so naive.
Look, there's no sugarcoating what happens if Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is replaced by a conservative in the Gorsuch/Scalia/Ghengis Khan model. We're fucked beyond fucked. All the lunatic cases that the savage right has been jonesing to bring to the court will get brought, and kissing Roe v Wade goodbye will just be a start. These robed cockheads are gonna gut civil rights, environmental law, financial regulations, the scraps of the Affordable Care Act that will be left. It's gonna be horrific and the effects will be felt for at least a generation.
But let's not sugarcoat how badly Anthony Kennedy fucked up our democracy. He was not only in the majority in Bush v. Gore, the case that set the nation firmly on the bullshit path we find ourselves walking, he was the justice who urged the court to take on the dispute over local election laws. And his majority opinion in the Citizens United case blew a hole in election financing that turned the idiocy of American political campaigns into a grotesque exercise in graft, grift, and greed. Yeah, on abortion and gay rights, it was good he was there. But, obviously, that didn't matter enough to Kennedy to stay the fuck in his seat. He wants his legacy to be conservative. So fuck him. Hard. With a barbed bear dick.
We've been working on the fight in November for one or both houses of Congress. And that fight stands. But another fight is here now. Democrats have to be willing to fight dirty. Oh, sure, there are a lot of less dirty things that we can and should do. But these motherfuckers have gone too long without having their faces shoved in the mud.
Let's wallow in anger and shock for moment. Yet don't get caught up in the bullshit blame game. We have no time for childish things. I don't give a fuck about who voted for what in 2016 anymore, not in the election, not in the primaries. We either put that aside for this fight or we may as well just roll over and wait for the fucking. (By the way, that doesn't mean ignoring important election results this year or the utter failure of Democratic congressional leadership on this and other issues.)
Tomorrow, I'll get to how to fight dirty. Legal, yes, but fuckin' dirty, man. Getting chanted out of restaurants will look like a tiptoe through a meadow. Fuck chess. It's time for a barb wire cage match.
Of course, there's one way to make sure you always win your chess game. That's to walk up to the table, slap the pieces to the floor, pick up the board and beat your opponent bloody with it, set the pieces on fire and shove them up your opponent's ass, and, if necessary, slam the table itself down on your opponent until they resign from the game.
This is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats will get another chess set and place the pieces nicely in their rows and await a rousing match. And when Republicans shit all over the game and sphincter-plant the pieces, Democrats still crawl back to the table and set up for the next time. Oh, and if Democrats attempt to pull a flaming knight out of their ass, Republicans will accuse Democrats of cheating by moving the pieces and Democrats will agree and sadly shove the knight back into their ass.
I've been saying this shit for nearly 15 years now. Democrats keep pretending there are rules. That didn't start with Trump. Democrats were playing badminton while Republicans were playing with flamethrowers during the Clinton administration. There are no rules except the ones Democrats keep making themselves follow. That's all so naive.
Look, there's no sugarcoating what happens if Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is replaced by a conservative in the Gorsuch/Scalia/Ghengis Khan model. We're fucked beyond fucked. All the lunatic cases that the savage right has been jonesing to bring to the court will get brought, and kissing Roe v Wade goodbye will just be a start. These robed cockheads are gonna gut civil rights, environmental law, financial regulations, the scraps of the Affordable Care Act that will be left. It's gonna be horrific and the effects will be felt for at least a generation.
But let's not sugarcoat how badly Anthony Kennedy fucked up our democracy. He was not only in the majority in Bush v. Gore, the case that set the nation firmly on the bullshit path we find ourselves walking, he was the justice who urged the court to take on the dispute over local election laws. And his majority opinion in the Citizens United case blew a hole in election financing that turned the idiocy of American political campaigns into a grotesque exercise in graft, grift, and greed. Yeah, on abortion and gay rights, it was good he was there. But, obviously, that didn't matter enough to Kennedy to stay the fuck in his seat. He wants his legacy to be conservative. So fuck him. Hard. With a barbed bear dick.
We've been working on the fight in November for one or both houses of Congress. And that fight stands. But another fight is here now. Democrats have to be willing to fight dirty. Oh, sure, there are a lot of less dirty things that we can and should do. But these motherfuckers have gone too long without having their faces shoved in the mud.
Let's wallow in anger and shock for moment. Yet don't get caught up in the bullshit blame game. We have no time for childish things. I don't give a fuck about who voted for what in 2016 anymore, not in the election, not in the primaries. We either put that aside for this fight or we may as well just roll over and wait for the fucking. (By the way, that doesn't mean ignoring important election results this year or the utter failure of Democratic congressional leadership on this and other issues.)
Tomorrow, I'll get to how to fight dirty. Legal, yes, but fuckin' dirty, man. Getting chanted out of restaurants will look like a tiptoe through a meadow. Fuck chess. It's time for a barb wire cage match.
Grappling with the Despair You're Feeling Over Kennedy Right Now (Or, More Accurately, the Despair I'm Feeling)
Still working on it. I keep starting and stopping, deleting and revising, saying something terrible and then something sad and then something funny. None of it works. Honestly have been anticipating this moment my entire adult life, when the Supreme Court would lose even the potential for non-conservative decisions. So gimme a few minutes here.
6/26/2018
Quickie: In 2010, Republicans Won Because of Incivility and Anger
Let me take you back, way, way back, all the way to the ancient age of 2009 and 2010. A black Muslim man was uppity enough be president. Evil Democrats had majorities in both the House and Senate. And a brave rebel named Mitch McConnell was willing to stop any legislation from ever being passed again. Simpler times, man, simpler times.
A noble band of patriots called "the Tea Party" decided to take their country back or make it great again or something because the black Muslim and the evil Democrats had dared to give them health insurance. So they took their righteous anger to town hall meetings held by the Democrats and any Republicans who dared to want to work with the black Muslim, and they ranted and raged until they silenced anyone who wanted to talk about issues until many members of Congress decided to just avoid town halls with their constituents.
And, of course, the media condemned the incivility, and Republicans lost because they couldn't control their more radical voters.
Oh, no, wait. The media, for the most part, wanted to understand the rage of the tri-corner hat-wearing yokels, and the 2010 blood red tide turned the Congress Republican. Yeah, that happened.
Rage works. We're angry because they want to take away health care, imprison children, and gut the government. Learn to ride the wave, Democrats, or you're gonna just ebb and break before you ever reach shore.
A noble band of patriots called "the Tea Party" decided to take their country back or make it great again or something because the black Muslim and the evil Democrats had dared to give them health insurance. So they took their righteous anger to town hall meetings held by the Democrats and any Republicans who dared to want to work with the black Muslim, and they ranted and raged until they silenced anyone who wanted to talk about issues until many members of Congress decided to just avoid town halls with their constituents.
And, of course, the media condemned the incivility, and Republicans lost because they couldn't control their more radical voters.
Oh, no, wait. The media, for the most part, wanted to understand the rage of the tri-corner hat-wearing yokels, and the 2010 blood red tide turned the Congress Republican. Yeah, that happened.
Rage works. We're angry because they want to take away health care, imprison children, and gut the government. Learn to ride the wave, Democrats, or you're gonna just ebb and break before you ever reach shore.
6/21/2018
Regarding Civility in Uncivil Times
Last night, the New York Times posted an article titled "In Trump’s America, the Conversation Turns Ugly and Angry, Starting at the Top." In it, the writers, Peter Baker and Katie Rogers, plainly say that the "vituperative words" in contemporary politics is a result, in large part, of President Donald Trump's "unpresidential language." However, they are quick to assert that this ugliness has spread across the political spectrum. "The politics of rage that animated Mr. Trump’s political rise now dominate the national conversation," they say. And they offer as examples Robert De Niro saying, "Fuck Trump," Kathy Griffin's photo with a bloody Trump head, and assorted other things that celebrities and non-celebrities have said or done that can be seen as intemperate.
Last night, around the same time the article went live, at a campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota, Trump demanded that a protester be dragged out and said, "Go home to your mom, darling." And then, "Was that a man or a woman? Because he needs a haircut more than I do." During the rally, he again insisted that immigrants are primarily criminals, berated his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, and claimed, "Democrats put illegal immigrants before they put American citizens." He rolled his eyes over Senator John McCain for his vote on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
And Peter Fonda angrily tweeted about Barron being taken away from Melania.
These things are not equivalent. There is no equivalency to be made because, and let me put this as civilly as I can: Donald Trump is the motherfucking president of the motherfucking United States, you jizz-coated shit-mongers. And because Trump is the motherfucking president, everything he says matters.
You're angry at the "vituperative words" of the left? Fuck you. One reason we're fucking done here is because Democrats were civil. The Fox-directed media always demands that Democrats play nice. Republicans can shit in the face of babies, but if a Democrat say, "Whoa, that's messed up," all of a sudden the entire structure of the government is shaken to its core. In fact, there's always the stupid comparison: "Republicans shit in the face of babies but Democrats say that's messed up. Who is worse than Hitler?"
We're being uncivil and we're getting more uncivil because fucking civility didn't work. It didn't work in 2016, when Hillary Clinton very calmly told you that Trump was going to take the nation and fuck its ass until it shit blood. It didn't work when Barack Obama was president because Republicans took his civility and used it was a whip against him. It sure as shit ain't gonna work now when a deranged, screaming attention whore keeps whipping out his tiny dick and demanding that everyone say its huge. You really think that a man who grudgingly stopped ripping babies away from their mothers is gonna respond to honorable statements?
Punching back, as hard as fucking possible, is the only thing that this jackass understands. If you have power, use it savagely against him. If you have a microphone, turn it up to 11. Civility is our damnation.
Last night, around the same time the article went live, at a campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota, Trump demanded that a protester be dragged out and said, "Go home to your mom, darling." And then, "Was that a man or a woman? Because he needs a haircut more than I do." During the rally, he again insisted that immigrants are primarily criminals, berated his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, and claimed, "Democrats put illegal immigrants before they put American citizens." He rolled his eyes over Senator John McCain for his vote on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
And Peter Fonda angrily tweeted about Barron being taken away from Melania.
These things are not equivalent. There is no equivalency to be made because, and let me put this as civilly as I can: Donald Trump is the motherfucking president of the motherfucking United States, you jizz-coated shit-mongers. And because Trump is the motherfucking president, everything he says matters.
You're angry at the "vituperative words" of the left? Fuck you. One reason we're fucking done here is because Democrats were civil. The Fox-directed media always demands that Democrats play nice. Republicans can shit in the face of babies, but if a Democrat say, "Whoa, that's messed up," all of a sudden the entire structure of the government is shaken to its core. In fact, there's always the stupid comparison: "Republicans shit in the face of babies but Democrats say that's messed up. Who is worse than Hitler?"
We're being uncivil and we're getting more uncivil because fucking civility didn't work. It didn't work in 2016, when Hillary Clinton very calmly told you that Trump was going to take the nation and fuck its ass until it shit blood. It didn't work when Barack Obama was president because Republicans took his civility and used it was a whip against him. It sure as shit ain't gonna work now when a deranged, screaming attention whore keeps whipping out his tiny dick and demanding that everyone say its huge. You really think that a man who grudgingly stopped ripping babies away from their mothers is gonna respond to honorable statements?
Punching back, as hard as fucking possible, is the only thing that this jackass understands. If you have power, use it savagely against him. If you have a microphone, turn it up to 11. Civility is our damnation.
6/19/2018
The Cold Political Calculus of Taking Away the Children of Migrants
We are at a moment in our history that demands action. It demands that people fuck shit up. We hope they do it by protesting, by voting, or with legislation. But what the GOP hopes is that it leads to crazy shit, and Trump is going to keep pushing and pushing, with the ICE round-ups and the family separations, because they want congressional Democrats arrested, they want violence to occur at one of the concentration camps, they want protesters to riot, and they want it all filmed. Trump is going to keep upping the intensity of his immigration crackdown until the left cracks.
This is the cold political calculus of Trump advisor and man most likely to own a suit made of human skin, Stephen Miller. It's beyond "annoy the libtards and make the snowflakes cry." We're now into "let's get good footage for campaign ads" territory. You can imagine it now: Evil music, low-pitch voice saying, "Nancy Pelosi and the crooked Democrat Party want to let MS-13 animals into the country" over footage of, say, a fight at a detention center or maybe Rep. Juan Vargas or other members of Congress getting led away by cops as the voice continues, "Tell Nancy Pelosi that you stand with Americans, not illegal animals." Or some such shit. That's probably too subtle. More likely it'll just be Trump braying something incoherent like a particularly brain-damaged jackass.
Trump's GOP (and it is Trump's GOP now) doesn't give a fat rat fuck about reaching out beyond his base. The election strategy is simple: get his idiot horde all fired up with a stream of Reddit-provided conspiracies and blatant lies; suppress the vote wherever and however it can be suppressed; and, possibly, look for an assist from hackers. In order for the first part to work, you've gotta be as confrontational as possible to draw Democrats and liberals into an act that can be portrayed as extremism. Sure, an action like blocking the roads to and from detention locations, like, fer the love of fuck, tent cities for children is a relatively mild form of civil disobedience, but as far as the whiners on the right are concerned, it'll be "terrorism the likes of which the nation hasn't seen" or whatever the fuck Fox "news" contorts it to be.
Unsurprisingly, Fox has gone all-in on supporting Trump on the savage child detention policy, so Tucker "Bitch Face" Carlson and Laura "My Kids Went to the Shittiest Summer Camps" Ingraham would orgasm constantly if they got to report on violence involving migrants or defenders of migrants. Sean Hannity's studio would be sticky for weeks.
Let's be clear that the family detention policy didn't start with Trump, but the "zero tolerance" part of it, which includes asylum seekers and the separation of children from parents, is totally Trump's. They planned this shit specifically to deter people on the run from awful violence, including rape and murder, including forcing kids into gangs, to stop seeking asylum in the United States. And lying ogre of blonde doom, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, can repeatedly insist, as she did at her belly flop of a press appearance yesterday, "DHS is not separating families legitimately seeking asylum at ports of entry. If an adult enters at a port of entry and claims asylum, they will not face prosecution for illegal entry. They have not committed a crime by coming to the port of entry." And Trump can assert in that goddamned moron voice of his that "We’re stuck with these horrible laws. They’re horrible laws" that are forcing the country to treat migrants this way, even going so far as to blame Democrats for the laws themselves.
But the motherfucking truth is that those "laws" have been in place since the 1950s, agreed to and signed off on by Congress members and presidents of both parties, including, most recently, in 2008, George W. Bush. And the motherfucking truth is that story after story is coming in about asylum seekers who have their children taken away from them. And the motherfucking truth is that none of what the Trump administration is doing, the written policy they have, is going to deter a mother trying to escape from a man who is beating her and her kids and threatening their lives. They don't have fucking Twitter on the path from El Salvador to the American border.
Today, in a tweet, Trump made clear the racist intent of his immigration policies, which is a refreshing change from the coded racism that Republicans usually use. Saying that "illegal immigrants...infest our Country" (incorrect capitalization courtesy of Trump), he is blurring the line between violent criminals and economic refugees and asylum seekers, which is exactly what a racist would want to do.
So what do we do? The left is obviously being baited into a fight. Yet that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight. Fucking hell, if traumatized kids doesn't get you fighting, nothing will. So fuck it. Let the ads fall where they may. They'll say we're shitty criminal lovers no matter what. Sometimes a big enough fish can grab the bait, yank the fisherman right into the water, and devour him.
This is the cold political calculus of Trump advisor and man most likely to own a suit made of human skin, Stephen Miller. It's beyond "annoy the libtards and make the snowflakes cry." We're now into "let's get good footage for campaign ads" territory. You can imagine it now: Evil music, low-pitch voice saying, "Nancy Pelosi and the crooked Democrat Party want to let MS-13 animals into the country" over footage of, say, a fight at a detention center or maybe Rep. Juan Vargas or other members of Congress getting led away by cops as the voice continues, "Tell Nancy Pelosi that you stand with Americans, not illegal animals." Or some such shit. That's probably too subtle. More likely it'll just be Trump braying something incoherent like a particularly brain-damaged jackass.
Trump's GOP (and it is Trump's GOP now) doesn't give a fat rat fuck about reaching out beyond his base. The election strategy is simple: get his idiot horde all fired up with a stream of Reddit-provided conspiracies and blatant lies; suppress the vote wherever and however it can be suppressed; and, possibly, look for an assist from hackers. In order for the first part to work, you've gotta be as confrontational as possible to draw Democrats and liberals into an act that can be portrayed as extremism. Sure, an action like blocking the roads to and from detention locations, like, fer the love of fuck, tent cities for children is a relatively mild form of civil disobedience, but as far as the whiners on the right are concerned, it'll be "terrorism the likes of which the nation hasn't seen" or whatever the fuck Fox "news" contorts it to be.
Unsurprisingly, Fox has gone all-in on supporting Trump on the savage child detention policy, so Tucker "Bitch Face" Carlson and Laura "My Kids Went to the Shittiest Summer Camps" Ingraham would orgasm constantly if they got to report on violence involving migrants or defenders of migrants. Sean Hannity's studio would be sticky for weeks.
Let's be clear that the family detention policy didn't start with Trump, but the "zero tolerance" part of it, which includes asylum seekers and the separation of children from parents, is totally Trump's. They planned this shit specifically to deter people on the run from awful violence, including rape and murder, including forcing kids into gangs, to stop seeking asylum in the United States. And lying ogre of blonde doom, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, can repeatedly insist, as she did at her belly flop of a press appearance yesterday, "DHS is not separating families legitimately seeking asylum at ports of entry. If an adult enters at a port of entry and claims asylum, they will not face prosecution for illegal entry. They have not committed a crime by coming to the port of entry." And Trump can assert in that goddamned moron voice of his that "We’re stuck with these horrible laws. They’re horrible laws" that are forcing the country to treat migrants this way, even going so far as to blame Democrats for the laws themselves.
But the motherfucking truth is that those "laws" have been in place since the 1950s, agreed to and signed off on by Congress members and presidents of both parties, including, most recently, in 2008, George W. Bush. And the motherfucking truth is that story after story is coming in about asylum seekers who have their children taken away from them. And the motherfucking truth is that none of what the Trump administration is doing, the written policy they have, is going to deter a mother trying to escape from a man who is beating her and her kids and threatening their lives. They don't have fucking Twitter on the path from El Salvador to the American border.
Today, in a tweet, Trump made clear the racist intent of his immigration policies, which is a refreshing change from the coded racism that Republicans usually use. Saying that "illegal immigrants...infest our Country" (incorrect capitalization courtesy of Trump), he is blurring the line between violent criminals and economic refugees and asylum seekers, which is exactly what a racist would want to do.
So what do we do? The left is obviously being baited into a fight. Yet that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight. Fucking hell, if traumatized kids doesn't get you fighting, nothing will. So fuck it. Let the ads fall where they may. They'll say we're shitty criminal lovers no matter what. Sometimes a big enough fish can grab the bait, yank the fisherman right into the water, and devour him.
6/15/2018
Quickie: One Reason That Evangelicals and Other Churches Are Turning Against Trump on Immigration
I'm on the road in the deep South (and there are shockingly few Trump signs so far), but here's a quick hit it and quit it for you:
You might have seen reports yesterday that religious groups, including, holy shit, evangelicals, turning against Donald Trump and his administration of pirates and lepers when it comes to the treatment of families seeking asylum in the United States. All of a sudden, separating children from their parents is a bad thing, it seems.
And while this actions by churches is good news, let's be perfectly clear here that one reason some of those groups are not feeling the soft lump of Trump love they usually feel is because, without Latinos, and especially Latinos from countries like El Salvador and Guatemala, those churches are fucked in the future. A huge portion of the Latino population in the U.S. calls itself "born again," as in, "we believe that crazy ass Bible shit is real" born again. Catholics are especially finding themselves dependent on the immigrant population for growth.
So this is bottom line shit, as in the bottom line for churches. They lose their flock, and the church is fucked. And, sure, sure, there is some morality involved, too.
But, hey, whatever it takes to get allies in a fight against a monstrosity and its monsters.
You might have seen reports yesterday that religious groups, including, holy shit, evangelicals, turning against Donald Trump and his administration of pirates and lepers when it comes to the treatment of families seeking asylum in the United States. All of a sudden, separating children from their parents is a bad thing, it seems.
And while this actions by churches is good news, let's be perfectly clear here that one reason some of those groups are not feeling the soft lump of Trump love they usually feel is because, without Latinos, and especially Latinos from countries like El Salvador and Guatemala, those churches are fucked in the future. A huge portion of the Latino population in the U.S. calls itself "born again," as in, "we believe that crazy ass Bible shit is real" born again. Catholics are especially finding themselves dependent on the immigrant population for growth.
So this is bottom line shit, as in the bottom line for churches. They lose their flock, and the church is fucked. And, sure, sure, there is some morality involved, too.
But, hey, whatever it takes to get allies in a fight against a monstrosity and its monsters.
6/13/2018
What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now? (Kim-Humping Edition)
In his press conference Tuesday after he let Kim Jong Un ream his ass without even giving him a courtesy reacharound, President Donald Trump absolved the savage tyrant of North Korea of mass murder and torture: "Anybody that takes over a situation like he did, at 26 years of age, and is able to run it, and run it tough — I don’t say he was nice or I don’t say anything about it — he ran it. Very few people, at that age — you can take one out of ten thousand, probably, couldn’t do it." What Gramps was rambling about seemed to say that we shouldn't take Kim's creative executions, massive gulags, and intentional starvation of his people as anything other than a young man trying to figure out how to run a dictatorship in this crazy day and age. The wacky adventures of a cuddly teddy bear, if you will, that involve people being burned with flamethrowers.
As for the thousands of people in those gulags, where rape, infanticide, and more are rampant? Well, they should be grateful for the existence of Donald J. Trump, according to Trump. " I think they are one of the great winners today, that large group of people that you’re talking about," he said, not even deigning to call them "prisoners" or any impolite terms. "I think, ultimately, they’re going to be one of the great winners as a group."
In his several appearances post-Kim-coitus, Trump talked about how amazing he found Kim. He told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "Well, you know, over my lifetime I've done a lot of deals with a lot of people, and sometimes the people that you most distrust turn out to be the most honorable ones, and the people that you do trust they are not the honorable ones, so we are starting from a very high plane, we’re starting from a very good relationship." Of course, that says more about who is deciding what makes someone trustworthy, but, hey, if someone who murders his family members wantonly is "honorable," then maybe that word is fairly fucking meaningless.
Trump wanted everyone to know that he has intuition except when he doesn't. Asked about his statement that he would know how things were going to go in the first minute of the meeting, he responded, "I’ve said that about relationships. I’ve said that about people. You know in the first second. Now, I was generous. I said five seconds. But you know in the first second, in some cases. Sometimes that doesn’t work out. But sometimes it does."
Not surprisingly, and you should read this quote in full, Trump, the lying sexual predator, just totally trusts Kim, the mass murderer of his own people: "I do trust him, yeah. Now, will I come back to you in a year and you’ll be interviewing and I’ll say, gee I made a mistake? That’s always possible. You know, we’re dealing at a very high level, a lot of things can change, a lot of things are possible. He trusts me, I believe, I really do. I mean, he said openly, and he said it to a couple of reporters that were with him that he knows that no other president ever could have done this, I mean no other pre--he knows the presidents, he knows who we had in front of me. He said no other president could have done this. I think he trusts me, and I trust him." It doesn't even occur to Trump that the reason Kim "trusts" him over other presidents is that other presidents wanted North Korea to commit to actually doing something. Kim knows that Trump is just a vain lump who wants to put on a show, and he gave Kim years of propaganda footage to show his people and keep them brainwashed. And, pretty much, Trump got the same.
How delusional is Trump right now? He honestly believes that North Koreans, who live under a threat of imprisonment or death if they don't worship Kim, love their leader: "His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor." See? It's a perfect system. There are no haters because haters are sent to the functional equivalent of Auschwitz. When Stephanopoulos brought up that Kim's "a brutal dictator" and "a killer," Trump brushed it off with more or less a shrug. "George, I’m given what I'm given, okay?," Trump said. "I mean, this is what we have, and this is where we are, and I can only tell you from my experience, and I met him, I've spoken with him, and I’ve met him."
In another interview with his anus remora, Sean Hannity, Trump gushed over Kim like it was a Tinder date that went awesomely: "He’s got a very good personality, he’s funny, and he’s very, very smart. He’s a great negotiator, and he’s a very strategic kind of a guy."
And then Trump returned to Air Force One, the memory of his time with Kim seeming like a fever dream, still fresh, though, with the taste of the North Korean's tongue in his mouth, the feel of Kim's thrusting cock and the sound of his floppy stomach slapping Trump's flabby ass cheeks, oh, god, for that again, oh, god, not just for himself, but for America. This time in the White House. Probably with Ivanka watching.
As for the thousands of people in those gulags, where rape, infanticide, and more are rampant? Well, they should be grateful for the existence of Donald J. Trump, according to Trump. " I think they are one of the great winners today, that large group of people that you’re talking about," he said, not even deigning to call them "prisoners" or any impolite terms. "I think, ultimately, they’re going to be one of the great winners as a group."
In his several appearances post-Kim-coitus, Trump talked about how amazing he found Kim. He told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "Well, you know, over my lifetime I've done a lot of deals with a lot of people, and sometimes the people that you most distrust turn out to be the most honorable ones, and the people that you do trust they are not the honorable ones, so we are starting from a very high plane, we’re starting from a very good relationship." Of course, that says more about who is deciding what makes someone trustworthy, but, hey, if someone who murders his family members wantonly is "honorable," then maybe that word is fairly fucking meaningless.
Trump wanted everyone to know that he has intuition except when he doesn't. Asked about his statement that he would know how things were going to go in the first minute of the meeting, he responded, "I’ve said that about relationships. I’ve said that about people. You know in the first second. Now, I was generous. I said five seconds. But you know in the first second, in some cases. Sometimes that doesn’t work out. But sometimes it does."
Not surprisingly, and you should read this quote in full, Trump, the lying sexual predator, just totally trusts Kim, the mass murderer of his own people: "I do trust him, yeah. Now, will I come back to you in a year and you’ll be interviewing and I’ll say, gee I made a mistake? That’s always possible. You know, we’re dealing at a very high level, a lot of things can change, a lot of things are possible. He trusts me, I believe, I really do. I mean, he said openly, and he said it to a couple of reporters that were with him that he knows that no other president ever could have done this, I mean no other pre--he knows the presidents, he knows who we had in front of me. He said no other president could have done this. I think he trusts me, and I trust him." It doesn't even occur to Trump that the reason Kim "trusts" him over other presidents is that other presidents wanted North Korea to commit to actually doing something. Kim knows that Trump is just a vain lump who wants to put on a show, and he gave Kim years of propaganda footage to show his people and keep them brainwashed. And, pretty much, Trump got the same.
How delusional is Trump right now? He honestly believes that North Koreans, who live under a threat of imprisonment or death if they don't worship Kim, love their leader: "His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor." See? It's a perfect system. There are no haters because haters are sent to the functional equivalent of Auschwitz. When Stephanopoulos brought up that Kim's "a brutal dictator" and "a killer," Trump brushed it off with more or less a shrug. "George, I’m given what I'm given, okay?," Trump said. "I mean, this is what we have, and this is where we are, and I can only tell you from my experience, and I met him, I've spoken with him, and I’ve met him."
In another interview with his anus remora, Sean Hannity, Trump gushed over Kim like it was a Tinder date that went awesomely: "He’s got a very good personality, he’s funny, and he’s very, very smart. He’s a great negotiator, and he’s a very strategic kind of a guy."
And then Trump returned to Air Force One, the memory of his time with Kim seeming like a fever dream, still fresh, though, with the taste of the North Korean's tongue in his mouth, the feel of Kim's thrusting cock and the sound of his floppy stomach slapping Trump's flabby ass cheeks, oh, god, for that again, oh, god, not just for himself, but for America. This time in the White House. Probably with Ivanka watching.
6/11/2018
On Immigration: This Is Who We Are Until We're Not This
It just gets worse every time you take another look.
A migrant to the United States can be rejected for asylum for myriad reasons. One of those is if it turns out that the migrant has provided "material support" for a terrorist organization. And this makes sense, obviously. If you have given money to or fought for a terrorist group, that should definitely draw much closer scrutiny. Of course, that's been used in absurd and disgusting ways.
For instance, take the case of a Salvadoran woman who had been in the United States since 1991. After being here under Temporary Protected Status, she applied for full asylum in 2004, which was denied, but that decision was stayed. Without getting into all the legal back and forth, this week, the Department of Justice's Board of Immigration Appeals ordered her removed from the country because of her material support of terrorists: she was a prisoner and slave of a guerrilla group. The decision says that "her undisputed testimony [is] that she was kidnapped by guerrillas in El Salvador in 1990 and was coerced into undergoing weapons training and performing forced labor in the form of cooking, cleaning, and washing their clothes."
But it gets worse because it always gets worse. She had tried to get her removal reversed based on the U.N. Convention Against Torture. See, "in addition to being kidnapped and required to perform cooking and cleaning for the guerrillas under threat of death, the respondent was forced to witness her husband, a sergeant in the Salvadoran Army, dig his own grave before being killed."
And while, yes, this occurred during the mad reign of Trump, her case had been going on from Bush, Jr. to Obama to now, and at no point did the government drop its attempt to deport her. As the board wrote in its decision, "no court has held that the kind of support an alien provides, if related to promoting the goals of a terrorist organization, is exempt from the material support bar, and we discern no basis to import such a limitation." Not even being a slave.
Of course, it does get worse because it always gets worse. See, immigration courts and boards can provide victims of terrorists waivers in order to get asylum, but the Salvadoran woman's case did not, according to two out of three members of the board, rise to the level of "duress" necessary for the waiver. One case that did was that of a Sri Lankan man who was kidnapped by a terrorist group in 2004 and forced to pay a ransom. He asked for asylum here and was first denied because, yes, you guessed it, his ransom was material support. He was finally granted a waiver in 2011 and got a green card.
You like that happy ending? Well, it gets worse because it always gets worse, and now we come back around to the unique barbarity of the Trump administration. It wants to end the waiver program because it idiotically fears that letting fully vetted victims of terrorism into the country could lead to terrorism. These exemptions allow people like, say, translators who helped American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan enter the United States. In 10 years, just 22,000 people have received them. It is, as one Obama administration official put it, "a non-existent phantom problem." The entire cruel reason to end the program is to please the hardliners in the GOP and the xenophobic yahoos that make up Trump's base.
Add that to the pile of noxious policies that the Trump administration is pursuing, from the heartbreaking separation of children from their migrant parents, now possibly up to 2000 kids, to the concentration camp-like detention centers for migrants, to the ICE raids on businesses to round up suspected undocumented workers and rip families apart.
Politicians and pundits and others keep saying things like "This is not who we are." Except it is who we are. In this time. In this administration. It is who we are until we decide we're not this. But it is where we've been heading since 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as ICE. We are the people who have government officials tell parents that their kids are just going to bathe as they take the children away. We are the people who drive some of those parents, who have endured several kinds of hell to get here, to despair and suicide. We are the people who treat those huddled masses yearning to be free with contempt and cruelty. We are the people who will tell someone who was enslaved that she must go back to the land of her captors, even if she's lived here for nearly three decades.
We are this. And we will continue to be this unless those of us who don't believe this is who we should be can change it. If we don't, then we truly know who we've always been. It will get worse because it always gets worse until we have the will to make it better.
A migrant to the United States can be rejected for asylum for myriad reasons. One of those is if it turns out that the migrant has provided "material support" for a terrorist organization. And this makes sense, obviously. If you have given money to or fought for a terrorist group, that should definitely draw much closer scrutiny. Of course, that's been used in absurd and disgusting ways.
For instance, take the case of a Salvadoran woman who had been in the United States since 1991. After being here under Temporary Protected Status, she applied for full asylum in 2004, which was denied, but that decision was stayed. Without getting into all the legal back and forth, this week, the Department of Justice's Board of Immigration Appeals ordered her removed from the country because of her material support of terrorists: she was a prisoner and slave of a guerrilla group. The decision says that "her undisputed testimony [is] that she was kidnapped by guerrillas in El Salvador in 1990 and was coerced into undergoing weapons training and performing forced labor in the form of cooking, cleaning, and washing their clothes."
But it gets worse because it always gets worse. She had tried to get her removal reversed based on the U.N. Convention Against Torture. See, "in addition to being kidnapped and required to perform cooking and cleaning for the guerrillas under threat of death, the respondent was forced to witness her husband, a sergeant in the Salvadoran Army, dig his own grave before being killed."
And while, yes, this occurred during the mad reign of Trump, her case had been going on from Bush, Jr. to Obama to now, and at no point did the government drop its attempt to deport her. As the board wrote in its decision, "no court has held that the kind of support an alien provides, if related to promoting the goals of a terrorist organization, is exempt from the material support bar, and we discern no basis to import such a limitation." Not even being a slave.
Of course, it does get worse because it always gets worse. See, immigration courts and boards can provide victims of terrorists waivers in order to get asylum, but the Salvadoran woman's case did not, according to two out of three members of the board, rise to the level of "duress" necessary for the waiver. One case that did was that of a Sri Lankan man who was kidnapped by a terrorist group in 2004 and forced to pay a ransom. He asked for asylum here and was first denied because, yes, you guessed it, his ransom was material support. He was finally granted a waiver in 2011 and got a green card.
You like that happy ending? Well, it gets worse because it always gets worse, and now we come back around to the unique barbarity of the Trump administration. It wants to end the waiver program because it idiotically fears that letting fully vetted victims of terrorism into the country could lead to terrorism. These exemptions allow people like, say, translators who helped American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan enter the United States. In 10 years, just 22,000 people have received them. It is, as one Obama administration official put it, "a non-existent phantom problem." The entire cruel reason to end the program is to please the hardliners in the GOP and the xenophobic yahoos that make up Trump's base.
Add that to the pile of noxious policies that the Trump administration is pursuing, from the heartbreaking separation of children from their migrant parents, now possibly up to 2000 kids, to the concentration camp-like detention centers for migrants, to the ICE raids on businesses to round up suspected undocumented workers and rip families apart.
Politicians and pundits and others keep saying things like "This is not who we are." Except it is who we are. In this time. In this administration. It is who we are until we decide we're not this. But it is where we've been heading since 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as ICE. We are the people who have government officials tell parents that their kids are just going to bathe as they take the children away. We are the people who drive some of those parents, who have endured several kinds of hell to get here, to despair and suicide. We are the people who treat those huddled masses yearning to be free with contempt and cruelty. We are the people who will tell someone who was enslaved that she must go back to the land of her captors, even if she's lived here for nearly three decades.
We are this. And we will continue to be this unless those of us who don't believe this is who we should be can change it. If we don't, then we truly know who we've always been. It will get worse because it always gets worse until we have the will to make it better.
6/06/2018
A #MAGA Guide to Understanding Why Separating Children from Their Parents at the Border Is Bad
Let us say, and why not, that you are MAGA hat-sporting, AR-15-toting, illegal immigrant-hating regular ol' supporter of President Donald J. Trump. You've got your proud MAGA wife who loves wearing her "You can grab me by the pussy, Mr. President" t-shirt because it triggers the liberals. You've got a couple of MAGA kids, young 'uns, who love doing what MAGA Mama and MAGA Daddy say and chanting, "USA." Hell, you got your baby a "God, Guns, and Trump" onesie. As far as you're concerned, the whole Russia thing is a hoax, Mueller is a secret liberal, that bitch Killary outghta be in jail, and that Nobama negro was born in Kenya. And fags are the worst.
Now let us say, and, indeed, why not, that everything you fear might happen starts to really happen. In an obviously rigged election, Democrats overwhelmingly win back the House and the Senate, they start impeachment proceedings, and they start to undo all the great and wonderful things that Donald Trump did. They restore the individual mandate and expand the catastrophe known as Obamacare. They halt construction on the Wall. They bring back DACA and targeted enforcement of immigration laws. It's a damn nightmare.
But then shit gets even worse. Rather than face impeachment and removal from office, as well as possible arrest, Donald Trump escapes with his family to Russia, where they are welcomed by Vladimir Putin, who you know is a great leader because Trump told you he is. Mike Pence hightails it to Israel. And, before you know it, Nancy motherfuckin' Pelosi is the Commander-in-Chief.
And you know what happens next. She bans all images of Donald Trump, arresting anyone who dares to support him. She fills her cabinet with blacks and Hispanics, lots of women, queers galore, even a transgender Secretary of Defense. She starts to outlaw any Christian church that doesn't preach love and inclusiveness but she lets the Muslims slide. She demands that everyone takes a knee during the National Anthem. She opens the borders and tells MS-13 they can cut any Trump-lover to tiny pieces. They like to use knives, you know, to make it last longer. And Bernie Sanders runs Congress, pushing Pelosi to turn the nation into a socialist hellscape, where the government decides who lives and who dies for the greater good.
Fox News goes off the air when President Pelosi threatens to pull the broadcast license for every local Fox station. All the conspiracy-theory spouting outlets like Breitbart and Reddit forums are sued into shutting down. Alex Jones explodes. No, literally just explodes into a gory pile of flesh.
And, finally, worst of all, the final straw, Nancy Pelosi comes after your guns. Oh, sure, the NRA tries to raise an army to fight back, but even AR-15s and small rocket launchers are no match for drones with Hellfire missiles.
You look at your MAGA wife and your MAGA kids and you say, "We gotta leave. We gotta get out of here."
"We got no papers," MAGA wife says. "We ain't even got passports because you said only cucks and libtards like to travel to other countries."
You know that if you don't get out of the United States of Pelosi, your kids won't have a chance to live their dreams of oppressing the coloreds and owning dozens of high-powered weapons. You heard about someone who'll help people get to the promised land, Russia, if you have the money. You dig up the cans of cash in your yard and you gather all your electronics. And you take them to this person, a black man who you don't want to trust, but you have to. He's glad to help you leave because, well, fuck you.
He gets your family into a truck that takes you from Benton, Arkansas, all the way to the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. There, you meet someone who stows you away in an empty tanker with dozens of other families just like you. The journey is long and difficult, with constant danger of being caught, with people getting sick, with elderly white people dying, with the barest rations to survive on. You spend a good part of the journey trying to figure out the words to "God Bless America." But, finally, you get into the Black Sea and you are brought to a dock in Novorossiysk, Russia.
At last, at last, you are ready to be free again, free to hate the right people, free to worship an oligarchy, and, especially, free to be reunited with your leader who promised you so, so much. Surely, he is ready to lead you again.
You approach the border and customs enforcement officers and say, in the clearest Russian you can manage, that you are requesting asylum for you and your family from the violent liberal dictatorship in the United States. And, for just a moment, you breathe easy until the second that you are taken by soldiers and your children are ripped away from you as you and MAGA wife have your hands zip-tied behind your back, your children's screaming echoing in your ears. "Don't worry," an official tells you through a harried translator, "they will be taken care of in special facility. But you chose to come here illegally and you are under arrest. Your children are not, but you cannot have them in detention, where you will have to stay until your asylum hearing." You try to explain that you thought you were allowed to ask for asylum and be treated differently, but by then the translator has moved on to say the same thing to the next MAGA couple whose MAGA kids are now in the custody of Russian health and human services.
You are fucking freaking out. Your baby is barely a year old. Your three year-old and five year-old will be scarred for life. You had no good fucking choices. Why can't someone understand you need some basic humanity here? But no one will listen. No one will give you a chance.
Listen to me, you backwards ass cretins everywhere, from Bumfuck, South Carolina, to Naziscum, Idaho, to Topeka, Kansas: this is what's happening. This is what the US is doing now. And you can pretend like it doesn't matter because it's just a bunch of filthy spics or whatever you need to believe to not care. But this shit is a tragedy, as you would think it was if it happened to you.
And if you can't see past your prejudices, past your hatred, past your ignorance, on this one blatant thing, then you are the animals.
Now let us say, and, indeed, why not, that everything you fear might happen starts to really happen. In an obviously rigged election, Democrats overwhelmingly win back the House and the Senate, they start impeachment proceedings, and they start to undo all the great and wonderful things that Donald Trump did. They restore the individual mandate and expand the catastrophe known as Obamacare. They halt construction on the Wall. They bring back DACA and targeted enforcement of immigration laws. It's a damn nightmare.
But then shit gets even worse. Rather than face impeachment and removal from office, as well as possible arrest, Donald Trump escapes with his family to Russia, where they are welcomed by Vladimir Putin, who you know is a great leader because Trump told you he is. Mike Pence hightails it to Israel. And, before you know it, Nancy motherfuckin' Pelosi is the Commander-in-Chief.
And you know what happens next. She bans all images of Donald Trump, arresting anyone who dares to support him. She fills her cabinet with blacks and Hispanics, lots of women, queers galore, even a transgender Secretary of Defense. She starts to outlaw any Christian church that doesn't preach love and inclusiveness but she lets the Muslims slide. She demands that everyone takes a knee during the National Anthem. She opens the borders and tells MS-13 they can cut any Trump-lover to tiny pieces. They like to use knives, you know, to make it last longer. And Bernie Sanders runs Congress, pushing Pelosi to turn the nation into a socialist hellscape, where the government decides who lives and who dies for the greater good.
Fox News goes off the air when President Pelosi threatens to pull the broadcast license for every local Fox station. All the conspiracy-theory spouting outlets like Breitbart and Reddit forums are sued into shutting down. Alex Jones explodes. No, literally just explodes into a gory pile of flesh.
And, finally, worst of all, the final straw, Nancy Pelosi comes after your guns. Oh, sure, the NRA tries to raise an army to fight back, but even AR-15s and small rocket launchers are no match for drones with Hellfire missiles.
You look at your MAGA wife and your MAGA kids and you say, "We gotta leave. We gotta get out of here."
"We got no papers," MAGA wife says. "We ain't even got passports because you said only cucks and libtards like to travel to other countries."
You know that if you don't get out of the United States of Pelosi, your kids won't have a chance to live their dreams of oppressing the coloreds and owning dozens of high-powered weapons. You heard about someone who'll help people get to the promised land, Russia, if you have the money. You dig up the cans of cash in your yard and you gather all your electronics. And you take them to this person, a black man who you don't want to trust, but you have to. He's glad to help you leave because, well, fuck you.
He gets your family into a truck that takes you from Benton, Arkansas, all the way to the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. There, you meet someone who stows you away in an empty tanker with dozens of other families just like you. The journey is long and difficult, with constant danger of being caught, with people getting sick, with elderly white people dying, with the barest rations to survive on. You spend a good part of the journey trying to figure out the words to "God Bless America." But, finally, you get into the Black Sea and you are brought to a dock in Novorossiysk, Russia.
At last, at last, you are ready to be free again, free to hate the right people, free to worship an oligarchy, and, especially, free to be reunited with your leader who promised you so, so much. Surely, he is ready to lead you again.
You approach the border and customs enforcement officers and say, in the clearest Russian you can manage, that you are requesting asylum for you and your family from the violent liberal dictatorship in the United States. And, for just a moment, you breathe easy until the second that you are taken by soldiers and your children are ripped away from you as you and MAGA wife have your hands zip-tied behind your back, your children's screaming echoing in your ears. "Don't worry," an official tells you through a harried translator, "they will be taken care of in special facility. But you chose to come here illegally and you are under arrest. Your children are not, but you cannot have them in detention, where you will have to stay until your asylum hearing." You try to explain that you thought you were allowed to ask for asylum and be treated differently, but by then the translator has moved on to say the same thing to the next MAGA couple whose MAGA kids are now in the custody of Russian health and human services.
You are fucking freaking out. Your baby is barely a year old. Your three year-old and five year-old will be scarred for life. You had no good fucking choices. Why can't someone understand you need some basic humanity here? But no one will listen. No one will give you a chance.
Listen to me, you backwards ass cretins everywhere, from Bumfuck, South Carolina, to Naziscum, Idaho, to Topeka, Kansas: this is what's happening. This is what the US is doing now. And you can pretend like it doesn't matter because it's just a bunch of filthy spics or whatever you need to believe to not care. But this shit is a tragedy, as you would think it was if it happened to you.
And if you can't see past your prejudices, past your hatred, past your ignorance, on this one blatant thing, then you are the animals.
6/05/2018
Conservatives Finally Speak: "He's Acts Like He's a King"
Finally, at long last, Republicans could take no more.
Senator Ted Cruz said, "Undeterred, President Trump appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, President Trump will not be acting as a president, he will be acting as a monarch.”
Lou Dobbs pronounced that President Trump's actions are "evidence of his unilateral, even occasionally authoritarian inclination."
Senator Rand Paul claimed, "The president acts like he's a king. He ignores the Constitution...These are not the words of a great leader. These are the words that sound more like the exclamations of an autocrat." Indeed, Paul went so far as to tweet out a photo of a crown, scepter, cape, and throne with the words, "The 'president who thinks he's a king' starter pack."
The Speaker of the House said, "The president has said before that 'he's not king' and he's 'not an emperor,' but he sure is acting like one."
Chris Christie exhorted, "This president wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator." And Jeb Bush added, "To use executive powers he doesn't have is a pattern that is quite dangerous." Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that Trump "is acting as a king, acting as a dictator" by doing what is "absolutely contrary to what the Constitution allows."
Conservative editorial writers finally got into the game, with one at USA Today saying, plainly, "The idea that President Trump acts as if he is the king of the United States or a tyrant, instead of president, has become a cliché." Asking for a restoration of the balance between Congress and the President, Charles Cooke, in the National Review, opined, "The United States is a constitutional republic, replete with a set of rules that govern how power may be wielded and by whom. There exists no provision within its codified order that ties the power enjoyed by each branch to that branch’s transient popularity. If there is a constitutional problem with the scope of the administrative state, it obtains regardless of the opinion polls."
But, in honor of that valedictorian from a high school in rural Kentucky who, in his speech at graduation, said he was quoting Trump, to great applause, only to reveal that the line was really from Obama, obviously every single one of those conservatives was talking about President Obama and not Donald Trump.
They were upset about some executive orders by Obama, mostly the one that expanded immigration enforcement protection to the parents of kids born in the U.S., but also ones on guns and transgender rights, and they cried out that Obama was a king, which is something that the Tea Party had been saying from the second Obama was elected.
The difference back during Obama's presidency is that many on the left and center-left were uneasy with the executive orders, too. There is a consistency here that conservatives, who didn't give a damn when George W. Bush used signing statements and executive orders with alarming frequency, certainly lack when it comes to Trump's assertions of a tyrannical authority to proclaim himself innocent of crimes by self-pardoning.
Ted Cruz refused to answer a question about it. Rand Paul said such an action would be "condemned," but that Trump has the right to do it.
Some on the right were more consistent, having qualms about Trump's self-pardon. Cooke in the National Review again explained that Congress needs to act (which it won't). Christie at least admits it would be a political problem, even if he doesn't declare that Trump thinks himself a king.
At the end of the day, each president has pushed the limits of presidential power. Congress and the courts are supposed to keep them in check. But Congress hasn't done that. Now, we can argue about whether Bush blocking funding for stem cell research or Obama deciding how immigration law enforcement are valid exercises of executive power. Still, each was asserting their power in pursuit of a policy goal, which doesn't take away the troubling part of it, but, at the very least, the justification was for their view of the greater good.
But Trump is asserting something quite different than either of them, and it's of a piece with his entire presidency. By saying that he can pardon himself and that it is impossible for him to obstruct a Justice Department investigation because he's the ostensible boss of it, Trump wants to contort executive power merely to protect himself (and, presumably, his family). He is above the law and has absolute and uncheckable power when it comes to federal laws, especially when he's in trouble.
In other words, everything that conservatives falsely feared about Obama is true with Trump. And their refusal to broadly condemn it means that they're just fine with a dictator, as long as he's a rich white guy who hates immigrants and cuts taxes.
Senator Ted Cruz said, "Undeterred, President Trump appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, President Trump will not be acting as a president, he will be acting as a monarch.”
Lou Dobbs pronounced that President Trump's actions are "evidence of his unilateral, even occasionally authoritarian inclination."
Senator Rand Paul claimed, "The president acts like he's a king. He ignores the Constitution...These are not the words of a great leader. These are the words that sound more like the exclamations of an autocrat." Indeed, Paul went so far as to tweet out a photo of a crown, scepter, cape, and throne with the words, "The 'president who thinks he's a king' starter pack."
The Speaker of the House said, "The president has said before that 'he's not king' and he's 'not an emperor,' but he sure is acting like one."
Chris Christie exhorted, "This president wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator." And Jeb Bush added, "To use executive powers he doesn't have is a pattern that is quite dangerous." Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that Trump "is acting as a king, acting as a dictator" by doing what is "absolutely contrary to what the Constitution allows."
Conservative editorial writers finally got into the game, with one at USA Today saying, plainly, "The idea that President Trump acts as if he is the king of the United States or a tyrant, instead of president, has become a cliché." Asking for a restoration of the balance between Congress and the President, Charles Cooke, in the National Review, opined, "The United States is a constitutional republic, replete with a set of rules that govern how power may be wielded and by whom. There exists no provision within its codified order that ties the power enjoyed by each branch to that branch’s transient popularity. If there is a constitutional problem with the scope of the administrative state, it obtains regardless of the opinion polls."
But, in honor of that valedictorian from a high school in rural Kentucky who, in his speech at graduation, said he was quoting Trump, to great applause, only to reveal that the line was really from Obama, obviously every single one of those conservatives was talking about President Obama and not Donald Trump.
They were upset about some executive orders by Obama, mostly the one that expanded immigration enforcement protection to the parents of kids born in the U.S., but also ones on guns and transgender rights, and they cried out that Obama was a king, which is something that the Tea Party had been saying from the second Obama was elected.
The difference back during Obama's presidency is that many on the left and center-left were uneasy with the executive orders, too. There is a consistency here that conservatives, who didn't give a damn when George W. Bush used signing statements and executive orders with alarming frequency, certainly lack when it comes to Trump's assertions of a tyrannical authority to proclaim himself innocent of crimes by self-pardoning.
Ted Cruz refused to answer a question about it. Rand Paul said such an action would be "condemned," but that Trump has the right to do it.
Some on the right were more consistent, having qualms about Trump's self-pardon. Cooke in the National Review again explained that Congress needs to act (which it won't). Christie at least admits it would be a political problem, even if he doesn't declare that Trump thinks himself a king.
At the end of the day, each president has pushed the limits of presidential power. Congress and the courts are supposed to keep them in check. But Congress hasn't done that. Now, we can argue about whether Bush blocking funding for stem cell research or Obama deciding how immigration law enforcement are valid exercises of executive power. Still, each was asserting their power in pursuit of a policy goal, which doesn't take away the troubling part of it, but, at the very least, the justification was for their view of the greater good.
But Trump is asserting something quite different than either of them, and it's of a piece with his entire presidency. By saying that he can pardon himself and that it is impossible for him to obstruct a Justice Department investigation because he's the ostensible boss of it, Trump wants to contort executive power merely to protect himself (and, presumably, his family). He is above the law and has absolute and uncheckable power when it comes to federal laws, especially when he's in trouble.
In other words, everything that conservatives falsely feared about Obama is true with Trump. And their refusal to broadly condemn it means that they're just fine with a dictator, as long as he's a rich white guy who hates immigrants and cuts taxes.
6/01/2018
Note to Racists: It's Not Racist to Call You "Racist"
Let's get this out of the way early here so you can determine if you want to continue: If you voted for Donald Trump, you are racist. If you still support Donald Trump, you are racist. You are racist because you are supporting someone who is not just personally racist but who wants the nation to have policies and laws that are racist. Even if you are a rich person who is just a greedy asshole and voted for Trump for the tax cuts, you are still a racist.
I am making this distinction not because I want to excuse Trump's racism on a personal level, but as a way of trying to explain to racist Trump voters why they are racists even if, in their hearts, they believe they have no issue with people of other races. That part doesn't matter if you helped put someone in office who regularly says racist things and regularly, deliberately does things that target non-whites, including the Muslim travel ban, the savage immigration policies, and the attacks on African Americans who protest violence against them. You can't say, "I believe that everything Trump is doing is making America great again" and then follow that with "But I'm not racist" because that's plainly a lie.
Are we clear then? I am calling you "racist" because you're racist.
Earlier this week, when I implied that Trump voters are racist because Roseanne Barr showed how racist they are, someone tweeted at me that racism is "Taking a group of people and bunching them up in assumptions and accusations." I've gotten this quite a bit, that because I say Trump voters are racist, I'm engaging in a type of racism. But that leaves out a crucial aspect about racism. Can you guess? It's that it's based on race. It's not simply any random "group of people" who have some unifying belief. If you take race out of "racism," then you don't even have the word.
You wouldn't think that would have to be explained, but this is the way we live now.
After Barr said that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett looked like an ape, several people responded by pointing out how Bill Maher and many others have said that Donald Trump looks like an orangutan. Of course, that's because of his hair and weird tan, both things he chooses. Believe it or not, he wasn't born orange.
Still, if you don't understand how comparing a black person to any kind of monkey taps into an entire history of racial bigotry and degradation, then you're too stupid to understand any of this and should probably spend your time jacking off on r/The_Donald. The same thing goes if you don't understand how Samantha Bee calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt" is different than what Barr said. It's not racism. And you have to struggle to make it sexist.
Calling you "racist" isn't political correctness run amok. It isn't an attempt to shut down debate. It isn't even really meant as an insult (even though, yes, it is one). It's a way of defining your beliefs. If you think that people should be treated differently because of the color of their skin or if you voted for leaders who believe that and act on it, then what else should you be called? I mean, "Republican" works, too, except that there are still one or two Republicans who aren't motivated by hatred of non-whites. So "racist" is just a shorthand way to describe an ideology. And, yeah, I do think racists are bad people because, well, they're racists. But that's not racism on my part.
You wanna call that prejudice? Fine. You're right. You've nailed me. I am prejudiced against racists. I don't think those people (yes, "those people") should have a voice in the public sphere. They should be treated as pariahs, mocked, and condemned until they are too ashamed to say those things out loud. You have free speech, sure, and the rest of us have the free speech to say that you are pathetic and have stopped the human race from advancing and that you should be accountable for the horrible things you say and do. Because, see, you're a racist.
The other thing that Trump's racists like to say is "What about Bill Clinton?" Or, as my tweeter accused, "You're putting people in a group and saying they all act/think the same? You're are a Democrat, so since Bill Clinton was as well, then you're a womanizing weasel. See how ridiculous that is?" Yeah, it is ridiculous, but only because of how false it is to even begin to equate the two. See, it's not just about the failings of two flawed men.
Calling out Trump and his supporters for racism is different than supporting Bill Clinton, who you can accuse of all kinds of things in his personal life but whose policies did not reflect whatever level of repugnant you think Clinton is. You might think Clinton is a rapist, but he did not try to pass laws to make it easier for rapists to rape nor did he pardon rapists. You might think Clinton was a serial sexual harasser, but he never tried to get legislation passed that would legalize sexual harassment. I'm not excusing Clinton. I was very clear back in the 1990s that Clinton should have resigned or temporarily stepped aside during the Lewinsky saga because of the massive distraction that it was and that fooling around with an intern was pretty fucked up.
But here is the difference, and it's subtle, so see if you can follow along:
When Donald Trump says or does something racist, you cheer. When he says, "Build the wall," you chant it. When he calls immigrants "animals," you scream your approval. When he called for a "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," you shouted how much you love him. And when he issues executive orders that break up immigrant families or threatens to deport DACA recipients or calls places "shitholes," you say he's just doing what you elected him to do. That's because you're racist.
On the left, we never cheered for Bill Clinton's affairs or alleged harassment. At worst, we said it was a personal issue between him and Hillary. At best, we condemned him. If I recall, my exact quote in 1998 was "If you're gonna be president, keep your dick out of it." So, no, it's not comparable. Not even vaguely.
My advice, racists? Do like all of the overt racists are doing and own that shit. Or, if you don't want to be called "racist," if being called a "racist" makes you feel bad or ashamed, then stop being racist. And that would mean no longer supporting Donald Trump.
But you won't do that because you're a racist and you're too fucking dumb to get out of the pit of shit you love wallowing around in.
I am making this distinction not because I want to excuse Trump's racism on a personal level, but as a way of trying to explain to racist Trump voters why they are racists even if, in their hearts, they believe they have no issue with people of other races. That part doesn't matter if you helped put someone in office who regularly says racist things and regularly, deliberately does things that target non-whites, including the Muslim travel ban, the savage immigration policies, and the attacks on African Americans who protest violence against them. You can't say, "I believe that everything Trump is doing is making America great again" and then follow that with "But I'm not racist" because that's plainly a lie.
Are we clear then? I am calling you "racist" because you're racist.
Earlier this week, when I implied that Trump voters are racist because Roseanne Barr showed how racist they are, someone tweeted at me that racism is "Taking a group of people and bunching them up in assumptions and accusations." I've gotten this quite a bit, that because I say Trump voters are racist, I'm engaging in a type of racism. But that leaves out a crucial aspect about racism. Can you guess? It's that it's based on race. It's not simply any random "group of people" who have some unifying belief. If you take race out of "racism," then you don't even have the word.
You wouldn't think that would have to be explained, but this is the way we live now.
After Barr said that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett looked like an ape, several people responded by pointing out how Bill Maher and many others have said that Donald Trump looks like an orangutan. Of course, that's because of his hair and weird tan, both things he chooses. Believe it or not, he wasn't born orange.
Still, if you don't understand how comparing a black person to any kind of monkey taps into an entire history of racial bigotry and degradation, then you're too stupid to understand any of this and should probably spend your time jacking off on r/The_Donald. The same thing goes if you don't understand how Samantha Bee calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt" is different than what Barr said. It's not racism. And you have to struggle to make it sexist.
Calling you "racist" isn't political correctness run amok. It isn't an attempt to shut down debate. It isn't even really meant as an insult (even though, yes, it is one). It's a way of defining your beliefs. If you think that people should be treated differently because of the color of their skin or if you voted for leaders who believe that and act on it, then what else should you be called? I mean, "Republican" works, too, except that there are still one or two Republicans who aren't motivated by hatred of non-whites. So "racist" is just a shorthand way to describe an ideology. And, yeah, I do think racists are bad people because, well, they're racists. But that's not racism on my part.
You wanna call that prejudice? Fine. You're right. You've nailed me. I am prejudiced against racists. I don't think those people (yes, "those people") should have a voice in the public sphere. They should be treated as pariahs, mocked, and condemned until they are too ashamed to say those things out loud. You have free speech, sure, and the rest of us have the free speech to say that you are pathetic and have stopped the human race from advancing and that you should be accountable for the horrible things you say and do. Because, see, you're a racist.
The other thing that Trump's racists like to say is "What about Bill Clinton?" Or, as my tweeter accused, "You're putting people in a group and saying they all act/think the same? You're are a Democrat, so since Bill Clinton was as well, then you're a womanizing weasel. See how ridiculous that is?" Yeah, it is ridiculous, but only because of how false it is to even begin to equate the two. See, it's not just about the failings of two flawed men.
Calling out Trump and his supporters for racism is different than supporting Bill Clinton, who you can accuse of all kinds of things in his personal life but whose policies did not reflect whatever level of repugnant you think Clinton is. You might think Clinton is a rapist, but he did not try to pass laws to make it easier for rapists to rape nor did he pardon rapists. You might think Clinton was a serial sexual harasser, but he never tried to get legislation passed that would legalize sexual harassment. I'm not excusing Clinton. I was very clear back in the 1990s that Clinton should have resigned or temporarily stepped aside during the Lewinsky saga because of the massive distraction that it was and that fooling around with an intern was pretty fucked up.
But here is the difference, and it's subtle, so see if you can follow along:
When Donald Trump says or does something racist, you cheer. When he says, "Build the wall," you chant it. When he calls immigrants "animals," you scream your approval. When he called for a "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," you shouted how much you love him. And when he issues executive orders that break up immigrant families or threatens to deport DACA recipients or calls places "shitholes," you say he's just doing what you elected him to do. That's because you're racist.
On the left, we never cheered for Bill Clinton's affairs or alleged harassment. At worst, we said it was a personal issue between him and Hillary. At best, we condemned him. If I recall, my exact quote in 1998 was "If you're gonna be president, keep your dick out of it." So, no, it's not comparable. Not even vaguely.
My advice, racists? Do like all of the overt racists are doing and own that shit. Or, if you don't want to be called "racist," if being called a "racist" makes you feel bad or ashamed, then stop being racist. And that would mean no longer supporting Donald Trump.
But you won't do that because you're a racist and you're too fucking dumb to get out of the pit of shit you love wallowing around in.
5/30/2018
Puerto Rico Remains So Very Fucked (and the Rest of Us Might Be, Too)
The unsurprising but still alarming number of dead from Hurricane Maria, as estimated by a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, is more than 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina combined: at least 4645 killed directly by the storm or in the aftermath. It ought to be a scandal that our bumblefuck president not only low-balled the number by over 4500 but bragged about the federal government's response in keeping the death toll minimal. It ought to be a scandal that it took a private entity to accurately report the thousands of dead. But scandals are cheap in this shit era we're damned to live through. And the only thing that's cheaper are the lives of the American citizens on Puerto Rico.
Here's what else we've learned recently:
On Sunday, El Nueva Dia reported, "Eight months after Hurricane Maria, four main transmission lines of the island's power grid remain unrepaired." This means that much of the island now gets power from sub-transmission lines, and that leaves the power grid vulnerable to weather events, like, say, another hurricane, the season for which starts Friday. Actually, one FEMA official said that "a small tropical storm" could take down the grid. On top of that, thousands of families still do not have power and some still do not have water.
A Frontline report revealed just how disparately the situation in Puerto Rico was treated when compared to the federal government response after Hurricanes Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida. Nine days after the storms, Puerto Rico, where a third of the houses had been wrecked or damaged, received just 5000 roof tarps, compared to 20,000 for Texas and 98,000 for Florida. Just 10,000 federal personnel were in Puerto Rico after 9 days, compared to 22,000 for Florida and 30,000 for Texas. Yes, by the time of Maria, FEMA and other federal workers were stretched thin, but even at its peak of 16,500, Puerto Rico never had the same number of people there to help out as the other two.
FEMA has approved less than half of the 750,000 applications for housing assistance for people who are trying to rebuild in Puerto Rico. This is because, especially in rural areas, people don't have the records that are required in order to get the aid. And even those who had them saw them washed away in the storm. FEMA has provided an average of $2974 in assistance, and the program will end on June 30.
Finally, there continues to be the way that the disaster in Puerto Rico has the potential to be a disaster for the whole country if we don't invest a fuck-ton of funds there. 90% of emergency room physicians say that "they have experienced shortages or absences of critical medicines in their emergency departments" in the past month. On top of that, 93% say "their emergency departments are not 'fully prepared' for patient surge capacity in the event of a natural or man-made disaster, or mass-casualty incident," with less than half saying they are even "somewhat prepared." One reason (though not the only one) for these shortages is that "up to 10% of all drugs consumed by Americans" were made at pharmaceutical companies in Puerto Rico, along with about half the IV saline and a large percentage of the IV bags used by, well, everyone from the local EMT to your big damn hospitals. Those facilities still aren't fully back and are subject to the whims of the weakened power grid.
The fact that we're not still focused on how fucked Puerto Rico is speaks to a general acceptance that the rank racism of the Trump administration is just a part of our daily lives. There was a massive tragedy involving millions of our fellow Americans, with thousands of them dying, and our government is choosing to do the bare minimum because bad news fucks up the MAGA triumphalism.
Here's what else we've learned recently:
On Sunday, El Nueva Dia reported, "Eight months after Hurricane Maria, four main transmission lines of the island's power grid remain unrepaired." This means that much of the island now gets power from sub-transmission lines, and that leaves the power grid vulnerable to weather events, like, say, another hurricane, the season for which starts Friday. Actually, one FEMA official said that "a small tropical storm" could take down the grid. On top of that, thousands of families still do not have power and some still do not have water.
A Frontline report revealed just how disparately the situation in Puerto Rico was treated when compared to the federal government response after Hurricanes Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida. Nine days after the storms, Puerto Rico, where a third of the houses had been wrecked or damaged, received just 5000 roof tarps, compared to 20,000 for Texas and 98,000 for Florida. Just 10,000 federal personnel were in Puerto Rico after 9 days, compared to 22,000 for Florida and 30,000 for Texas. Yes, by the time of Maria, FEMA and other federal workers were stretched thin, but even at its peak of 16,500, Puerto Rico never had the same number of people there to help out as the other two.
FEMA has approved less than half of the 750,000 applications for housing assistance for people who are trying to rebuild in Puerto Rico. This is because, especially in rural areas, people don't have the records that are required in order to get the aid. And even those who had them saw them washed away in the storm. FEMA has provided an average of $2974 in assistance, and the program will end on June 30.
Finally, there continues to be the way that the disaster in Puerto Rico has the potential to be a disaster for the whole country if we don't invest a fuck-ton of funds there. 90% of emergency room physicians say that "they have experienced shortages or absences of critical medicines in their emergency departments" in the past month. On top of that, 93% say "their emergency departments are not 'fully prepared' for patient surge capacity in the event of a natural or man-made disaster, or mass-casualty incident," with less than half saying they are even "somewhat prepared." One reason (though not the only one) for these shortages is that "up to 10% of all drugs consumed by Americans" were made at pharmaceutical companies in Puerto Rico, along with about half the IV saline and a large percentage of the IV bags used by, well, everyone from the local EMT to your big damn hospitals. Those facilities still aren't fully back and are subject to the whims of the weakened power grid.
The fact that we're not still focused on how fucked Puerto Rico is speaks to a general acceptance that the rank racism of the Trump administration is just a part of our daily lives. There was a massive tragedy involving millions of our fellow Americans, with thousands of them dying, and our government is choosing to do the bare minimum because bad news fucks up the MAGA triumphalism.
5/29/2018
Donald Trump Told You He Hates Families During the Campaign
From the very beginning of his putrid political campaign, which now seems more and more like America's unforced death march, Donald Trump told you he couldn't give two shits about (especially non-white) families. Way back in December 2015, in one of the many tongue bath interviews he received on Fox and Friends, Trump said, "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families." Disturbing repetition aside, he was being pretty fuckin' clear there.
And, in case you thought he was kidding, when asked about that statement by no less a motherfucker and serial harasser than Bill O'Reilly, in front of a crowd in January 2016, he doubled down. O'Reilly said he didn't believe Trump would "put out hits on women and children," and Trump scoffed, "I would do pretty severe stuff." The audience at the Mesa, Arizona, campaign event cheered like crazy that someone was finally saying what they're thinking: "Murder all Mooslims."
For Trump, once a phrase tests well with his idiot horde, it becomes standard for him to say. So the murder of innocent family members was another applause line for a while. Hell, he went even further at a Fox "news" GOP debate in March 2016. Asked by Bret Baier what he would do if his commanders in the field refuse to carry out an illegal order to kill the families of accused terrorists, Trump scoffed again (as scoffing is his primary method of speaking), "They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me. Believe me." Pressed on it, Trump went off, insisting that the wives and families of the 9/11 hijackers knew about the attack, were living in the United States, and were sent back to their home countries before 9/11. So, he implied, they weren't innocent and deserved to be killed. Of course, no one pointed out that none of the 9/11 hijackers had wives or children in the United States in the time before the attack.
But that didn't matter. Donald Trump was absolutely fucking firm on this point: it was weakness not to kill the families of terrorists during any action by the United States. In fact, they should be targeted as a way of threatening terrorists. He would later back off his statement that he would force the military to commit war crimes, but on his first full day as president, Trump visited CIA headquarters. He was shown video of a drone strike on a terrorist target where the target's family was in a house and the drone operator waited until the target was outside to fire in order to minimize the potential for other casualties. "Why did you wait?” Trump asked.
Trump told you outright that if you're a child who has the misfortune to be born to the wrong parents, he will fuck up your life worse than it may already be fucked up.
So it's not really a surprise that Trump's desire to punish adults by punishing their children has spread to his deranged border policies. When the Justice Department and Homeland Security changed its policy on immigrant families seeking asylum, it used the cruel language of human trafficking. America's shittiest leprechaun, Jeff Sessions, announced, "If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don't like that, then don't smuggle children over our border." You got that? You and your kids travel the rough journey to the United States from Honduras to try to escape that gang that killed your husband and is threatening to rape you and force your 10 year-old son to join up? You are now a child smuggler.
Now let's be clear: up to this point, while most of the separations have lasted no more than 10 days, more than a few cases have dragged on for weeks and months, with huge distances put between a mother and, say, her 1 year-old (that's real). This comes from treating every border crosser as a dangerous criminal and rejecting almost everyone who is seeking asylum. That is a change from previous administrations, especially when it comes to families.
But Sessions put this new policy in place just a few weeks ago, so there's no way to tell yet how awful it's going to become. All indications are that there has been a surge of separations. So let's be even clearer: You wanna fuck the brain of a child for good? You tear that child away from their family. That's what our government is doing now for no reason other than to be cruel to the parents who brought them here. We are wrecking the emotional development of kids. And we are treating people like animals, which, I guess, goes along with what Trump said (and, fuck you, he meant all non-white immigrants).
And let's be clear again: This is a different policy from the Obama administration. Democrats in Congress are not in any way responsible for this action. It is all Trump, but he's a pathetic, dumb skinsack of shit who refuses to take the blame for anything.
This nation has a terrible history of taking children away from their families, from the horror of selling slave children to the forced assimilation programs for Native American kids to, now, this.
And, as ever, no nightmare has occurred yet in this presidency that will stir the hearts of Republicans to stand up to Trump. Maybe if he gets around to fucking with white families.
America is saying, in essence, "The hell with your tired, screw your poor, and your huddled masses yearning to be free can go fuck themselves."
(Note: By Trump's "logic," when he, Donald, Jr., Eric, and Ivanka are arrested, they better fuckin' drag in Barron and Tiffany because, as Trump himself said about the families of criminals, "They know what's going on.")
And, in case you thought he was kidding, when asked about that statement by no less a motherfucker and serial harasser than Bill O'Reilly, in front of a crowd in January 2016, he doubled down. O'Reilly said he didn't believe Trump would "put out hits on women and children," and Trump scoffed, "I would do pretty severe stuff." The audience at the Mesa, Arizona, campaign event cheered like crazy that someone was finally saying what they're thinking: "Murder all Mooslims."
For Trump, once a phrase tests well with his idiot horde, it becomes standard for him to say. So the murder of innocent family members was another applause line for a while. Hell, he went even further at a Fox "news" GOP debate in March 2016. Asked by Bret Baier what he would do if his commanders in the field refuse to carry out an illegal order to kill the families of accused terrorists, Trump scoffed again (as scoffing is his primary method of speaking), "They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me. Believe me." Pressed on it, Trump went off, insisting that the wives and families of the 9/11 hijackers knew about the attack, were living in the United States, and were sent back to their home countries before 9/11. So, he implied, they weren't innocent and deserved to be killed. Of course, no one pointed out that none of the 9/11 hijackers had wives or children in the United States in the time before the attack.
But that didn't matter. Donald Trump was absolutely fucking firm on this point: it was weakness not to kill the families of terrorists during any action by the United States. In fact, they should be targeted as a way of threatening terrorists. He would later back off his statement that he would force the military to commit war crimes, but on his first full day as president, Trump visited CIA headquarters. He was shown video of a drone strike on a terrorist target where the target's family was in a house and the drone operator waited until the target was outside to fire in order to minimize the potential for other casualties. "Why did you wait?” Trump asked.
Trump told you outright that if you're a child who has the misfortune to be born to the wrong parents, he will fuck up your life worse than it may already be fucked up.
So it's not really a surprise that Trump's desire to punish adults by punishing their children has spread to his deranged border policies. When the Justice Department and Homeland Security changed its policy on immigrant families seeking asylum, it used the cruel language of human trafficking. America's shittiest leprechaun, Jeff Sessions, announced, "If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don't like that, then don't smuggle children over our border." You got that? You and your kids travel the rough journey to the United States from Honduras to try to escape that gang that killed your husband and is threatening to rape you and force your 10 year-old son to join up? You are now a child smuggler.
Now let's be clear: up to this point, while most of the separations have lasted no more than 10 days, more than a few cases have dragged on for weeks and months, with huge distances put between a mother and, say, her 1 year-old (that's real). This comes from treating every border crosser as a dangerous criminal and rejecting almost everyone who is seeking asylum. That is a change from previous administrations, especially when it comes to families.
But Sessions put this new policy in place just a few weeks ago, so there's no way to tell yet how awful it's going to become. All indications are that there has been a surge of separations. So let's be even clearer: You wanna fuck the brain of a child for good? You tear that child away from their family. That's what our government is doing now for no reason other than to be cruel to the parents who brought them here. We are wrecking the emotional development of kids. And we are treating people like animals, which, I guess, goes along with what Trump said (and, fuck you, he meant all non-white immigrants).
And let's be clear again: This is a different policy from the Obama administration. Democrats in Congress are not in any way responsible for this action. It is all Trump, but he's a pathetic, dumb skinsack of shit who refuses to take the blame for anything.
This nation has a terrible history of taking children away from their families, from the horror of selling slave children to the forced assimilation programs for Native American kids to, now, this.
And, as ever, no nightmare has occurred yet in this presidency that will stir the hearts of Republicans to stand up to Trump. Maybe if he gets around to fucking with white families.
America is saying, in essence, "The hell with your tired, screw your poor, and your huddled masses yearning to be free can go fuck themselves."
(Note: By Trump's "logic," when he, Donald, Jr., Eric, and Ivanka are arrested, they better fuckin' drag in Barron and Tiffany because, as Trump himself said about the families of criminals, "They know what's going on.")
5/28/2018
Poem for Memorial Day
"Ways of Looking at an IED" by Hugh Martin
Notice that in both photographs of the artillery shells there is a wire leading from the bag. Also
notice that the plastic bag had sand thrown on top of it to make it look more like roadside trash.
—1st Infantry Division Soldier’s Handbook to Iraq
1
Beside the field of potato rows,
Sumey sees an alarm clock
taped to a two-liter bottle. We create
a perimeter, back up the trucks, flatten
the potatoes under tires.
The Explosive Ordnance Disposal team
isn’t sure; when they’re not sure,
they blow it up.
2
Why don’t you walk over there, Spoon says,
and get yourself a Purple Heart.
3
With a broom, a woman beats a rug
draped over a clothesline. LT waves her away. Bomb,
bomb, he says, but she shakes her head,
turns her hips to swing again.
4
Spoon is awarded
the Purple Heart in June
when the shrapnel misses his head,
but the bricks that hide the bomb
knock him unconscious.
5
When the shell detonates beside our truck,
the sound is too loud to hear; the wind wraps us
with shrapnel, bricks, smoke; the ballistic windshield
shatters; glass on Kenson’s cheek—
blood like smeared lipstick.
6
For three hours we clear the neighborhood
because of a black plastic bag.
The staff sergeant in the bomb suit
orders everyone to back the fuck up even further.
In the bag he finds six ripe tomatoes.
7
Sergeant Sumey says he almost vomits
turning in the turret
to see our truck vanish
inside smoke. Thought you were all dead.
8
We avoid trash, disturbed soil, animal carcasses.
We arrest men
who dig beside the road.
We hate the ground.
9
Outside the city: rocks stacked
like children’s building blocks.
Sergeant Kenson won’t wait for EOD. It’s nothing,
he yells, and no one can stop him
when he starts to walk;
even LT tries to restrain him, but he walks,
and all four of us in the truck shout,
but it’s no use. When he lifts his leg
to kick the pile,
we look down. We close our eyes.
Notice that in both photographs of the artillery shells there is a wire leading from the bag. Also
notice that the plastic bag had sand thrown on top of it to make it look more like roadside trash.
—1st Infantry Division Soldier’s Handbook to Iraq
1
Beside the field of potato rows,
Sumey sees an alarm clock
taped to a two-liter bottle. We create
a perimeter, back up the trucks, flatten
the potatoes under tires.
The Explosive Ordnance Disposal team
isn’t sure; when they’re not sure,
they blow it up.
2
Why don’t you walk over there, Spoon says,
and get yourself a Purple Heart.
3
With a broom, a woman beats a rug
draped over a clothesline. LT waves her away. Bomb,
bomb, he says, but she shakes her head,
turns her hips to swing again.
4
Spoon is awarded
the Purple Heart in June
when the shrapnel misses his head,
but the bricks that hide the bomb
knock him unconscious.
5
When the shell detonates beside our truck,
the sound is too loud to hear; the wind wraps us
with shrapnel, bricks, smoke; the ballistic windshield
shatters; glass on Kenson’s cheek—
blood like smeared lipstick.
6
For three hours we clear the neighborhood
because of a black plastic bag.
The staff sergeant in the bomb suit
orders everyone to back the fuck up even further.
In the bag he finds six ripe tomatoes.
7
Sergeant Sumey says he almost vomits
turning in the turret
to see our truck vanish
inside smoke. Thought you were all dead.
8
We avoid trash, disturbed soil, animal carcasses.
We arrest men
who dig beside the road.
We hate the ground.
9
Outside the city: rocks stacked
like children’s building blocks.
Sergeant Kenson won’t wait for EOD. It’s nothing,
he yells, and no one can stop him
when he starts to walk;
even LT tries to restrain him, but he walks,
and all four of us in the truck shout,
but it’s no use. When he lifts his leg
to kick the pile,
we look down. We close our eyes.
Rude Pundit Patreon: Now With Rude Storytime
Memorial Day is a totally inappropriate time to sell shit, but everyone else does it, so what the hell.
Salute the troops by subscribing over at the Rude Pundit's Patreon page.
Now, in addition to extra weekly blog posts, you'll get the brand new "Rude Storytime," which is a terrible name for some fucked-up audio storytelling. The first one is there now, and it's about the three times I've had guns pointed at me. As one listener said, "You're as good a storyteller orally [insert rude comment here] as you are textually." Your mileage may vary.
My Uncle Jack fought in Japan so I could have the freedom to blog and do a podcast. Won't you honor him by subscribing?
(Note: That's totally true. My great uncle was an engineer in the Army in WWII. Ended up working for NASA for a while. And he was a genuinely great guy.)
Salute the troops by subscribing over at the Rude Pundit's Patreon page.
Now, in addition to extra weekly blog posts, you'll get the brand new "Rude Storytime," which is a terrible name for some fucked-up audio storytelling. The first one is there now, and it's about the three times I've had guns pointed at me. As one listener said, "You're as good a storyteller orally [insert rude comment here] as you are textually." Your mileage may vary.
My Uncle Jack fought in Japan so I could have the freedom to blog and do a podcast. Won't you honor him by subscribing?
(Note: That's totally true. My great uncle was an engineer in the Army in WWII. Ended up working for NASA for a while. And he was a genuinely great guy.)
5/24/2018
You Now Have a Patriotic Duty to Kneel During the National Anthem
You see that up there? That's Major General Benedict Arnold's Oath of Allegiance to the United States, signed, in the middle of the Revolutionary War, on May 30, 1778 at Valley Forge. By the end of 1779, Arnold was working for the British to defeat the United States. Lotta fuckin' good that loyalty oath did, huh? Professing your love of nation doesn't mean shit if you don't act like you love it.
Every generation or so, we have to go through this ludicrous exercise in symbol worship. Anti-flag-burning still rears its ugly-ass head every now and then even though the Supreme Court said in 1989 that it was free speech. You know who joined the majority in that case? Motherfuckin' Antonin Scalia who, when asked about it years later, said he did it because the First Amendment is the First Amendment. "If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king," he said in 2015. You got that? Freedom of speech specifically allows us to say things like "your bullshit symbols are bullshit."
And it allows us to not have to worship whatever symbols people in power tell us to worship. During the flag-burning debate, I wrote a comic piece about a joyful flag maker who is encouraging people to burn flags because he makes more money that way. The point was that a flag is a product, often not even made in the United States, that is purchased and is the property of the person who purchased it. If I bought it, it's mine. If I wanna wipe my ass with it, I can because capitalism.
You wanna assign each person their own flag that was sanctified with the blood of George Washington or whatnot, then we can talk about restrictions. But after 9/11, I saw flags that were flown to show pride in country that were just left up, on vehicles and homes, in the rain, in the wind, until they were faded in color, ragged, and worn, which, if you think about it, was pretty damn symbolic for the nation we became pretty quickly after 9/11. But no one was screaming that the pick-up truck driver with an NRA sticker and a "We Support the Troops" magnet should fuckin' respect the flag by taking that threadbare piece shit off his antenna, even though he should have.
Which gets us to the National Anthem.
Look, if you think the National Anthem is a good song, you're just wrong. It sucks. It's a terrible song with warmongering, violent words, a flag fetish, and a ludicrously bad melody that is only vaguely interesting to hear sung to see if the poor singer can actually hit the high note towards the end, at which point the dogs of Pavlovian patriotism in a crowd applaud for the singer not fucking it up. Seriously, though, we have one bullshit national anthem.
When the National Football League owners released its new policy that commands all players on the field to stand during the National Anthem or face fines, they may as well have wiped their asses with the stars and stripes. It didn't have to be this way. They could have just let the protest happen. Colin Kaepernick and the other players who knelt were protesting the mistreatment of African Americans by the police. Then our fucking dickhead president saw a chance to exploit people's racism and stupidity by condemning players for daring to have an opinion that wasn't his.
And that savage orange bastard said today that he agreed with the new policy. "You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country," he told pubic lice on Fox and Friends this morning. You should lose your job and your citizenship if you don't stand when a shitty song is played before a bunch of millionaires beat themselves into insanity for our entertainment and line the pockets of even richer men who would demand that they stand. Oh, they won't lock the bathrooms and the concession stands during the anthem at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. You can be sitting on a toilet and taking a shit while the Dallas Cowboys are forced to stand.
So now it's not just about protesting police violence. Now the only patriotic thing to do is to kneel when you're at a public event and they stupidly play our dumb anthem. At a Little League game? Take a knee. At a school event? Take a knee. At a football stadium? Take a fuckin' knee. Because the brutish asshole who leads this country still ain't a king, even though he wants to be. And enforced patriotism is just a way to make sure that people fuckin' hate the bullshit symbols.
You don't need to sign an oath or pledge to a flag or stand for a song to love your country. In fact, a country that makes you do that ain't worth your love. So show the players that are forced to stand that you still have a choice. Use it while you can.
5/23/2018
What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now? (Anti-Choice and Anti-Woman Edition)
There is no way in hell that Donald Trump did not pay for or have others pay for multiple abortions for the apparent multitude of women he fucked before marriage, between marriages, and while married. Whether it turns out that Elliott Broidy was covering up for Trump's affair and that Playboy model's abortion or if it's just Trump bankrolling other abortions, Trump had to have knocked up some women who didn't have a pre-nup with him. So whenever he disparages abortion rights, especially after decades of open support of choice (because no shit), it's with a kind of hypocrisy that he usually reserves for wedding vows and business deals.
In the wake of new Title X regulations that target abortions providers, including things like requiring "clear physical and financial divisions between programs that receive Title X funding and programs that perform or support abortion as family planning," Trump undulated over to the National Building Museum in DC to address the awfully named Susan B. Anthony List at its Campaign for Life Gala.
In other words, the guy who bragged about sexual voraciousness and adultery was asking to be praised for making it harder for women to get abortions. And the supposedly religious people there welcomed him with open arms.
So much of it was the same yadda, yadda, yadda. He mentioned the 2016 election: "Your hard work helped us to achieve this historic victory, our historic victory, one of the great victories of all time in politics," along with mocking Democrats with "They were not happy. They were going to have a big, beautiful party. Didn’t turn out to be such a good party." You won. Get over it.
And do you remember a couple of weeks ago when not supporting torturer and evidence destroyer Gina Haspel for CIA director made you so sexist that you should be ashamed of yourself? Yeah, that kind of respect for someone just because of her sex doesn't extend to Democrats because Trump repeatedly attacked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "Democrats like to campaign as moderates at election time, but when they go to Washington, they always vote for the radical Pelosi agenda down the line," Trump said, adding, "Can you imagine having Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House?" The gathered members of an organization named after the founder of the feminist movement in the United States booed the first woman speaker of the House.
It didn't stop there. "Nancy Pelosi and the group — you heard her the other day — she wants to raise your taxes," Trump explained. And "the other day — just the other day — Nancy Pelosi came out in favor of MS-13. That’s the first time I’ve heard that. She wants them to be treated with respect, as do other Democrats." That's in response to some Democrats and others saying that perhaps it's not right for the president of the goddamn United States to call people "animals." Of course, instead of admitting an error, Trump doubled down and now every release on MS-13 from the White House calls them "animals." Hell, he's doing it at a speech in Long Island right now.
The most uncomfortable moment of the whole thing? Maybe when Trump praised the organization's namesake: "This organization bears the name of one of the greatest champions of freedom in American history: Susan B. Anthony. She fought for decades to end slavery, to secure women’s right to vote, and to respect the dignity of every single person. A great person, a great woman, was she." He doesn't know a goddamn thing about her.
But I'm gonna go with Trump quoting the Bible. Using a verse that anti-choice maniacs love to throw out there because they think it has to do with abortion, Trump said, "As the Lord says in Jeremiah, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…Before you were born, I set you apart.'"
Except, see, the next line is "I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" because God is very specifically talking about Jeremiah. And then, since this is the Old Testament, God isn't exactly very pro-life. In fact, what God is telling Jeremiah is that the people of the nation of Judah were being dicks who needed some smiting and that there was gonna be some wars for years and years where, yeah, a lot of fuckin' people would die. God was telling Jeremiah to be ready to kick ass.
This "pro-life" passage is a prelude to talking about lots of killing. It's just getting shit wrong to separate it out. Much like having a pussy-grabbing, misogynistic, raping creep speak to your allegedly "pro-woman" organization.
Honestly, the ghost of Susan B. Anthony should have appeared with the ghost of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both wearing strap-ons, and they should have taken turns smacking Trump in his face with the dildos.
In the wake of new Title X regulations that target abortions providers, including things like requiring "clear physical and financial divisions between programs that receive Title X funding and programs that perform or support abortion as family planning," Trump undulated over to the National Building Museum in DC to address the awfully named Susan B. Anthony List at its Campaign for Life Gala.
In other words, the guy who bragged about sexual voraciousness and adultery was asking to be praised for making it harder for women to get abortions. And the supposedly religious people there welcomed him with open arms.
So much of it was the same yadda, yadda, yadda. He mentioned the 2016 election: "Your hard work helped us to achieve this historic victory, our historic victory, one of the great victories of all time in politics," along with mocking Democrats with "They were not happy. They were going to have a big, beautiful party. Didn’t turn out to be such a good party." You won. Get over it.
And do you remember a couple of weeks ago when not supporting torturer and evidence destroyer Gina Haspel for CIA director made you so sexist that you should be ashamed of yourself? Yeah, that kind of respect for someone just because of her sex doesn't extend to Democrats because Trump repeatedly attacked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "Democrats like to campaign as moderates at election time, but when they go to Washington, they always vote for the radical Pelosi agenda down the line," Trump said, adding, "Can you imagine having Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House?" The gathered members of an organization named after the founder of the feminist movement in the United States booed the first woman speaker of the House.
It didn't stop there. "Nancy Pelosi and the group — you heard her the other day — she wants to raise your taxes," Trump explained. And "the other day — just the other day — Nancy Pelosi came out in favor of MS-13. That’s the first time I’ve heard that. She wants them to be treated with respect, as do other Democrats." That's in response to some Democrats and others saying that perhaps it's not right for the president of the goddamn United States to call people "animals." Of course, instead of admitting an error, Trump doubled down and now every release on MS-13 from the White House calls them "animals." Hell, he's doing it at a speech in Long Island right now.
The most uncomfortable moment of the whole thing? Maybe when Trump praised the organization's namesake: "This organization bears the name of one of the greatest champions of freedom in American history: Susan B. Anthony. She fought for decades to end slavery, to secure women’s right to vote, and to respect the dignity of every single person. A great person, a great woman, was she." He doesn't know a goddamn thing about her.
But I'm gonna go with Trump quoting the Bible. Using a verse that anti-choice maniacs love to throw out there because they think it has to do with abortion, Trump said, "As the Lord says in Jeremiah, 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…Before you were born, I set you apart.'"
Except, see, the next line is "I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" because God is very specifically talking about Jeremiah. And then, since this is the Old Testament, God isn't exactly very pro-life. In fact, what God is telling Jeremiah is that the people of the nation of Judah were being dicks who needed some smiting and that there was gonna be some wars for years and years where, yeah, a lot of fuckin' people would die. God was telling Jeremiah to be ready to kick ass.
This "pro-life" passage is a prelude to talking about lots of killing. It's just getting shit wrong to separate it out. Much like having a pussy-grabbing, misogynistic, raping creep speak to your allegedly "pro-woman" organization.
Honestly, the ghost of Susan B. Anthony should have appeared with the ghost of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both wearing strap-ons, and they should have taken turns smacking Trump in his face with the dildos.
5/22/2018
The Worst of All Possible Worlds: We Need Republicans to Act Against Trump
I have been sitting here, drinking away the lunch hour(s), trying to figure out a way to encapsulate the hogpile of fuckery that has involved the Trump administration just in the last few days.
I've thought about metaphors, like say Donald Trump is pretty much a guy who likes to fuck sheep but he's always just lived on a small farm with only a couple of sheep in the barn for him to fuck, but then, all of a sudden, someone mistakes his fucking of sheep for being a really good shepherd and he's hired to take care of a giant flock which for him is like fuck paradise and now he's fucking all the sheep he can, fucking them every which way, in their sheep asses, in their sheep pussies, in their sheep ears, sometimes just rubbing his dick on the fleece on their bodies until he orgasms, and no one's stopping him, no matter how much people point over the fence and say, "He's fucking the sheep, sweet Jesus. He's fucking the sheep," but no one who could stop him from sheep-fucking is going to stop him, and, horrible as it is, you can't look away because there's a fat old man fucking sheep.
But I didn't feel like that metaphor captured the nuances of the situation.
I've thought about recent history, like the "Chinagate" "scandal," where Bill Clinton was accused of shifting policy to favor the Chinese because China had attempted to donate to Democrats, including the president's reelection campaign, and Clinton's legal defense fund. Without getting into the muck of the details and the conflicting conclusions (although some on the right really believe this is The Worst Scandal In American History and Clinton should have been shot for it), let's just deal with objectively what occurred: there were Justice Department investigations that included teams of FBI agents involved, a Senate investigation, and a House investigation, with Democrats, including Joe Biden, being critical of Clinton.
At no point did Clinton attack the DOJ or Attorney General Janet Reno or FBI Director Louis Freeh. In fact, what Clinton said was "[The allegations] obviously have to be thoroughly investigated and I do not want to speculate or accuse anyone of anything...Obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our parties for any reason whatever" and said the investigations should get to the bottom of the matter. Whatever he might have done behind the scenes, Clinton did nothing but respect the independence of the DOJ and the people who work there. By the way, the amounts of money that were involved in Chinagate were ludicrously small, like in the $80,000 range (out of over $190 million that the DNC raised in 1996). And the foreign policy actions that Clinton supposedly took to favor China were just a continuation of a deal made under George H.W. Bush. You know, back when presidents honored the agreements of other presidents.
Compare that to what ought to be Trump's Chinagate, which involves a $500 million loan by a Chinese government-run company for an Indonesian project that includes a Trump hotel and golf course. On its own, the fact that a company still owned by the President of the United States is getting massive infusions of capital from foreign countries ought to be a goddamned scandal that'd make Clinton's Chinagate look like the chump change it is. But add into that the fact that Trump tweeted, just a few days after the announced investment, support for the Chinese phone company ZTE, which had been sanctioned by the U.S. for illegal trading with, you know, Iran. And now Trump appears to be backing away from his much-hyped trade war with China as the Chinese roll the United States in whatever the fuck is going on with negotiations. Frankly, the easiest way any of it makes sense is if the trade war threat was just a negotiating tactic to get that Chinese investment in the Indonesian project.
That's a motherfuckin' Chinagate. It's not even a complicated scandal. Trump's company directly benefits from the loan, which means Trump and his family directly benefit from the loan, and anything that Trump does to help China has at least the appearance of a bribed quid pro quo. This ain't Russian pee hookers or clandestine meetings with idiot man-children and a real goddamn pedophile. This doesn't even involve spies. It's a fucking bribe. It's the simplest form of corruption there is.
In fact, let's leave aside the entire Russia probe, which is so monumental in its implications that Republicans just plug their fingers in their ears and scream, "La-la-la, I can't hear you" rather than deal with it. Let's just deal with another easy one.
Trump personally contacted Megan Brennan, the Postmaster General of the United States (not the Postmaster General of Trump, but the whole fuckin' country), to get her to double the shipping rate on packages sent by Amazon because Trump hates the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Trump tried on several occasions to get her to do what is clearly a violation of a contract Amazon has with the Postal Service. But we all know that a contract to Trump is just something used to wipe his swampy ass dry. Brennan, obviously understanding her audience, sent Trump a series of slides showing him that Amazon is paying a fair rate and that the USPS makes money on the deal. But even a picture show couldn't convince our fucking idiot president that he's wrong once some lie gets Fox-trapped in his thick, oatmeal-filled skull.
That's a scandal. That's the goddamn president targeting and attempting to punish an American and an American company because one of the entities in that company doesn't worship Trump. That's abuse of power. That's a violation of his oath. That's fucking easy to understand.
I know we keep thinking, like a mantra to give us some modicum of peace, "Just wait until the midterms. Wait until the midterms." But unless Democrats take back both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities, something that is frankly impossible, we still need Republicans to shake off whatever combination of craven political power-mongering and greed they have in order to step the fuck up here. Even in 2019, Republicans would be needed to remove Trump from office over any of the extravagantly impeachable scandals that are racking up on a daily basis.
Again, I'm not even talking about whatever Robert Mueller's investigation might find. I'm saying that the crisis is here, now, and it's not just in the big, grand uber-scandal that Trump is not the legitimate president. I'm talking about the quotidian, easily comprehensible graft and threats. What we might simple call "the dictator shit." And he's getting away with the dictator shit because the elected officials who are supposed to stop the dictator shit aren't doing a goddamn thing.
That's on Republicans. But the GOP has signaled, in ways small and big, that not only are they not interested in holding Trump to account, but they will do what they can to aid and abet the entire hogpile of fuckery, starting with the repulsive pile of goat vomit, Devin Nunes, who will go down the shitter of history as "that fucker who kept letting Trump get away with it." And that'll go for nearly every Republican in Congress right now. This is the other big scandal: the dereliction of duty by the majority party in the Legislative Branch.
But that kind of talk does us no good. The best we can hope is that a 2018 Democratic wave will scare the shit out of Republicans. Hell, it might even make a few of them change party when the choice is fealty to a vile orange blob or the possibility of some kind of redemption. Trump's balls can't taste that good.
And Democrats should run on those easily understandable scandals, not the Russia stuff, precisely because it's just easier to communicate in a 30-second ad: He took a bribe. He threatened to make your Amazon deliveries cost more. He's an asshole because of that and needs to be stopped. Right now, Republicans aren't doing their fucking jobs. Democrats can run on just doing the fucking job of a member of Congress.
Otherwise, yeah, we're all just standing at the gate, yelling, "Won't someone, for the love of God, stop him from fucking those sheep?"
I've thought about metaphors, like say Donald Trump is pretty much a guy who likes to fuck sheep but he's always just lived on a small farm with only a couple of sheep in the barn for him to fuck, but then, all of a sudden, someone mistakes his fucking of sheep for being a really good shepherd and he's hired to take care of a giant flock which for him is like fuck paradise and now he's fucking all the sheep he can, fucking them every which way, in their sheep asses, in their sheep pussies, in their sheep ears, sometimes just rubbing his dick on the fleece on their bodies until he orgasms, and no one's stopping him, no matter how much people point over the fence and say, "He's fucking the sheep, sweet Jesus. He's fucking the sheep," but no one who could stop him from sheep-fucking is going to stop him, and, horrible as it is, you can't look away because there's a fat old man fucking sheep.
But I didn't feel like that metaphor captured the nuances of the situation.
I've thought about recent history, like the "Chinagate" "scandal," where Bill Clinton was accused of shifting policy to favor the Chinese because China had attempted to donate to Democrats, including the president's reelection campaign, and Clinton's legal defense fund. Without getting into the muck of the details and the conflicting conclusions (although some on the right really believe this is The Worst Scandal In American History and Clinton should have been shot for it), let's just deal with objectively what occurred: there were Justice Department investigations that included teams of FBI agents involved, a Senate investigation, and a House investigation, with Democrats, including Joe Biden, being critical of Clinton.
At no point did Clinton attack the DOJ or Attorney General Janet Reno or FBI Director Louis Freeh. In fact, what Clinton said was "[The allegations] obviously have to be thoroughly investigated and I do not want to speculate or accuse anyone of anything...Obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our parties for any reason whatever" and said the investigations should get to the bottom of the matter. Whatever he might have done behind the scenes, Clinton did nothing but respect the independence of the DOJ and the people who work there. By the way, the amounts of money that were involved in Chinagate were ludicrously small, like in the $80,000 range (out of over $190 million that the DNC raised in 1996). And the foreign policy actions that Clinton supposedly took to favor China were just a continuation of a deal made under George H.W. Bush. You know, back when presidents honored the agreements of other presidents.
Compare that to what ought to be Trump's Chinagate, which involves a $500 million loan by a Chinese government-run company for an Indonesian project that includes a Trump hotel and golf course. On its own, the fact that a company still owned by the President of the United States is getting massive infusions of capital from foreign countries ought to be a goddamned scandal that'd make Clinton's Chinagate look like the chump change it is. But add into that the fact that Trump tweeted, just a few days after the announced investment, support for the Chinese phone company ZTE, which had been sanctioned by the U.S. for illegal trading with, you know, Iran. And now Trump appears to be backing away from his much-hyped trade war with China as the Chinese roll the United States in whatever the fuck is going on with negotiations. Frankly, the easiest way any of it makes sense is if the trade war threat was just a negotiating tactic to get that Chinese investment in the Indonesian project.
That's a motherfuckin' Chinagate. It's not even a complicated scandal. Trump's company directly benefits from the loan, which means Trump and his family directly benefit from the loan, and anything that Trump does to help China has at least the appearance of a bribed quid pro quo. This ain't Russian pee hookers or clandestine meetings with idiot man-children and a real goddamn pedophile. This doesn't even involve spies. It's a fucking bribe. It's the simplest form of corruption there is.
In fact, let's leave aside the entire Russia probe, which is so monumental in its implications that Republicans just plug their fingers in their ears and scream, "La-la-la, I can't hear you" rather than deal with it. Let's just deal with another easy one.
Trump personally contacted Megan Brennan, the Postmaster General of the United States (not the Postmaster General of Trump, but the whole fuckin' country), to get her to double the shipping rate on packages sent by Amazon because Trump hates the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Trump tried on several occasions to get her to do what is clearly a violation of a contract Amazon has with the Postal Service. But we all know that a contract to Trump is just something used to wipe his swampy ass dry. Brennan, obviously understanding her audience, sent Trump a series of slides showing him that Amazon is paying a fair rate and that the USPS makes money on the deal. But even a picture show couldn't convince our fucking idiot president that he's wrong once some lie gets Fox-trapped in his thick, oatmeal-filled skull.
That's a scandal. That's the goddamn president targeting and attempting to punish an American and an American company because one of the entities in that company doesn't worship Trump. That's abuse of power. That's a violation of his oath. That's fucking easy to understand.
I know we keep thinking, like a mantra to give us some modicum of peace, "Just wait until the midterms. Wait until the midterms." But unless Democrats take back both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities, something that is frankly impossible, we still need Republicans to shake off whatever combination of craven political power-mongering and greed they have in order to step the fuck up here. Even in 2019, Republicans would be needed to remove Trump from office over any of the extravagantly impeachable scandals that are racking up on a daily basis.
Again, I'm not even talking about whatever Robert Mueller's investigation might find. I'm saying that the crisis is here, now, and it's not just in the big, grand uber-scandal that Trump is not the legitimate president. I'm talking about the quotidian, easily comprehensible graft and threats. What we might simple call "the dictator shit." And he's getting away with the dictator shit because the elected officials who are supposed to stop the dictator shit aren't doing a goddamn thing.
That's on Republicans. But the GOP has signaled, in ways small and big, that not only are they not interested in holding Trump to account, but they will do what they can to aid and abet the entire hogpile of fuckery, starting with the repulsive pile of goat vomit, Devin Nunes, who will go down the shitter of history as "that fucker who kept letting Trump get away with it." And that'll go for nearly every Republican in Congress right now. This is the other big scandal: the dereliction of duty by the majority party in the Legislative Branch.
But that kind of talk does us no good. The best we can hope is that a 2018 Democratic wave will scare the shit out of Republicans. Hell, it might even make a few of them change party when the choice is fealty to a vile orange blob or the possibility of some kind of redemption. Trump's balls can't taste that good.
And Democrats should run on those easily understandable scandals, not the Russia stuff, precisely because it's just easier to communicate in a 30-second ad: He took a bribe. He threatened to make your Amazon deliveries cost more. He's an asshole because of that and needs to be stopped. Right now, Republicans aren't doing their fucking jobs. Democrats can run on just doing the fucking job of a member of Congress.
Otherwise, yeah, we're all just standing at the gate, yelling, "Won't someone, for the love of God, stop him from fucking those sheep?"
5/18/2018
Time to Do the School-Shooting Roundelay Again
Hey, everyone, there's been another school shooting, this time at Santa Fe High School, right near I-45, southeast of Houston, on the way to Galveston. You can get there by taking the same exit you used to take to get to the Mall of the Mainland, which is now a space for a church, a gym, and other assorted stuff.
And so it's time to do the school-shooting roundelay, the slow dance that is a closed circle of people where everyone moves a bit but the circle never goes anywhere.
We're still in the "we're shocked and appalled" step now, while we still learn how many are dead and injured. The count is up to 10 fatalities now. And we're still learning about the weapons involved. One officer at the scene said the assailant went into Santa Fe High with "an AR-15-style rifle, a pistol, a shotgun, and pipe bombs," leaving "a bloody mess in the school."
The horror will inevitably combine with the "thoughts and prayers" step, which will be followed by the "shooter is a socialist Bernie-lover" turn until it becomes the "oh, wait, nope, he's another right-wing asshole" twist, which will be followed by the "anger and outrage against guns" step, accompanied by the "we need new gun laws" kick, which is followed quickly by the "angry backlash against the anger and outrage" twirl with a "too soon to talk about it" flourish, accompanied by the "2nd Amendment is more important than lives" head nod, the "law-abiding gun owners" saunter, and the "you don't know what an assault rifle is, libtard" bow, which is followed by the "we need action" foot stomp and the "mental illness" waist thrust, which is followed by the "don't worry, gun nuts, we're not touching your precious murder tools" final step. Eventually, the dance will be complete, everyone will end up where they began, and most, but not all, will leave to go to their regular lives, while others will stay behind and wonder why no one will let them change from a roundelay to a two-step, where at least you can end up in a new place on the dance floor.
There is nothing left to say. We've said it all before. The vast, vast majority of the nation knows what needs to be done, but we are hostages of the National Rifle Association and their army of paranoid morons who can't comprehend why we're all not as batshit paranoid as they are.
One student from Santa Fe High was interviewed by a local news reporter. When the girl was asked if she thought a shooting would never happen at her school, she answered, sadly, wisely, with the kind of resignation no young teen should ever have to muster, "No. It’s been happening everywhere. I’ve always felt it would eventually happen here, too." We (and when I say, "We," I mean, "We," as in you, me, everyone) have failed to protect our kids. We have failed as a country.
By the way, the district's member of Congress, Republican Randy Weber, has an "A" from the NRA for his pro-gun votes.
All the way on the other side of Texas, in El Paso, an elementary school was briefly closed because yesterday, after school was over, a box of ammunition fell from a military helicopter. It went through the roof of Parkland Elementary and caused a partial power outage. Which means that the flight path of helicopters carrying live ammo from Fort Bliss is over a school. In West Texas, where there is so much space that you could travel for hours without seeing a person. That's how much our kids mean to us. Not even enough to go around them with our official death machines.
We'll dance again. And again. Until the roundelay becomes a danse macabre, accompanying more and more of us to our end.
(Update: It appears shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis did not have had the AR-15 style rifle. Obviously, more will come out as we go along. It's all part of this dance.)
And so it's time to do the school-shooting roundelay, the slow dance that is a closed circle of people where everyone moves a bit but the circle never goes anywhere.
We're still in the "we're shocked and appalled" step now, while we still learn how many are dead and injured. The count is up to 10 fatalities now. And we're still learning about the weapons involved. One officer at the scene said the assailant went into Santa Fe High with "an AR-15-style rifle, a pistol, a shotgun, and pipe bombs," leaving "a bloody mess in the school."
The horror will inevitably combine with the "thoughts and prayers" step, which will be followed by the "shooter is a socialist Bernie-lover" turn until it becomes the "oh, wait, nope, he's another right-wing asshole" twist, which will be followed by the "anger and outrage against guns" step, accompanied by the "we need new gun laws" kick, which is followed quickly by the "angry backlash against the anger and outrage" twirl with a "too soon to talk about it" flourish, accompanied by the "2nd Amendment is more important than lives" head nod, the "law-abiding gun owners" saunter, and the "you don't know what an assault rifle is, libtard" bow, which is followed by the "we need action" foot stomp and the "mental illness" waist thrust, which is followed by the "don't worry, gun nuts, we're not touching your precious murder tools" final step. Eventually, the dance will be complete, everyone will end up where they began, and most, but not all, will leave to go to their regular lives, while others will stay behind and wonder why no one will let them change from a roundelay to a two-step, where at least you can end up in a new place on the dance floor.
There is nothing left to say. We've said it all before. The vast, vast majority of the nation knows what needs to be done, but we are hostages of the National Rifle Association and their army of paranoid morons who can't comprehend why we're all not as batshit paranoid as they are.
One student from Santa Fe High was interviewed by a local news reporter. When the girl was asked if she thought a shooting would never happen at her school, she answered, sadly, wisely, with the kind of resignation no young teen should ever have to muster, "No. It’s been happening everywhere. I’ve always felt it would eventually happen here, too." We (and when I say, "We," I mean, "We," as in you, me, everyone) have failed to protect our kids. We have failed as a country.
By the way, the district's member of Congress, Republican Randy Weber, has an "A" from the NRA for his pro-gun votes.
All the way on the other side of Texas, in El Paso, an elementary school was briefly closed because yesterday, after school was over, a box of ammunition fell from a military helicopter. It went through the roof of Parkland Elementary and caused a partial power outage. Which means that the flight path of helicopters carrying live ammo from Fort Bliss is over a school. In West Texas, where there is so much space that you could travel for hours without seeing a person. That's how much our kids mean to us. Not even enough to go around them with our official death machines.
We'll dance again. And again. Until the roundelay becomes a danse macabre, accompanying more and more of us to our end.
(Update: It appears shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis did not have had the AR-15 style rifle. Obviously, more will come out as we go along. It's all part of this dance.)
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