They Once Blew Up a Classroom Over Textbooks, So, Yeah, There Will Be Violence

In 1974, in West Virginia, protesters used dynamite and Molotov cocktails against the buildings of their enemies. The protesters were upset that the Board of Education of Kanawha County voted to update the textbooks in the district's language arts classes to include more modern authors in an effort to be more inclusive and multiracial. Kanawha County is the biggest in the state, and it includes the capital, Charleston. A fundamentalist Christian member of the board, Alice Moore, discovered that some of the new books included profanity, sex, evolution, and Freud. Oh, they also contained works by Black activists like Malcom X. Moore said that she was upset that the new books would teach American history in a way "unduly favoring Blacks." Yeah, the connections to the current fuckery over curriculum in schools are that blatant. 

Moore was able to get churches and conservative groups all worked up and calls for the books to be banned became school boycotts, which became marches that included the KKK and, of course, Confederate flags, and those marches led to violence, including 15 sticks of dynamite used to blow up part of the school board building and dynamite thrown into a first grade classroom, where, fortunately, no one was present, but the room was ruined. The books were temporarily removed from schools, but, as a Village Voice article from 1974 says, "During the weeks the books were out of the schools, English teachers all over the county were scared to teach anything but grammar in case any work of literature, even Shakespeare, goaded some hotheads to bomb their buildings." Shots were fired at a school bus, homes were shot at and bombed, and more. 

And it was all over goddamn school textbooks. I mean, look, if I feel like giving any credit at all to the violent fucknuts that plague us, I can, in the most abstract way possible, understand how someone who has been gorging themselves to vomiting on lies and Christian bullshit would get it in their heads that clinics where abortions are performed are murdering people, so they need to be closed. Again, the violent fucknuts are wrong and insane, but I get it. I get bombing military recruiting centers in the Vietnam War. I don't agree, but, shit, I get that when you think you're saving lives, you might be inclined to extremism. But this shit was over books, and the crazed motherfuckers went full-bore terrorism, based in the area's churches that preached their bible is the only book anyone needed. And to prove how fucking Christian they were, "one preacher prayed fervently and publicly for the death of three school board members."

This was fear, man, fear of how the world was changing, how nonwhites were being treated with increasing equality, how women were going to work, how kids were rebelling against the nonsensical religious garbage. When the old ways die and when there are people in power who support the old ways going into the shit heap of history, the desire to halt what we might quaintly call "progress" will inspire savagery. 

Today, I don't think we're heading into a civil war. I've said before that we are too lazy a nation, and arresting people can do a helluva job in slapping down the insurrection erection to a flaccid effort. 

However, it's hard not to believe that we're going to see violence going into and as a result of November 8's midterm election. Death threats have gutted local elections offices. Armed fucknuts are showing up to oversee ballot drop boxes. And that's not getting into the nonstop stream of death threats and other threats of violence (and, with the most recent attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband by a fucknut who wanted to assassinate Pelosi, actual violence) against elected officials. You shouldn't need to have a spine of steel to sit at a goddamn table and count votes for minimum wage. You shouldn't have to worry about your life being ruined by online barbarians just for doing your job. And I haven't even gotten into all the threats and violence against school officials and teachers.

Right now, Republicans are telling MAGA cretins and other assorted shitheels and scumfucks that they are going to win back the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. They are saying that there is no way they can legitimately lose, and, in fact, if they do lose, it must be because of Democratic fraud, cheating, and theft. Tucker Carlson, who has the laugh of someone having a great time fucking a corpse, has proclaimed as much to his millions of Nazi and Nazi-adjacent viewers. GOP candidates like Kari Lake, who you know masturbates with a Trump-shaped dildo, and Blake Masters, who you know masturbates with a Peter Thiel-shaped dildo, are refusing to say they'll accept the results of the election if they lose. 

How do you think those armed and ready assholes are gonna react if Democrats end up winning? Hell, the GOP could win both houses, but if there's an election where they think they should have won, like with Herschel Walker in Georgia, that's gonna tell the locked and loaded crowd it's go time. Christ, speaking of Georgia, I don't wanna think about how insane the state's gonna get if Stacey Abrams wins the governorship. If you tell gullible motherfuckers that those who oppose you are satanic baby murderers who steal elections so they can murder more babies, more than a few of those motherfuckers are gonna react as if that's true.

It's fucking madness that we're even living through this, that we're not just talking about it, but fully expecting it and preparing for it. 

And the point of the story I started with, about what became known as the "Textbook Wars," is not just that violence can happen over the stupidest goddamn things. No, the point is about what came after, when the violence was over and the protests ended and people went to jail for the worst acts and everyone went back to their lives and the books were allowed to be used.

Yeah, that's right. But the Board of Education gave each school the right to say whether or not they used them. And a good many of the schools did not. After a few years, in some schools, thousands of unused books were burned just to dispose of them to open up storage space. And Alice Moore got the school board to pass a new regulation that prohibited any books that "pry into home life; teach racial hatred; undermine religious, ethnic, or racial groups; encourage sedition; insult patriotism; teach that an alien form of government is acceptable; use the name of God in vain; or use offensive language."

In other words, the regressive bastards won the battle. And the war rages on.

(Some of the info in here comes from the fascinating BBC podcast Things Fell Apart, where Jon Ronson delves into the origins of some recent culture war battles. I was dismayed and angered remembering some of the stories in there.)

The Questions Republican Candidates Aren't Being Asked Enough (or At All)

We know that if Republicans win back even one house of Congress, the whole place will become a nightmare of masturbating clowns, all cackling wildly as they rub and tug their greasepainted genitals to a screaming spurt and then declare they're ride-or-die Americans just engaged in old-fashioned horseplay to own the libs. Unfortunately, not enough attention has been paid to just how fucking insane that is. The typical Democrat will say, "Republicans will take away your abortion rights and destroy democracy." What they need to add is "and they're scary clowns jacking off on the Constitution." 

I don't think that most Americans really understand that part. Sure, we here on the musky Twitter machine have that awareness, but we are not most Americans. While the moderators of the debates I've seen or read about do ask if the Republican accepts that Joe Biden won the 2020 election or if the Republican will accept the results of the 2022 election, voters need to know what they're getting with the GOP candidates. Because, see, it sure as shit seems as if a lot of voters think that when they vote for Republicans this cycle, they're trading already tenuous abortion rights for cheaper milk and safer streets. They don't realize that what they're really getting is a pack of crazed clowns who will spooge on them after they murder them.

For instance, as far as I've seen, no debate moderator or TV interviewer has asked a GOP candidate, "If the Justice Department indicts former president Donald Trump, will you do anything to hinder that prosecution?" We know already that, should the GOP win in November, potential future Speaker of the House and awkward walrus Kevin McCarthy and rejected Glengarry Glen Ross character Jim Jordan, among other skeevy Republicans, have pledged to investigate the DOJ over the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago, Trump's decaying fake home in Florida. We know that the GOP is promising to shut down the government and gut the economy with a rusty shiv and dance in its entrails if they don't get to cut Social Security and Medicare. So since the pieces are all there, c'mon, make the motherfuckers say if they'll use us all as a human shield to prevent anything happening to Trump. 

Along those lines, ask them if they'll do anything to prevent prosecutions of the criminals who attacked the Capitol. Again, we know that a Republican House will shut down the January 6 Committee. Hell, some of them have even said they'll investigate the members of the committee for...fuck, I don't know, so let's just say "for reasons." The majority of Americans support the work of the committee. It seems like it might be important to find out if the GOP plans to cut its legs and heart out.

Ask candidates what investigations they will support. Republicans are teeing up a shit-ton of probes. They're gonna investigate Hunter Biden because Fox "news" and QAnon nutzoids demand it, even if there's not a single goddamn reason to do it. They're gonna investigate Dr. Anthony Fauci because of course they will. They're gonna investigate anyone who ever said or did anything to make Donald Trump or his terrible children feel bad, including the FBI. And you bet your fucking life they're gonna investigate the absolute horseshit about the "stolen" 2020 election. The crazies will riot if they don't. They're gonna investigate critical race theory, drag queens, and doctors who help transgender kids. And the fucking voters deserve to know if this is the shit they're voting for. In 2020, Democratic candidates were very clear that investigating the Trump administration was on the table. Get the GOP candidates on the record.  

And if Republicans are going to make a big fucking stink about things, ask them what the fuck they're gonna do about it. "Okay, Rep. Trumphumper, you keep saying inflation is out of control. What the fuck are you gonna do about it?" Or "Tell us, Mr. Qsucker, what the fuck are you gonna do about all the crime you say is going on out there?" The answer, of course, is not a goddamn thing. On inflation, they say they're gonna cut government spending. So? All that does is harm people at the bottom. And they say they're gonna end government regulations. This shit is to make life easier on corporations, who will almost assuredly not pass the profits on to the consumers (see: the greedy pigs in the oil and gas industry). On crime, they're gonna "incentivize" the hiring of more cops, which is utterly fucking meaningless. They have no fucking plans beyond controlling people's bodies and minds and enriching the rich while tricking the rubes into thinking that racism and hatred is a viable course for domestic policies as long as their evil Christian nationalist ideology can fuck shit up for the rest of us. While these questions may get asked, candidates need to be pressed to give real answers.

So this note is for local media, including debate moderators: Ask your candidates if they are going to do their fucking jobs or waste everyone's time on utter and complete bullshit. And ask Republicans point blank if they intend to join in any effort to shut down the federal government, something that the vast majority of voters despise. In the MAGA districts, it won't matter: the more batshit, the better for those troglodytes. But in races where it's tight, get 'em on the record. If a candidate is a masturbating clown, it's better to know now that to wait until they're in office and put on the wig and nose and break out the lube.

Oh, one more question: Ask Republican candidates if they intend to support the effort to impeach Joe Biden. Just to see. 

(Note: I have not watched every debate or read every article on every congressional election. I'm only one human being, goddamnit. If these questions have been asked in a race you're watching, lemme know and I'll be glad to update.)

The Patriotic Case for Jailing Donald Trump

Thursday's hearing by the January 6 Committee was clarifying in the way that a great closing argument at a trial can be, pulling together threads that had previously come up and demonstrating how someone is guilty of the crime or crimes they've been accused of. What is so absolutely glisteningly clear is that Donald Trump, while President of the United States (a thing that really did happen), tried to overturn a legitimate election he had lost. What's more, he knew that he had lost the election and he knew that the election had been legitimate. What's more, he knew ahead of time how the voting was going to go for the election, that mail-in ballots, the number of which surged because voters were encouraged to vote by mail during the pandemic, would be counted later and break towards Biden. Because he knew this, he planned, with others, in advance to say he had won, even if he had lost, and then to fight it out to the bitter end, making everything that came after premeditated.

What's more, he knew he was calling on supporters, many of whom were inclined towards violence against Democrats and what they perceived as RINOs, to come to Washington, DC and march on the Capitol to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes. What's more, when the expected violence started, he did nothing to stop it for hours, abandoning his Oath of Office and watching on TV to see if the violent mob might succeed. 

What's more, to this day, Trump keeps propagating something he knows is a lie, which is not only causing threats of violence and harassment of election workers and politicians. And his language is leading to the strong possibility that a bunch of those who go along with the erroneous election belief will be elected themselves, so that, even if Trump doesn't run, they will do possibly irreparable harm to the democracy and to the nation. 

And yet, for some reason, Donald Trump has not been jailed. He is free to "truth" out election lies and QAnon conspiracy madness. He holds rallies where he preens and prances like a parody of a dictator, warning his decreasing crowds of crazy cretins to be prepared to fight for him or to make sure that his lies never die, even if he goes ungently into that good night. He is investigated and investigated, giving the impression that those investigating him do not have enough to indict or arrest him, let alone convict him. Perhaps that is true, but that hasn't been tested yet, but the narrative sticks because of how Trump has slipped out of any attempt to hold him accountable, except for the 2020 election.

Maybe I'm naive, and I'm certainly not a lawyer or legal expert, but if someone's stated goal is to overthrow the elected government of the United States and that someone is fomenting violence and threats of violence against those who don't want to overthrow the elected government of the United States, then it would be patriotic to arrest that person. It would be patriotic to hold them without bail until trial so that they can't keep fanning the flames of rebellion, a rebellion that is based on lies that have been called lies by people across the political spectrum and by dozens of courts of law.

This isn't some wild, leftist idea about what Trump deserves. It's based on Trump's words, actions and inactions, and the results of all of that. Even in his petulant letter responding to the January 6 Committee's subpoena of him, Trump holds the insurrectionists blameless, implying that the riot, violence, and lawlessness that day was justified. He said that the committee has "targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself." How does that not send the message that Trump wanted the violence on that day? He is saying that what the rioters did was right.

He continues to insist that there is a vast conspiracy involving thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, including members of Congress of both parties, state and local officials of both parties, election workers of both parties, and more, without a shred of genuine evidence to support any of it. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, which is now primarily existing to support the lies about the 2020 presidential election (but, oddly, not the election of anyone else in that year), is poised to get elected hundreds of people who are fully invested in the conspiracy and who want to declare invalid any election where their candidate loses. They want to be able to easily overturn the will of the people in presidential elections and, no doubt, any other election, undermining the very foundation American democracy is built on, however wobbly that foundation might be. And despite the power they will have, these officials will represent a minority of population of the country, and they who will use any means to gain this power. Right now, they talk constantly about using violence to achieve those ends if they have to. 

Again, I'm asking how is it not the height of patriotism to want to stop that?

One other genuinely chilling thing discussed at the hearing on Thursday is that Trump wanted to act deliberately to undermine an incoming Biden administration (which, obviously, he would only do if he knew he had lost the election). "Knowing he was leaving office," Republican Adam Kinzinger said, "he acted immediately and signed this order on November 11th, which would have required the immediate withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan, all to be complete before the Biden inauguration on January 20th." If it had been acted on, there would have been a "catastrophic" mess left behind for Biden to clean up, in addition to the catastrophic mess of the economy and the Covid pandemic Trump was dumping on the way out. But think about that order for a moment: Trump was going to cause deaths and plunge nations into anarchy just to make Biden's first days in office miserable. At least when Biden withdrew troops, the outcome was his to deal with.

All of this and I haven't even gotten into how the Secret Service and FBI are likely corrupted by Trump and his ground troops in the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other groups, to the point that some agents may very well have been coordinating with the 1/6 rioters. It is damn hard to escape the idea that Trump was hoping that members of Congress who opposed him would be killed. I can't help but think that that's what he wanted when he watched the events unfold for over 3 hours on January 6, 2021, refusing to lift a finger to stop the mayhem. This is a man, after all, who loves going to boxing matches. He enjoys violence. 

So I'm not saying that Trump shouldn't have a trial. But I am saying, as I have before, that we hold people who are obviously dangerous in jail without bail as they await trial. This isn't a game. The normal rules have been tossed out the window. If it's all unprecedented, then we need to respond in unprecedented ways.

What could be more dangerous than a former president trying to wreck the country and force it to conform to his fantasy? We know what happens when leaders do that. It never ends well. For the good of the country, for the good of our constitution, that's what needs to happen to Donald Trump. It's what should have happened on January 6. 

The MAGA crowd keeps insisting that they are the real Americans, but if to be American, you need to fall in line behind one person, then that's antithetical to what the country is supposed to be, even in its worst moments. So I'm taking back American identity: if you love this country, you want to see Donald Trump behind bars. That's the measure of who is a real patriot.

Herschel Walker Proves That All That GOP Abortion Shit Was a Lie

I've never seen a grift given away quite as blatantly as it was by right-wing talk thing Dana Loesch (motto: "I was too fucking crazy for the NRA"). In talking about the revelation that ultra-anti-abortion Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, running against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, paid for a girlfriend's abortion, Loesch started with "What I’m about to say is in no means a contradiction or a compromise of a principle," which automatically means "I'm throwing my principles out the window faster than a priest at Disney World." Then she just fucking said it, the thing we all knew was true but that none of them had the guts to just let everyone know: "I am concerned about one thing, and one thing only at this point. So, I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate."

And there you go. Loesch has previously and repeatedly called abortion "infanticide." Or, you know, "baby murder." So, by that logic, within the rhetoric of the anti-abortion right, Herschel Walker is like someone who has paid a hitman to off someone, which is, you know, a crime. But Loesch is way cool with Walker conspiring to murder a baby as long as he might get elected and vote to stop more abortions. Or, as Loesch put it, "If the Daily Beast story is true, you’re telling me Walker used his money to reportedly pay some skank for an abortion and Warnock wants to use all of our monies to pay a whole bunch of skanks for abortions." In other words, abortion isn't the serious crime they keep saying it is. I mean, you're pretty much saying, "Hey, I'd elect Son of Sam if he promised to stop more serial killers. He only murdered 6 people."

If she had an ethical bone in her body (spoiler alert: she does not), if anyone in the GOP had an ethical bone in their body (spoiler alert: they do not), they would say that it's time for Walker to step aside and regroup, awaiting someone who isn't a goddamn brain-damaged, violent, misogynistic lunatic who paid for at least one abortion (because there really might be more than one). Of course, that's not what they're doing. They got their concussed Black candidate to run against the genuinely decent and genuinely progressive Raphael Warnock. 

Frankly, the exploitation of obviously mentally-unwell ex-football player Walker is downright disgusting. I'd pity Walker if I thought he was capable of change, if I thought he might have a moment of self-reflection and wonder, "What the fuck am I doing?" Instead, every bug in Walker's brain becomes a feature or another bunch of dust to be swept under the very lumpy carpet. Walker has threatened to kill his ex-wife and his grown son. He lied about the number of children he had, leaving off the ones he had abandoned, all while condemning the Black community because of the number of "fatherless" kids. And he's said bizarre, moronic, and downright incomprehensible things on the campaign trail, all with the same placid smile that says, "I don't fully grasp the meaning of what I'm doing, but I sure like the attention." Running him as a candidate is one of the most cynical things the GOP has done this election cycle. As Elie Mystal has put it, "Republicans have rallied around him because they think Black Georgians are just addled enough to vote for touchdowns over basic public competence." Spoiler: They're not.

I get the notion of tolerating the sins of your candidates. No one is perfect. But when a politician does literally the opposite of what they claim they believe and what they claim you believe, it's beyond hypocrisy, a word that has no meaning anymore for Republicans, and into flat out lying. But, as we know with Trump, lying doesn't matter. Living in an alternate reality doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Hell, it doesn't matter that Walker can go on lipless fuck Hugh Hewitt's show and say about paying for the abortion, which he denies doing, "Had that happened, I would have said it, because it’s nothing to be ashamed of there." What the fuck does that mean? The very party he's part of wants to criminalize his behavior. In Texas, Walker would have a bounty on his head for doing it. Not feeling shame would seem to make the whole thing worse.

But Walker is forgiven because of the deep desire for more power. That shit means more than anything. Hell, it's why fundamentalist Christian nutzoids put aside their beliefs because Walker is a meat puppet for the radical right and will get more judges in place in a GOP majority Senate. Oh, and Walker has given the all-purpose out: he's proclaimed his love for Jesus. "I was forgiven, the Lord has forgiven me," Walker said. He didn't explain how the fuck he figured out he was forgiven of his sins by an invisible sky wizard, so I'm gonna go with "Made that shit up like every born again asshole." Seriously, unless you get a fucking letter in fire or some shit, don't tell me you know what your god says about you. But the MAGA Christians are all in on Walker and don't give a shit that Warnock is an actual, you know, reverend. Whatever God says, they've forgiven him for paying for (at least one) abortion and I'm sure they'll forgive him for all the lies he's telling now.

The GOP simply doesn't give a shit about how shitty Walker is. They'll put up with anything. He could fuck a donkey while shoving a crucifix up his ass, and they'll say, "Well, at least he'll vote for tax cuts for the wealthy and for judges who will end birth control and gay marriage." His son Christian, who is ultra-conservative himself, could put out a video showing Walker beating a baby to death, and good church people would say, "Herschel gets a pass on baby murder because he'll definitely stop others from murdering babies, no matter how many babies he murders, even if that's a lot of babies."

It's nihilism. It's exploitation. It's horrendous and pathetic. It's everything that Republicans are right now. They couldn't give a dry rat shit about what we think about their hypocrisy and mendaciousness. They will damn their souls gleefully to bring damnation to the rest of us. And the repulsive fuckstains who make up their base will gobble it up like shit from Jesus's ass. None of them care. 

And that fucks us on the left because we actually do give a fuck. We lose power because we give a shit who is in power. That shouldn't be a quaint notion, but it's getting goddamn hard not to debase ourselves just to keep up.

On Mental Health, Like on Everything Else, Republicans Are Always Liars

In June, during the debate over two Democratic-sponsored bills with mild new rules for purchase and ownership of firearms in the wake of the horrific school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans predictably lost their collective shit over "muh 2nd 'Mendment." Putting aside the fact that without the guns, people in all kinds of mental states would not be able to shoot other people, what was fascinating in that GOP shit-losing was how many times Republicans said that they wanted to pass bills that addressed mental health issues, not guns. It's as if they found a magical talking point and they waved it like a wand made of liberal tears.

For instance:

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas claimed that Republicans had a bill that provided funding for "mental health counselors" for schools.

Rep. Michelle Fishbach of Minnesota affirmed that Republicans "stand ready to work with the majority to directly address school safety, mental health, and the root causes of gun violence."

Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas insisted that Republicans were big supporters of mental health programs: "Yesterday, in the Rules Committee, it was stated that Republicans vote against all mental health bills. I don't know where that concept comes from. Republicans passed into law the 21st Century Cures Act, which represents the most significant reform to the mental health system in several decades."

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska was clear on what he thought the bills were missing: "What this piece of legislation does not do is address how the shooter in the majority of these incidents has exhibited concerning behaviors on social media and in public and it does not provide mental health services to those who need it."

Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon felt much the same: "Instead of politicizing the response, we should be actually enforcing our existing laws and addressing the mental health crisis that results in these terrible events."

In fact, the House GOP declared that it did already "support mental health care."

So, on Thursday of this week, when given the chance to vote on the Mental Health Matters Act, which specifically expands access to mental health services for many Americans, including students, they must have obviously been in favor it. I mean, to do otherwise would be the height of the hypocrisy. They were pretty fucking clear on how they felt much more needed to be done to help people.

But we're talking about Republicans here. And they already rail against abortion while having or paying for abortions. They want to take away rights from LGBT people while being LGBT themselves. Hypocrisy is like air to these motherfuckers: they couldn't exist without it. So, yeah, they were fucking lying when it comes to their expressed desire to get people needed services for their mental health. 

One Republican voted for the bill while 205 voted against it, including every single one I mentioned above there. Why? Well, reasons, of course. The bill would eliminate some arbitration requirements on disputes between employees and their health plan administrators, thus taking some power away from corporations, including big insurers. And then there's this truly, epically idiotic rant from Rep. Bob Good of Virginia:

"The China virus lockdowns of our schools resulted in an undisputed increase in mental health issues for our students, for our children. This bill is yet another leftist response to the lockdown problems that Democrats created. Thanks to Democrat lockdowns in collusion with their beloved teachers  unions, students across this country are suffering academically and mentally."

Does it get fucking crazier? Oh, yeah. It gets fucking crazier: "History will judge us harshly for how we treated children during the China virus pandemic, regarding how this government crushed the economy, this government crushed small businesses, this government crushed individual liberties and sacrificed our children on the altar of the leftist political agenda and the special interest groups."

In other words, the kids need help but because the help is coming from Democrats, fuck those kids. 

In otherer words, Republicans are goddamn liars about caring for the mental health of children or anyone, really. The easiest proof of that is that people still vote for them despite the fact that they are obvious liars. If you get everyone help with their mental health, hell, they might lose a lot of their voters.

The Gnawing Anxiety That Trump Will Get Away With All of It

I can't get past something when it comes to the multiple crimes of Donald Trump, who really was president (something I still can't fucking believe happened - I mean, I know it happened. I'm not denying the existence of facts, like Trump and his braindead legions do. I'm just always gonna be like "Fuck us that we let that happen"). And it's really simple, one of those elegant confluences of circumstance that should have complete clarity. It's this:

The law is intensely clear: With a few exceptions that need to be approved, the records of a presidential administration belong to the nation, not the president. All of it, classified, unclassified, and declassified, go to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, an office set up to take care of those records that are, again, by law, the nation's. There's no wiggle room on this. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals made it crystal-fuckin'-clear in its decision this week in favor of the Justice Department when it comes to the hundred or so documents found by the FBI at Trump's shitty fake castle, Mar-a-lago. "They are ‘owned by, produced by or for, or . . . under the control of the United States Government,'" it wrote. 

And this is what bugs the shit out of me. I get that rich people are treated differently when it comes to legal matters. I get that presidents are treated with kid gloves for some goddamn reason. But Trump and the people around him took those documents that don't belong to him. Then NARA gave them the benefit of the doubt (or pretended to) and said, "Hey, you took these documents that by law don't belong to you. Please give them back." Then, not only did they not give them all back, they lied and said they did, which means they fucking well knew they had shit that didn't belong to them. Under the most generous of definitions, that's theft. They fucking robbed the country. 

So I cannot wrap my brain around the idea that Trump and everyone involved in keeping the documents were not immediately arrested when the FBI fucking caught them with stolen fucking property. As just about everyone sane who has commented on this, from across the political spectrum, has said, if anyone else had been caught hiding government documents, let alone super-duper Top Secret Classified documents, the FBI would have sealed them in concrete until trial.

This is the kind of shit that plagues my brain at 3 a.m. when the whiskey is wearing off and the drugs just aren't holding the bullshit at bay anymore. Right now, a plague of lawsuits and investigations ought to be making Trump wonder if he'd rather live the rest of his miserable life in the UAE, Russia, or Indonesia when it comes to places without extradition treaties. And I know, I know, I fucking know that you want to be optimistic, even gleeful, thinking, "There's no fucking way he gets out of all of this." I mean, c'mon. If nothing else, E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit accusing Trump of raping her has to bring him down. She's got DNA evidence, after all. 

It's not just that we've been burned before (although I'll brag that I stopped leaping at every "We got him!" moment a long time ago). It's that when Trump gets away with it, the story shifts. The Mueller Report has become nothing more than a failed witch hunt (which it wasn't). The impeachment over Ukraine has become part of the "Russia hoax" (it's not a hoax and the phrase has become so broad as to encompass anything that even mentions Russia and Trump). Trump prances all around his red state yahoo fests, lying about this shit with extravagant abandon as he pushes closer and closer to simply saying, "Kill everyone not like you."

And it's not just that Trump's gotten away with so much throughout his life. How many regular, working and middle class stiffs does he have to dick over before the rest understand they're being conned? How the fuck did it take so long for some entity in New York to seriously go after his entire ass? And why do they always stop short of actually arresting someone who has blatantly flouted the law? I'm honestly pissed as hell at Cyrus Vance and every AG and DA who allowed Trump and his shit children to remain free to fuck over more people. The only explanation that makes sense is that they have been corrupted in some way. It's why Letitia James's actions have been so stunning and relieving to many of us up here. You can sit there in another area of the country and think it was wrong for her to be so open about her desire to bring Trump down. But you don't understand how much we genuinely fucking hate him. She could be so brazen in her contempt for Trump because Trump's been so brazen in his contempt for the law.

I don't fear that Trump will get away with all of it simply because he has, though. His lawyers are shit, but they are good at the one thing that they can get away with: delaying the gavel coming down as he's dragged away, screaming about "fake judges" and "rigged jury" into the prison abyss he so richly deserves (a moment that would give me a thrill that would not be unlike an explosive orgasm). It's obvious that the gamble is that the GOP takes over the House of Representatives and then shuts down any investigation or prosecution through the power of the purse. I've said before that we're talking about a cabal of barking mad, rabid animals defending their pack leader. It's a gamble, sure, but even as Democrats are polling better, the gerrymandered-to-death map still favors Republicans. And when Republicans win by even one, they act like they just slaughtered their enemies and left them in a heap in their burnt cities as they hump the ashes in triumph.

"But what about Georgia and New York?" an imaginary reader might ask. Those cases would go forward, but then we're into what happens in Georgia in 2022 and we're into the delays until 2024. The New York case is going to take years because that's the way financial bullshit works. Then the gamble is that Trump or someone Trumpish is gonna win the presidency. Then we're all so fucked that we're gonna have to head into the streets to stop the Christian nationalists from forcing us into the "Love Jesus or Die" camps.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that this is just that typical Democratic anxiety about winning. I honestly hope that by the time I hit "Publish" on this, we'll at least have an indictment. But an indictment is just the beginning of the process. So many things need to go right. So many people need to not fuck it all up. And there are so many others who will be trying to knock any prosecution off the rails, up to and including perhaps a majority of the Supreme Court. 

Yeah, fucking enjoy Trump's shitty week. Enjoy the shitty weeks to come. But we're not playing a fair game here. Or that dull orange motherfucker would be sitting in a cell, awaiting trial.

Graham and DeSantis Tried to Own But Got Owned

You know what's darkly hilarious or perhaps hilariously dark or maybe not hilarious at all and just plain dark? I'd bet that Lindsey Graham and Ron DeSantis thought what they did this week was fucking awesome and that they'd show those no-good liberals what fucking hypocrites they are. Except that reality ended up punching them both in the dick for acting like dicks, and, yeah, that's pretty fucking funny.

First, South Carolina Sen. Graham, who lately always looks like he's on his fifth mint julep while annoyed that he doesn't have enough liquor for number six, put out a bill to outlaw nearly all abortions after 15 weeks, and he fucking expected Republicans to jump for joy that he had solved the post-Roe clusterfuck of bad news for his party going into the midterms. At his weird little press conference announcing the bill, Graham pronounced, "If we adopted my bill, our bill, we would be in the mainstream of most everybody else in the world. I think there are 47 of the 50 European countries have a ban on abortion from 12 to 15 weeks. And I pick 15 weeks, which is a little longer than Belgium, Germany and Spain, longer than France, Denmark, and Norway." So now we're taking our cues from Europe? I thought that was wrong and might turn us all gay to do that. 

Let's put aside that every single country he mentioned has universal health care, paid child care, and maternity leave, with Germany and Spain mandating full pay during the leave, and thus make life a fuck of a lot easier for new parents and new children. And let's leave aside that France, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway all pay for abortions in their national health care. Instead, let's focus on one aspect of those countries' abortion policies: yes, they do limit abortion on demand after a certain period, but they also have exceptions for the mental or emotional health of the woman. Graham's savage bill specifically prohibits that. It says that, yes, if the woman's physical well-being or safety is in danger after 15 weeks, abortion is fine, "but not including psychological or emotional conditions." So we're not just talking about a pregnant woman saying that she is not mentally well enough to have a child. We're talking if a woman, say, suffers from severe post-partum depression that might even lead to self-harm. She's shit out of luck and will have to hope she can endure. "Fuck you, bipolar lady," Graham says. "You did the fucking, you do the time."

And I'm not even getting into the fact that Graham calls any abortion after 15 weeks "late term," which is just not how words or time or math works. Nor am I diving into the creepiest part of this really fucking creepy bill, which is all about how "the pregnancy must be terminated by the method most likely to allow the child to be born alive unless this would cause significant risk to the mother." I mean, what the fuck? That's not abortion. That's premature birth, and I'm pretty fucking sure that it ain't happening at 15, 16 or even 20 weeks, before which over 98% of abortions are performed. 

Graham really was proud of this bill, not realizing or not giving a fuck that he pissed off Mitch McConnell, who always looks like he's trying not to show that he shit his Depends; he pissed off the fucking lunatics in the GOP, who want a total abortion ban nationally; and he pissed off the Republicans who have been saying that the laws should be decided by each state. Obviously, it also pissed off the pro-choice politicians, too. So this was a masturbatory exercise by Lindsey Graham, and he thought everyone would watch him jack it and exclaim, "Oh, wow, you are so hot when you yank off." But instead, he's not allowed to orgasm, and this whole thing may end with him putting his flaccid dick back in his pants and shuffling away.

Speaking of public masturbation, what else was the purpose of Florida Governor Ron "That Cunt" DeSantis's little stunt of flying 50 asylum-seeking Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard, the charming island where rich fucks have summer houses? At his press conference on Thursday bellowing about it, DeSantis tried to justify this bullshit: "If you have folks that are inclined to think Florida is a good place, our message to them is we are not a sanctuary state, and it’s better to be able to go into a sanctuary jurisdiction."

First off, DeSantis and his staff of ass remoras proclaimed that "illegal aliens" or "unauthorized immigrants" were being transported. No, dickscabs, by federal law, asylum seekers are not illegal. Second off, DeSantis might have violated state law. See, the budget that was passed in July in Florida included $12 million "for implementing a program to facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law." So...not "unauthorized aliens." They were picked up in Texas, so not "from this state." And it looks like federal law might have been broken because the migrants were lied to about where they were going and what for in order to entice them onto the planes. You can't fucking do that to real human beings, real families, real children, goddamnit. That's called "kidnapping" or "trafficking."

The entire purpose of the stunt was to own the libs and see how they like it when migrants come through. In December, DeSantis pricked, "If you sent them to Delaware or Martha’s Vineyard or some of these places, that border would be secure the next day." He fully expected residents to get all NIMBY. But the libs aren't being owned. No, despite some on the right crowing that blue areas are in a "panic" over the migrants being sent there, what the places are trying to do is provide the social services that they need. In Martha's Vineyard (which is now more or less done for the season and is just populated by the locals, so shitty timing there, Ronster), they opened their arms and buildings, providing food, shelter, legal advice, and more for the migrants. 

That's not being owned. In fact, all that most places want is a heads up that a state is sending migrants there so they can be prepared. But DeSantis (and nutzoid conservative knobgobbler Greg Abbott of Texas) want to do all this in the cuntiest possible way, sending the migrants to the middle of cities or train stations or outside Vice President Harris's residence because that's how they get a hard-on they can grab and wank for the racist yahoos that form their base. I mean, fuck, the governor of Massachusetts is a Republican. So DeSantis is trying fuck over his own party.

All Republicanism is now is stunts and Trump worship. There's really no one with any power who is serious about any of this shit. Graham and DeSantis thought they were gonna really fuck the left. Instead, they ended up fucking themselves. And, hopefully, their bullshit worthless party.

Abortion Rights and the Lie of "Reaching Across the Aisle"

Democrats make ads all the time about how they are willing to work across the aisle with the opposing party. (I know some Republicans do, too, but it's not as prominent a thing on the right.) The notion is worn like a badge of honor, as if Democrats need to show how not Democratic they are.  For instance, in this election cycle, we have Elissa Slotkin in Michigan saying, "I refuse to let partisan politics hold this country back." Senator Maggie Hassan goes even further, bragging, "I took on members of my own party" on a gas tax holiday. President Biden campaigned in 2020 on his supposed ability to work with Republicans (even if he's learned how ludicrous a notion that is). 

And while the realities of getting legislation passed sometimes forces cooperation, to insist that you as a Democrat need buy-in from the other side in order to justify your position makes it seem like you're apologizing for being a Democrat. The whole idea is a comforting lie, affirming a fictional tale of the two parties who can put aside differences for the good of the country. Mostly, it forces Democrats to agree to negotiate with people who are insane extremists and pretend like their positions aren't so. 

Lemme give you an example here:

Think about how extreme the anti-choice position is in abortion politics. Not only does the Republican Party, as a whole, believe that women should be forced to carry fetuses and give birth to children they do not want or cannot afford, a large part of the party also believes that the health of the mother or the fetus doesn't matter, nor does the trauma that may have resulted in the pregnancy. Their ideal situation is a national ban on abortion by law under penalty of imprisonment. Forced birth is as extreme as it gets. The only thing that could go any further would be to imprison a pregnant woman to make sure she doesn't get an abortion or behave in any way to harm a fetus. Oh, wait. That's already begun to happen.

While the abortion extremists of the right like to say that allowing abortion without restrictions or even codifying the Roe v. Wade decision is radicalism on the left, that's just not right. Telling people that they have the choice when it comes to their own bodies isn't radical at all. Really, it's not a stretch to come up with what extremism on the other side of the anti-choice coin is. If one side is forced birth, then the other would be forced abortion. If the Democratic Party believed in forcing people to end pregnancies that might result in disabled children or forcing abortions on women who are deemed unfit for one reason or another to be a mother, then you'd have extremism. But no mainstream Democrats or, indeed, no one in the realm of mainstream on the pro-choice side believes in this (hence the word "choice").

So in the debate over abortion rights, Democrats are arguing from a reasonable, moderate position (choice) and Republicans are arguing from an extremist position (forced birth). To "reach across the aisle" means to capitulate to extremism, to say, "Okay, we'll agree to allow some forced births." When it comes to abortion rights, many Democrats are at least drawing a line in the sand. Rep. Abigail Spanberger is running for reelection in a tough district, but she's put out an uncompromising ad on the post-Roe landscape, eviscerating her opponent for her cruel position on forced birth.

Let's be clear, though. The very idea of reaching across the aisle exists because of the filibuster. It's kind of a joke when the House talks about it because the majority doesn't need the minority. Yes, differing coalitions within the party can affect the development of legislation. But that is still the majority figuring out how to accomplish its goals. Without the filibuster, the entire impetus for negotiating with the opposing party evaporates, and the voters get the government they actually voted for, doing the things they voted the majority into power to do. (You could also add in the entirely flawed design of the Senate to a file marked "Things That Make It Hard to Get Stuff Done in the US.")

In the United Kingdom and other countries, the parties run as parties, proudly, trying to convince people not just to vote for a candidate, but for the party. Of course, that's in a parliamentary system where the majority party (or coalition of parties) decides who is going to lead the country. But ads in the UK hype the party when talking about an issue. 

Party identification isn't absent in the United States by a long shot. However, the idea that there is some innate good in working with just terrible people needs to be abandoned. If you are in an election battle, you believe the other side is wrong. After you win your election, why in the world would you behave as if their ideas have validity? The losing side needs to figure out how to work with you to get some things it wants. You are under no obligation to bother responding.

And if your approach fails to make people's lives better, well, that's what the next election is for.

A Poem for the Laborers

"Waitress" 

by Dorianne Laux

(Chosen because Laux is an amazing chronicler of the working class and also in memory of Barbara Ehrenreich, a tireless advocate for the forgotten laborers. She was a giant influence on my own political sense of the world, and she died this past week. You should read both of them.)

When I was young and had to rise at 5 am

I did not look at the lamplight slicing

through the blinds and say: Once again

I have survived the night.  I did not raise

my two hands to my face and whisper:

This is the miracle of my flesh.  I walked

toward the cold water waiting to be released

and turned the tap so I could listen to it

thrash through the rusted pipes.

I cupped my palms and thought of nothing.

I dressed in my blue uniform and went to work.

I served the public, looked down on its

balding skulls, the knitted shawls draped

over its cancerous shoulders, and took its orders,

wrote up or easy or scrambled or poached

in the yellow pads’ margins and stabbed it through

the tip of the fry cook’s deadly planchette.

Those days I barely had a pulse.  The manager

had vodka for breakfast, the busboys hid behind

the bleach boxes from the immigration cops,

and the head waitress took ten percent

of our tips and stuffed them in her pocket

with her cigarettes and lipstick. My feet

hurt.  I balanced the meatloaf-laden trays.

Even the tips of my fingers ached.

I thought of nothing except sleep, a T.V. set’s

flickering cathode gleam washing over me,

baptizing my greasy body in its watery light.

And money, slipping the tassel of my coin purse

aside, opening the silver clasp, staring deep

into that dark sacrificial abyss.

What can I say about that time, those years

I leaned against the rickety balcony on my break,

smoking my last saved butt?

It was sheer bad luck when I picked up

the glass coffee pot and spun around

to pour another cup.  All I could think

as it shattered was how it was the same shape

and size as the customer’s head.  And this is why

I don’t believe in accidents, the grainy dregs

running like sludge down his thin tie

and pin-stripe shirt like they were channels

riven for just this purpose.

It wasn’t my fault. I know that. But what, really,

was the hurry? I dabbed at his belly with a napkin.

He didn’t have a cut on him (physics) and only

his earlobe was burned. But my last day there

was the first day I looked up as I walked, the trees

shimmering green lanterns under the Prussian blue

particulate sky, sun streaming between my fingers

as I waved at the bus, running, breathing hard, thinking:

This is the grand phenomenon of my body.  This thirst

is mine.  This is my one and only life.

Dark Brandon Ascending: Random Observations on a Patriotic Speech

1. There are a few criticisms to be made about President Joe Biden's speech in Philadelphia last night. For instance, when he said, "Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans.  Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology," he's really talking the difference between someone who comes to your house and murders everyone and someone who comes to your house, murders everyone, fucks the corpses, and sets the place on fire. Sure, the latter is way worse, but, you know, in the former, you're still murdered. 

Yeah, one way to look at that is Biden offering the supposedly "mainstream Republicans" a lifeboat from the Trumptanic before it smashes into the iceberg of reality and sinks into the depths of the brutal ocean of history. That lets Republicans off the hook for a whole lot of fuckery. While the "MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution.  They do not believe in the rule of law.  They do not recognize the will of the people," it's not like pre-Trump Republicans were handing out daisies across the aisle. What was the Republican Senate's use of the formerly rare filibuster as a regular tool to block legislation starting with Barack Obama's administration but another way to thwart the will of the people when they voted in Democratic majorities in Congress? Yeah, it's not the same as overturning an election because the results make you feel sad. But it's not that fucking far off. 

So, please, fucking spare me any wistful thoughts about Republicans who aren't full MAGA drones. Almost none have dared to criticize Trump or, heavens forfend, vote against him, even when he sent his braindead army to attack them. Biden said, "MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love." That's been the Republican agenda for decades. That's what "mainstream Republicans" believe. Don't pin that on the Trumpnuts. 

1a. Also, it's pretty sketchy to leave out the racism at the base of the MAGA movement. It's one of their prime motivating factors. Some of these fuckers wouldn't come out of their basements if they didn't think go time included killing them some non-whites. 

2. However, setting all that aside, the bulk of the speech was truly an ass-kicker, the Dark Brandon meme come to life. Setting it at Independence Hall was a nice middle finger to the January 6 insurrectionists, as if Biden was saying, "This is what a real revolution is, you fucking children." And he spoke in no uncertain terms about how fucked up the hopes of the MAGA hordes are: "They refuse to accept the results of a free election.  And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself." This is pretty much undeniable, and it's happening in nearly every Republican-led state, including places like Georgia, which said that its 2020 results were totally legitimate yet somehow it needed to overhaul its voting laws because "fraud." It's fucking madness. It's like saying that you need to create a Leprechaun Crime Unit in your state because those motherfucking leprechauns keep shitting in clover patches. Or, you know, it's like saying your rights come from God. You don't base laws on fantasies.

Biden went on, "MAGA Republicans have made their choice.  They embrace anger.  They thrive on chaos.  They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies" as some jagoffs with bullhorns screamed "Fuck you" in a pure demonstration of the very thing Biden was saying. I appreciated Biden calling out the MAGA chodes for being the whiny little bitches that they are. I mean, it's one thing to want to challenge an election right after the results come in. It's another to be saying two years later that you think it should be tossed out. That's as juvenile as cosplaying soldier. When Biden said, "They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win," he was saying you are a bunch of titty babies suckling at Trump's teats and you need to grow the fuck up. 

This was a Democrat standing up to bullies: not only the bullies in the streets and in Congress and in state houses, but the bullies in the right-wing media bullshit machine. When Biden said, "MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair.  They spread fear and lies –- lies told for profit and power," he was talking about Fox "news" and Steve Bannon and Trump and every fuckwhore podcaster and SuperPAC making coin by driving weak-minded people mad. He took the fight directly to the bullies and didn't hedge (other than the distinction between "mainstream" GOP and MAGA GOP). That's gonna fuck up the brains of the spoogerags of the right. They're gonna go to Defcon Tan Suit over this outrage.

2a. The fact that so many Republicans condemned the speech pretty much proved that a "mainstream Republicans" is a MAGA drone.

3. The dumbest response I've heard to Biden's speech is that it was wrong for him to speak with two Marines posted at the entrance to Independence Hall, that that was improper for a "political" speech and broke decorum or some such shit, with some offering that it was wrong when Trump did such things all the fucking time. And the only thing I could think was there was only one line of the speech that was genuinely political, the one about "no right to choose" I quoted up there. Yeah, sure, that's where there are policy debates. Otherwise, seriously, what the fuck was "political" about the speech, if by "political," you mean, "saying that your policies are superior to the opposing person/group's policies"? Biden's speech was about threats to democracy. The one time he mentioned Democrats was in a list with others: "Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to destroying American democracy." Everyone united against a threat: honestly, how is that any different than a speech condemning terrorists for attacking the country? You don't ask for the terrorists to get a minute to explain the bombing because otherwise the speech is too "political." MAGAmites are trying to tear down democracy. That's a threat to the whole nation. Hell, it's even a threat to the MAGAmites, except they're too fucking stupid or corrupt to see it or care. 

And, yeah, fuck you if your takeaway from the speech is that you thought the Marine shit was a little over the top. Motherfucker, we have a country to save. The decorations don't matter. That's not politics. That's patriotism.

4. Biden believes in this country. He believes in the goodness of those of us damned to live through this idiotic time in this degraded nation. He believes that's worth fighting for. We can either join him in the fight or capitulate to the worst assholes. Fuck that malarkey.

Ron DeSantis Is Not Your New Trump, But He Is a...

Cunt. He's a cunt. If I put that in the title, someone would report it somewhere, but we're all presumably adult(ish) here, so I'll say it clearly: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a total, irredeemable cunt and every word out of his cunty mouth is filled with cuntishness. Sure, sure, you can have a delicate sensibility and call him a "dick" or "prick" or "asshole." But those insults don't capture the feeling of seeing and listening to Ron DeSantis quite as viscerally as "cunt." 

Honestly, there would be no reason to discuss the nature of DeSantis's cuntery were it not for all the talk about him being the most viable non-Trump candidate for the Republican nominee for president in 2024, with some seeing him as even more viable than Trump because he's not (yet) tainted by the scandals and barrage of lying and braying egotism that Trump has hanging over him. I'll get to why that's bullshit in a few. But let's just explore some of DeSantis's recent words and actions in order to get the full measure of his cuntocity. 

Like, for instance, the "speech" (if by "speech," you mean, "ranting culture war nonsense that exists only to give the yahoos a semi-chub for a couple of pathetic minutes") he delivered while rallying for despicable hate-humpers J.D. "Man, I really tricked you assholes with that shitty book" Vance in Ohio and Doug "Chew My Own Ballsack Crazy" Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Check this cunty bullshit: "We must fight the woke in our schools. We must fight the woke in our businesses. We must fight the woke in government agencies. We can never ever surrender to woke ideology. And I’ll tell you this, the state of Florida is where woke goes to die." 

"The woke" are also known as "people who give a fuck about people other than themselves," and we scare the shit out of cunts like DeSantis because we want them to, you know, give a fuck about people other than themselves. If you're a cunt, that's not even in the same universe you live in. It doesn't even occur to you. In fact, it so doesn't occur to DeSantis and the like-minded cunts in the Florida legislature that they passed a law that made it illegal to, well, pretty much talk at all about race or gender or real history or anything that might make cis het white people upset at schools or in businesses. Yeah, a judge blocked it, saying, in essence, "That shit's unconstitutional, you cunts." It's named, no, really, the "Stop WOKE Act," as in "Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act" because they couldn't think of anything cuntier. 

You can throw in the "Don't Say 'Gay'" law DeSantis signed that regulates how sexuality can be discussed at all grade levels, not just in early elementary schools, as its supporters like to pretend. It has so freaked out teachers that they wonder if it's okay to wear rainbow stickers in the classroom. We could talk about what a gobsmacking cunt DeSantis has been to Disney, one of the largest employers in the state and one of the centers of the entire tax base there through tourism bucks. We could talk about the racial gerrymandering of the state he supports, or the decimation of the ranks of teachers because of his cuntish attacks on them, with his absolutely garbage plan to replace teachers with untrained, "retired law-enforcement officers, emergency-medical technicians, paramedics, and firefighters." At least they need to have bachelor's degrees. The military veterans DeSantis thinks can saunter into a middle school and teach algebra don't even need that. It's utterly degrading and demoralizing to educators, just like a cunt would do.

But for sheer, uncut culture war cuntistry, there's the new law that established a "Victims of Communism Day," something that is such a blow job to the Cuban community in Florida that DeSantis won't need to smoke cigars for all the cocks that are in his mouth. Check this shit out: "high school students enrolled in the United States Government class...must receive at least 45 minutes of instruction on 'Victims of Communism Day' to include topics such as Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet System, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement, and how victims suffered under these regimes through poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech."

Putting aside that it's fucking rich that none of this teaches anything about, you know, the theories of Marx, which might highlight how far from "communism" most of those regimes were, it's the height of smarmy, fuck-you cuntliness to required discussion about how all those dictators suppressed speech when you've signed laws that specifically suppress speech. But that's how cunts roll. They don't give a single, solitary fuck about hypocrisy.

Here's the difference between DeSantis and Donald Trump, and the reason why saying that he's the new Trump (even as he desperately wants to be the new Trump - seriously, motherfucker is trying to look like Trump) is fucking dumb: Try as he might, DeSantis can't hide his cuntiness. Yeah, Trump's a cunt, but Trump's also a goddamn showman. He enjoys playing the role of the raconteur and professional roaster, a con artist supreme, doing his double-handjob dance for the delight of the rubes. For people who believe the same savage things that he does, Trump's got charm to spare. Add to that the number of fucking idiots who really think Trump's some brilliant business tycoon and the even greater idiots who think "He TV man, must vote for TV man because on TV," and Trump was able to coat his cunty ways in a slick lube of celebrity. DeSantis is just a cunt, an angry, petty, whining cunt who appeals to a narrow bunch of shut-ins and maniacs and wealthy fuckfaces who all happen to congregate in Florida. No one else is gonna give a solitary fuck about him if he tries to run for president.

And Republicans know this. They know that, on a national level, their only hope right now is Trump. If DeSantis had a chance, more Republicans would be leaping off the Trump train before it goes over the scandal cliff. They know DeSantis is a cunt, cuntier than most of them, who are definitely also cunts. But a cunt with nothing to distract from being a cunt is just a cunt.

(Note: Your problems with the word "cunt" are noted.)

What About Those of Us Who Want Donald Trump Prosecuted? Talk to Us, Media

If there's one thing that runs through most political coverage of just about anything, it's that something is only good if Republicans believe it's good. Whenever some dullard pundit smirks pure bullshit about "bipartisanship," it inevitably means, "Here's a Democratic idea that is worthless unless Republicans buy into it." But a Republican idea never needs the approval of Democrats. I'm not talking votes alone. I'm talking how issues are covered. 

During Trump's presidency, we got a nonstop stream of yokel safaris, where some reporter from, generally, the New York Times, although they were certainly not alone here, goes to a stronghold of Trump support like Sisterfuck, Ohio, and interview the Sisterfuckians about how much they love Trump and what he was doing, which was always "a lot." You had to struggle to find articles on what Democratic voters thought. And then, with the election of Joe Biden, the media still ventured out to Sisterfuck, Cousinream, and Blowagoat to get their oh-so-American opinions on how much they hate Biden and what he's doing, which is always "a lot," with an added "and the election was stolen."

This is reaching its peak with the people decrying the FBI's search of Donald Trump's garish nightmare country club and home, Mar-a-Lago. As Michelle Goldberg points out (yes, in the New York Times), there is a strain of "centrist" thought that the search was out of bounds because it will divide the nation further, that it will "deepen" the country's "civic wounds," as Damon Linker wrote. Linker goes on to say that the high probability of violence in response to a Trump prosecution means that prosecution should be avoided: "I simply don’t agree with those who insist that not going after Trump will be even more dangerous than pursuing his prosecution." 

Certainly, voices on the right are screaming this, with politicians coming just up to the line of threats of violence (although certainly Republicans in Congress are threatening the FBI and the Justice Department, not to mention Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray personally, with investigation and defunding). And, yeah, the fucknut squad is doing what it's been jonesing to do, which means some of them are starting to die for the lies that Donald Trump keeps telling. But those dumb shitheads were just itching to try out their ARs and their YouTube military training on a government building. Most of them will just rant into the TikTok void for likes and subscribes, the currency of our moronic present. Of course, it takes only one getting a bomb next to or in a building or a few guns into an office to fuck things up for a whole lot of people. So I'll keep the mocking of these ignorant, delusional prickmites to a simmering minimum. 

The point here is not just that, obviously, prosecution shouldn't be based on how much upheaval it will cause to numbskulls who have smeared a viscous coating of lies on their naked flesh and are pretending it's armor. But media coverage is focusing only on the violent fucknuts. It ignores the much, much larger portion of the population who want to see that orange motherfucker behind bars for crimes he flaunted in our flustered faces.

Yeah, what about those of us who want Donald Trump indicted and prosecuted? We deserve to be heard, too. Prosecuting Trump is not merely for some abstract concept like adherence to "the rule of law." That has meaning. We have seen powerful people get away with crimes time and again. We needed George W. Bush and his crew of war criminals prosecuted. We needed the motherfuckers who almost blew up the economy of the world in 2008 to face justice. And we got nothing. We got the false promise that forgiveness would temper their behavior, only to see that forgiveness shit on and tossed back at those who did the forgiving, using it as a ticket to go further and act with impunity to wreck shit even more. 

We have to know that there is a limit. We have to know that in a nation that incarcerates more (mostly poor) people than any other, in a nation that tolerates mass murder on a daily basis, in a nation that does nothing to stop the unending harassment and threats that stream through our social media, in a nation that allows for lies to become policy, whether with climate change (until last week) or the election or abortion rights or education, in a nation as fucked as this nation is, something fucking matters, and that something has to be the very foundational idea that a president isn't above the law. The Obama administration, including Joe Biden, dropped the ball big-time with the Bush criminal enterprise. It can't happen again, so soon, because all faith in this delicate web we call "democracy" will fucking collapse. That's way more dangerous than Skeeter pretending he's Rambo and trying to take out an FBI office. We can stop the Skeeters, even if they do cause harm. We can't stop a web from collapsing once the threads are plucked free.

Jesus fuck, at least Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest had the good sense to realize they had gotten away with it and went the fuck away. I sincerely believe that if Trump had accepted the results of the election and let everything go ahead peacefully, he would have gotten away with it, too. Instead, he's fucking daring anyone to stop his criminality. Trump is fostering this violence now. He could stop it, like he could have stopped the January 6 insurrection. But he won't. So he must be stopped by legal action.

Interview us, CNN and MSNBC and, yeah, even fuckin' Fox "news." Talk to those of us who need this prosecution to happen. What we have to say is far more important than what a bunch of lunatics ranting about civil war on The Donald think.

Note on Democratic Groups Helping Trump Republicans Win Primaries: So?

In one of the great "tut-tut" pieces in a while, the Editorial Board of the New York Times (motto: "We're partly responsible for the Iraq War and Trump's election, but you'll still subscribe") wrote that it was appalled by the idea that "Democratic Party groups have been elevating Big Lie proponents over their moderate Republican opponents all year." They take great umbrage - umbrage, I say - that Democrats would dare attempt to give subversive support to the fucknuts and grifters who make coin and get votes by saying that Donald Trump really won the 2020 election and that a conspiracy involving at least a few hundred thousand people worked to keep him out of office. The idea, of course, is that in a general election, those fucknuts and grifters (and, to be fair, the fucknut grifters) will be easily defeated by a Democrat. And what's the big strategy here? Reminding voters who is endorsed by Trump because to some idiot voters, that's like getting oral from Jesus.

But the Times's reasoning is this: electing "moderate Republicans" is a good thing. And what makes you a "moderate" Republican these days? Pretty much if you're not hooting racism into a tin can because an internet ghost told you it will bring about the Great Googamoogle or something. 

One example the Times gives of a Big Lie-loving, Trump-endorsed fucknut is Maryland's Dan Cox. It should be pointed out at all times that his campaign website is "Cox for Freedom." No, I'm not lying. Anyways, yeah, Cox is huffing deeply of the fumes from Trump's taint, but in just about every other way, he's your average fucking mad Republican. He supports guns for babies (or something close - you really can't tell anymore), is a nutzoid on abortion, and hates him some critical race theory in schools.  You know who else supports all those things except is a little more distant from Trump's grundle stink? Cox's opponent, Kelly Schulz. Oh, and groups like the Democratic Governors' Association bought ads saying that Cox was endorsed by Trump. 

Here's the thing, though. No one forced those voters to go for Cox. They were adults making adult decisions. 

Look at the even more bugfuck mad Kari Lake in Arizona. She campaigned on shitting in the dried up Lake Mead and laughing while she did it. Yet she won her primary. So, clearly, Republican voters in Arizona are good with attacks on wokeness and anti-choice madness (by the way, one interesting thing about Lake? She's for making almost all birth control available over-the counter and having the government pay for it. Hmm). But other than her support of the Big Lie and her vows to change Arizona voting laws so that this thing that never happened never happens again, her defeated opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson believes pretty much the same damn thing. Again, the key difference is that Lake got the help of Democratic groups because they hope crazy will lose.

But the key point here is that they're all fucking crazy; nearly every Republican is nuts. And even the ones who aren't explicitly saying that the 2020 election was stolen are calling for election "reform" or support gerrymandering and other shit that will hinder voting and help the GOP undo democracy.  So maybe we need a little less garment-rending over the idea that Democrats' bet that the general election voters won't give a nod to the crazies will fail and a little more over the fact that it simply doesn't fucking matter which Republicans are elected. 

And also let's not pretend that the right doesn't do this shit all the time. As Judd Legum and Kyle Tharp reported, a Republican-linked group is attempting to influence liberal members of Congress to vote against the climate change legislation by pretending to be a liberal group. The motherfuckery is deep in our politics.

I Haven't Disappeared

I know shit's been non-existent the last couple of weeks, but I've been in the UK (and continue to be) for some personal time. I'll have something up in the next day or two. 

Until then, enjoy this Liverpool road warning.

An Observation on the Nature of Extremist Fucknuts at the January 6 Committee Hearing

One thing that jumped out at me while watching Tuesday's televised hearing from the January 6 Committee into the insurrection of fucking idiots, which came closer than we want to believe to actually working, is how the extremists coming to DC on that cold day didn't emerge from a vacuum. No, in fact, it was the action, or, really, the inaction of the federal government on another uprising that gave the idiot hordes the confidence to go full overthrow. Jason Van Tatenhove, former member of the Oath Keepers (motto: "If this whole beach was completely covered in dicks, and somebody said I had to eat every dick until the beach was clean for liberty, I would say, 'No problemo!'"), pointed very clearly to an event from 2014 that helped inspire motherfuckers to start fucking more mothers all the way to the Capitol. 

Van Tatenhove said, "My time with the Oath Keepers began back at Bundy Ranch with that first standoff when I went to cover them as an independent journalist." He was talking about the ludicrous standoff between a Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy, and the federal government over grazing fees on federal land that Bundy refused to pay for his cattle. So the government seized his cattle, and, with an assist from uber-fucknut Alex Jones, the Oath Keepers and hundreds, maybe thousands, of other armed dickheads showed up to "defend" Bundy.  

As things went on, "The standoff grew increasingly volatile over several days, with federal agents deploying dogs and stun guns, and rifle-carrying militia members taking sniper-like positions on an overpass overlooking the area. Fearing a bloodbath, federal authorities ultimately backed down and released the cattle." They also pulled out of the whole conflict, preferring to try to get the money from him through every fucking way they had already tried. 

That backing down gave these dickheads delusions of grandeur. In a press conference after, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, not wearing an eye patch, said, that the standoff was "a significant watershed moment" and praised the militias and the Bundy clan for an "armed effort" to face off against the federal government. The Oath Keepers released a video that said the standoff was "the first time in our country's recent history that good Americans stood up and said, 'We're not going to let this happen on our watch.'"

Elaborating on a statement about the country being "lucky" shit hasn't gotten more violent, Van Tatenhove told the congressional committee and the rest of the country, "I think as far as the luck goes, we've had the potential from Bundy Ranch on, I mean, being boots on the ground at these standoffs and they were standoffs where there were firearms pointed across lines at federal law enforcement agencies, you know, whatever it may be with that particular standoff. But I do -- I think we've gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because the potential has been there from the start." 

Bundy and his shitty family and the assorted extremist dickheads refused to recognize the authority of the Bureau of Land Management and the federal government. He owed the country a million bucks in unpaid fees and penalties. When the BLM decided to say, "Fuck this shit," they let, as then-Nevada Senator Harry Reid said, "domestic terrorists" off the hook. "They had sniper rifles on the freeway. They had assault weapons. They had automatic weapons," Reid said, all in service of someone who didn't wanna pay for his shit. They were ready to murder BLM agents and others. They should have all been rounded up and dragged off to jail. But it was fear of violence and escalation that caused the retreat by the BLM. And the end result of that retreat was more violence and escalation, including at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge two years later. One could also argue that the failure to arrest the violent thugs in Nevada led directly to the Las Vegas mass shooting a month later. The shooter had been at Bundy's ranch, inspired by the way the dickheads faced down the feds and won. And, obviously, January 6 can be tied to the sense of empowerment the Bundy ranch "victory" gave the dickheads.

Tattooed, denim jacket and Descendants t-shirt-wearing Van Tatenhove said he fully believes that there will be violence in 2024: "I do fear for this next election cycle because who knows what that might bring if a president that's willing to try to instill and encourage to whip up a Civil War amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil, regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again. All bets are off at that point. And that's a scary notion." Of course, he's talking about armed dickheads, but he's also talking about Trump and other leaders of this extremist bullshit. He offered clear advice: "I have three daughters. I have a granddaughter, and I fear for the world that they will inherit if we do not start holding these people to account."

When motherfuckers wanna fuck mothers, you gotta shut that shit down or motherfuckers will just think they can keep fucking mothers without consequences. They'll fuck more mothers because there is no price to pay for motherfucking. You don't coddle insurrectionists. 

We are long past time where those in charge need to be punished. We're running out of time to be able to do that. Don't walk away from the goddamn standoff again.

This Fucking Shirt (Updated)

I wanna talk about this fucking shirt I saw today. I was at the Jersey Shore (yeah, your jokes are right and wrong, depending on the beach) for a little sunshine and wandered into a local diner for lunch. Sitting at the counter was a dude in this fucking shirt: 

First off, fuck this guy. I don't know a goddamn thing about him except he was wearing this shirt and camo shorts. He might be a hero firefighter. He might be a saint to dogs and children. I don't fucking care. Fuck. This. Guy. Besides, he ended up talking to another guy who had an unlit big cock-sized cigar in his stupid round face. So I'm pretty sure they're both just wretched human beings. And even if not, fuck this guy. 

But I gotta talk about this fucking shirt. Look at it in detail there. Sure, you notice the words instantly: "I will not comply," obviously meaning, "I'll fight you if you try to take muh guns." What a pussy-ass thing to say because it's pretty fucking clear that no one is going to take away his guns. That's like saying, "I will drive-thru McDonald's" like you're defying God and the universe to stop you. No, motherfucker. No one is hindering you unless you fucking drive into the front door of the McDonald's. Then you might be shit out of luck on nuggets. Might be.

So, yeah, the words are bullshit. But it's the picture that pisses me off. That's a fucking skeleton version of the Statue of Liberty, one of the most non-violent symbols in this entire shabby, savage country. And not only that, but Liberty's eye sockets have sights or gun barrels coming out of them.

The fuck does that even mean? Does Skeleton Liberty scream in horrific pain whenever she fires eyeball bullets from the sockets? Jesus fuck, that's a nightmare. 

And then she's holding an assault rifle (fuck you, I don't care what the definition is) in her bone fingers. Is she gonna stone cold murder the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses, yearning to be free? Because it sure as shit seems like she is, and that means that the people who made this fucking shirt and the people who wear this fucking shirt know fuck-all about the Statue of Liberty or American history.

Wait, here's a better view:

It's from a company of cockscabs known as Shield Republic, and those cockscabs sell lots of merch so you can get your January 6 on all fuckin' year.  There's antivax shit, "Let's Go Brandon" shit, own-the-libs shit, and more gun-related shit than you can jack off to for the rest of the decade. 

But fuck all that. I want to talk about this fucking shirt. And the fucking tools who wear this fucking shirt, like our fucknut up top. What gets me is how fucking stupid they are. I could design a t-shirt with Jesus reaming his own ass with a crucifix made of dildos while jizzing on an American flag and have it say, "Your fake god can go fuck himself," but why? 

I'll say this: Jizzing dildo Jesus is a hell of a lot smarter image than this dumbfuckery. Skull Gunface is just goddamn stupid, to be sure. But on the left, we wouldn't bother with this kind of idiocy because it's just so masturbatory and worthless. It's so fucking smug, rubbing people's faces with something that you think is edgy but is really simply demonstrating that you probably gave a ton of your hard-earned money to alleged billionaire Donald Trump, and that makes you a complete dumb fuck. 

I mean, seriously, they put "Death List" on top of their death list. Was that so they wouldn't confuse it with the groceries? "Hmm, do I kill Nancy Pelosi or Rice Krispies?" It's embarrassing that these morons are actually a threat to the nation. We deserve a better quality of nemesis.

Mainly, though, fuck that fucking guy in this fucking shirt.

Not very important update/correction: Several people have pointed out those aren't gun barrels on Death Liberty. It's the optical tubes on night vision goggles (that apparently cost $40k to law enforcement agencies because freedom). As one reader tweets, "So, she's not only shooting the huddled masses...she's hunting them at night for sport," adding, correctly, "Fuck that guy."