It Pisses Them Off That We Were Right About Regulations and That We Actually Do Give a Shit About East Palestine

Two things can be true at once. We can believe that the people in East Palestine, Ohio, are a bunch of fucking idiots who vote against their own interests repeatedly, electing horrible motherfuckers who don't give a happy monkey fuck about their health or safety, but, man, they sure hate Black people and migrants, so they got your vote. And we can also believe that they should get all the help they desperately need to recover from the toxic chemicals that were spilled and burned when a Norfolk Southern train derailed in their town. 

You can hear the nematodes of the right spout off about how Democrats and the "left" ignored the disaster because, as Fox "news" Tucker "You can tell I'm lying because I'm breathing" Carlson put it on February 15, "East Palestine is a poor, white town that voted for Trump. So honestly, who cares? No one in the Biden administration did care and that's an atrocity." And you can wonder, "The fuck are they talking about?" It's a fucking lie. The train derailed on February 3. By February 4, the National Transportation Safety Board was already investigating it. By early morning on February 4, the Environmental Protection Agency was already there to monitor air and water and help where it could. (Seriously: the derailment happened at 9 p.m. on the 3rd. By 2 a.m., the EPA was there.) The Department of Transportation was there, and FEMA was in contact with Ohio officials about what it could offer. 

Now, I'm no big-time professional con artist pretending to be a journalist, but I'm pretty sure that both the NTSB and the EPA are part of the Biden administration. I'm pretty sure the DOT and FEMA are, too. I'm pretty sure that means the Biden administration did care and that no atrocity occurred. No, President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg didn't rush there, but that's not really an accurate measure of the care the area received.

And if the motherfuckers in conservative media and in politics want to racialize this, let's fuckin' go.  You know what Tucker Carlson didn't berate the government about? The Flint water crisis, but Black people were the main victims, so fuck 'em, right? You know what they don't talk about on Fox "news" or, indeed, much of anywhere? The continuing effects of toxic chemicals in places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana, which is such a fucking tragedy of high cancer rates in a region of primarily Black Americans that the United Nations has declared it "environmental racism." 

Or how about this: In November 2019,  there was a huge explosion at a petrochemical plant in Port Neches, Texas. It was one of several such events at chemical plants in the area in 2019. This one caused an evacuation of a half-mile radius and the force of the explosion blew out windows on residences, with others downwind of the place told to shelter in place (and close their windows, if they still had windows). It was one week after the Trump administration had shitcanned a rule on warning people when there were toxic chemicals being stored near them. The rollbacks of a bunch of regulations almost immediately affected the health of people living near these facilities, especially in Texas. Not a fucking peep out of right-wing media because it was all Black and brown people who were affected. 

What? You want train derailments? How about the one near Barstow, Georgia, in 2019, where hydrochloric acid was spilled? It's a majority Black town and needed evacuating, but no one demanded that Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao or President Trump visit to comfort people. 

Yeah, so, sure, please racialize these things.

Let's acknowledge a few things, too. The Obama administration could have supported tougher rules on what's labeled as hazardous on trains. The Trump administration shouldn't have repealed an Obama-era regulation on updating brake systems on trains carrying hazardous materials. In fact, the East Palestine fucking over might have been averted only if both of those sentences were in effect because the train wasn't labeled "hazardous," so it didn't need the updated brakes. Even as the pathetic hate junkies of the right try to spin political gold out of this environmental disaster hay, they are being cornered into admitting that maybe some fucking regulations are necessary.

What really pisses them off is that the Biden administration, and, indeed, most Democrats and people on the left do give a fuck about the people of East Palestine. It's like they can't comprehend that idea that we might fucking hate their politics but still not want them to be poisoned to death. Left-wing media (real left-wing media, not what the right bullshits about being liberal) has been all over the story, including Mother Jones and Democracy Now!. The right-wing nutzoids can't get their tiny little brains to believe that the federal government might actually be doing what it's supposed to do because it's being led by a Democrat and thus must be degraded no matter how competent it might be. Are there people on the left being total dicks about this (and not just semi-dicks, like me)? Sure. There always will be.

What also complicates shit is that the Republican governor of Ohio and man who looks like he's spent too much time staring through a hole in the guest shower at the mansion, Mike DeWine, as well as all the Republican officials in the state, are declaring that the air and water are fine, just like the EPA. But I suppose they'll just be called "RINOs" or some such shit because they don't toe the Tucker line.

Here's the thing, though, fellow aghast and amused libs. We should do our best to welcome the right-wingers who have newly discovered that we need, you know, government to protect people when it comes to shit like this. Welcome to the party, motherfuckers.

By the way, about a third of the people in Columbiana County, where East Palestine is, are on Medicaid, including a bunch on there because Ohio accepted the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, you know, Obamacare. 

If you're in the area and feeling sick and getting medical attention that you need because you're covered, thank a Democrat, not Tucker Carlson.

(Note: I'm gonna bet they almost all vote for Trump or DeSantis or whoever in 2024, no matter if the Biden administration gets them all new houses, new jobs, and all the pussy or dick they could want.)

Pregnancy Is Used as a Form of Legal Torture in Parts of the United States

There's a level of cruelty built into the anti-choice laws passed just prior to and then in the wake of the corrupt Supreme Court majority shit-canning the Roe v. Wade decision. I mean, proponents of the savage legislation behave as if this is some kind of benign law, that women will either travel somewhere to get an abortion (thus allowing, say, Louisianians to wash their hands of the whole procedure) or that women will suck it up and give birth and everything will be peachy fuckin' keen the entire time. 

But we know, we fucking well know, with the experience of the entirety of human history, that pregnancy is not a smooth trip from fucking to birth. It's absurd to even have state that. It's fucking absurd to have to say that pregnant people's bodies change in ways that are often permanent, and that's if everything goes fine. It's fucking absurd to have to say that even a minor issue with a pregnancy can cause all kinds of permanent shit to the pregnant person, starting with an episiotomy or bladder issues and moving up through death. And a c-section is fucking surgery. Going through that when you want the pregnancy is one thing. Going through it when you don't? What kind of fucking monsters would do that to someone? But obvious shit apparently has to be said all the goddamn time now because the only way you can pass the laws outlawing nearly all abortions at 15 weeks or 6 weeks or any time. You either have to ignore the obvious shit or you get off on torturing pregnant people. And I'm seriously thinking it's the latter in Florida and Texas and all the other states that pretend to give a fuck about the fetus. 

And I'm saying "pretend to give a fuck about the fetus" because you can't say you care about the fetus when it's going to die horribly within a couple of hours of being born after suffering in the womb. That's the case for Deborah Dorbert, whose fetus is suffering from Potter syndrome, which leads to multiple underdeveloped organs: "Babies with Potter syndrome often die before they are born when their umbilical cords become trapped between their bodies and the wall of their mother’s uterus. Those that survive the birth process typically suffocate within minutes or a matter of hours." Fucking nightmare, right? At 24 weeks, the Dorberts decided they wanted to go through with an abortion because they didn't want the fetus to suffer. But Dorbert is in Florida, and there's an almost total ban after 15 weeks and Deborah's doctors, all of whom have given the same diagnosis, are afraid they will run afoul of the harshly punitive law that could destroy their careers or put them in prison. And the Dorberts can't afford to go to another state, which would mean South or North Carolina at this point, to get the procedure done. Instead, Deborah is going to have to carry her fetus to term and give birth to a child that will desperately gasp for air for a little while and die. 

If you think your god wants that to happen, your god is a dick and no one should give a shit what you or your god wants.

On and on the cases go. Amanda Eid in Texas almost died because she couldn't get an abortion for a fetus when her water broke at 18 weeks until she was too sick to function. The same thing happened to Texan Elizabeth Weller. In Idaho, Carmen Broesder documented on TikTok how a hospital's ER rejected helping her remove the fetus that she was miscarrying over the course of 19 days. She also nearly died. In Ohio, Beth Long's fetus had its organs growing outside its body, but because she works for the state and Ohio bars the state health insurance from covering abortions with just a few exceptions, she would need to pay for the complicated termination of her pregnancy. It took the Longs weeks to make arrangements to go out of state for a less expensive procedure, which made the abortion that much more difficult. Anabely Lopes, a woman from Florida denied an abortion even though her fetus was going to die, was Debbie Wasserman Schultz's guest at the State of the Union, where President Biden should have said a hell of a lot more about this horror show Republicans have brought on. But on and on it still goes.

The trauma that these pregnant people already suffer is magnified because the medical system and the doctors they trust are unable to give them the care they know is needed. It's fucking horrific. The state is adding trauma on top of trauma. And that's for pregnancies that are wanted, that are planned, where families are preparing for a new child.  It's another kind of torture.

And the assholes who passed the laws that are destroying pregnant people body and mind are the ones who should be prosecuted, not the caregivers trying to help patients while being forced to watch their backs and certainly not the pregnant people, whether they want to be pregnant or not. Abortion isn't cruel. Stopping people who want or need an abortion is cruel. And it's become a tool of torture and control for the savage anti-choicers.

(Note: I used "women" at the beginning because that's the binary way those who wrote the laws view procreation. But trans men and nonbinary people can get pregnant, too, as can young girls. So, yeah, "pregnant people" is way more accurate unless talking about a specific person.)

Republicans Are Utterly Devoid of Ideas (Except the Ones They Take from Democrats)

This one ends with a twist, one I'll admit I didn't see coming until I did like 15 seconds of research.

The Republican response to President Biden's quite sane and unexpectedly lively State of the Union speech was honestly just fucking odd, and not just because it was delivered by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a tone best described as "a Little Rock barista's worst nightmare." What was legit fucking strange is how utterly devoid of ideas it was. I mean, sure, yeah, all these speeches, the State of the Union and the response, are at best fantasies where the speakers list a bunch of shit that will almost surely never happen. But, at the bare minimum, we can say that they are aspirational. There were almost no aspirations to do a goddamned thing in Sanders' 14-minute whine about shit that, truly, has nothing to do with making people's lives better.

Half the response was basically a Libs of TikTok reply thread on Twitter: "The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left, the choice is between normal or crazy. It is time for a new generation of Republican leadership. Upon taking office just a few weeks ago, I signed executive orders to ban CRT, racism and indoctrination in our schools. Eliminate the use of derogatory term Latinx in our government, repealed COVID orders and said never again to authoritarian mandates and shutdowns." Somehow, banning critical race theory (which she never says is "CRT," thus demonstrating that she's only speaking to right-wing fucknuts) never put food on someone's table or helped children out of poverty.

The other half was another blow job for Donald Trump, who was Sanders' boss for a couple of years. Apparently, everything was just chocolate and orgasms before Joe Biden came along: "President Biden inherited the fastest economic recovery on record. The most secured border in history, cheap abundant homegrown energy, fast rising wages, a rebuilt military and a world that was stable and at peace. But over the last two years, Democrats destroyed it all." I mean, I'm not sure what the measures of any of these things are, but, you know, shit was fucked up when Trump left office. And Trump inherited Obama's economy, which was doing just fine. That's how this shit works. 

You will not be surprised that Sanders ended with a version of a Trump "Dear Sir" story, with a trip where members of the military in Iraq lost their shit and cheered when Trump walked in on a surprise visit. And then a soldier gave her one of his patches because "you have a tough job."  By the way, Biden recently signed the biggest military budget in U.S. history, and while that's ridiculous and harmful to other needs in this country, it sure as fuck doesn't seem to indicate that Democrats are "destroying" the military.

In every facet of their alleged leadership, Republicans fail to offer anything in the way of ideas or bills to actually help Americans. This void of an agenda continued last week with the utterly buffoonish hearings on the "weaponization of government" and on the Twitter files. No, really, they had hearings about this dumb shit that no one outside of Tucker Carlson's fever-brained hatemongers and Elon Musk's taint cleaners gives the remotest fuck about. Seriously, it's like complaining that someone has taken their dick out on the top of Mt. Everest and we better pass laws against dicks and mountains because of it. Actually, that would have more of a purpose than these hearings did.

Of course, Democrats spanked Republicans' voluminous asses red. Of course, none of it mattered. Sure, you can look at Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from California, absolutely incinerate Republican goat eater Marjorie Taylor Greene, and get a little cream in your jeans from it. But that's all it's good for. No one in the conservative fascist bubble will hear about it on Newsmax or Fox. They'll hear that Hunter Biden was accused of evil shit. They'll hear that Twitter execs who were fired by Weird Elon are pedophiles. Nothing pierces the dome of fucknuttery.

But I promised you a twist, so lemme give it to you. It means we gotta go back to Sarah Sanders. 

Yeah, her speech was basically Truth Social posts strung together into another American Carnage rant. But there was one policy proposal in it. Sanders huckabeed, "Tomorrow, I will unveil an education package that will be the most far reaching, bold, conservative education reform in the country. My plan empowers parents with real choices, improves literacy and career readiness, and helps put a good teacher in every classroom by increasing their starting salary from one of the lowest to one of the highest in the nation."

When Sanders did reveal her plan for education, it included the usual harmful bullshit on what teachers can teach and an expansion of funding vouchers for students to use state funds to pay for private schools (or, you know, "school choice"). But Sanders is also proposing to raise the starting salary for public school teachers by around a third, to $50,000 a year. What's fascinating about this is that just last year, Republicans in the Arkansas legislature refused to even allow a vote on a raise to $42,000, which Democrats were trying to get passed. Then, even more recently, a Democratic legislator tried to get a pay hike to $50k passed as a stand alone bill, but Sanders wanted it as part of a bigger education package. So Sanders' big idea comes from Democrats in her state.

And Sanders' plan goes even further: there's student loan forgiveness and 12 weeks paid maternity leave in there for teachers, as well as performance bonuses. It includes an expansion of literacy programs and a grant to parents to hire tutors for their kids. I'm not totally praising Sanders here - Republican governors have been pushing for higher pay for teachers as a way to get educators to stop protesting and to triangulate on a popular issue and take it away from Democrats (even if their Republican legislatures refuse to go along). Teachers aren't stupid: they know their silence is being bought, but, goddamn, it might be nice not to have to sell plasma to get by. And, certainly, it's kind of ludicrous that Sanders wants to pour money into public education while allowing for money to be taken away from the same schools through the bullshit "school choice" vouchers. 

Actual governing requires more than simply making sure you get that next Tucker hit or praise from Ben fuckin' Shapiro. Letting the lies flow freely keeps the rubes donating. But the real work of improving the lives of your constituents? That shit take effort. Sanders could have filled her speech with stuff from her education plan. Instead, it was easier just to call Democrats anti-American indoctrinators and pretend that's leadership. It's certainly all House Republicans have to offer.

C'mon, Drag Queens, Let's Go Fuck With Some Churches

Tell you what: I wanna gather a whole buncha drag queens from different places around the country, from Tennessee and Oklahoma and Florida and Kansas and every state where knuckle-dragging Nazi and Christian extremist fucknuts are shutting down events and protesting them and getting shit canceled, all because someone in drag is involved. And while the fucknuts say they are protecting children, it doesn't even matter anymore if the events allow children to be present. They're after the drag performers because they say drag is grooming kids for...I don't fuckin' know, man...fabulousness? The fucknuts say that this is about sexualizing children and confusing them and making them gay or some such bullshit that really comes down to "I'm an ignoramus and everyone should listen to me because I'm too stupid to learn different shit."

All the drag performers should protest outside places of worship where a church leader has actually been arrested for sex crimes. Because, lemme tell you, there are a fuckton more child-fucking and rapist preachers and priests and pastors than drag queens. But the Proud Boys and the Jesus Fellaters don't get on the sidewalk outside those churches and scream about grooming and God hating them. Or maybe it's just not really about the sexual assault and pedophilia and it's just about hating LGBTQ people. (It's totally just about the hate.)

You wanna go on this, you masturbation-denying freaks who are so backed up with jizz that you can't see straight? Then let's go:

C'mon, drag queens. Let's go fuck with the Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Fairfield, Illinois. Yeah, their former pastor, the uncomfortably-named Garrett Biggerstaff, was arrested last month on two counts of grooming children for sexual activity. He'd been at it for a while, literally an alleged groomer.  So let's line up outside with signs that say, "Wake up! This is child abuse!" and "Groomers" with a big red X through it. (Real signs outside drag events, in case you were wondering.)

Or maybe we should head to Jamestown, North Dakota, where a Catholic priest, Neil Pfifer, has been arrested for sexually assaulting someone he was supposedly providing mental health services for. Oh, and "an investigation uncovered accusations of crimes in other jurisdictions." Yup. Another priest just moved around because he kept raping his parishioners. Every single person who ever attended a service led by Pfifer was safer with a group of drag queens, as we all would be all the time. So let's show up in our best bustiers and heels and Spanx and ask everyone who goes in if they're ok having given money to house and feed a rapist. 

We could go all around the country doing this, a tour of strong motherfuckers in drag daring the liars and fanatics and fascists to tell us we're wrong. If they confront us, we'll ask them if they're ok with the middle school teacher at the First Apostolic Church in Maryville, Tennessee, who was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor; or with the youth pastor at Harbor Baptist Church in Hainesville, NJ, who pretended to be a teenage girl online in order to get young teen boys to send sexual photos of themselves; or the pastor at Ridge Church in Black Mountain, North Carolina; or the pastor in Florida; or the one in Ohio; or just about anywhere in the country. The list is fucking endless and awful.

Yeah, c'mon, bad ass drag queens. You wanna really highlight who is harming the kids? Who is raping and sexually assaulting and molesting and grooming? Let's fuck shit up outside all these houses of worship and then sashay away.

Florida Department of Education's Black History Month Essay Contest Seems to Want Students to Write Things They're Not Allowed to Learn

It's kind of odd, really. I mean, I know that Florida Republicans would say that they're not opposed to students learning African American history and culture, even after their governor, Ron DeSantis, a man who always looks like he's looking forward to when he'll get to complain to the manager again, refused to allow an Advanced Placement course in African American Studies in Florida high schools. I know that Florida Republicans would say they're not racist, even as they attack any teaching of history that might make white people uncomfortable as "indoctrination" and "critical race theory," terms they neither understand nor care to understand.  

And I know that the Florida Department of Education would say that they support teaching African American history, even encouraging teachers to have "age-appropriate" discussions on "how the freedoms of persons have been infringed by sexism, slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination, including topics related to the enactment and enforcement of laws resulting in sexism, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination, including how recognition of these freedoms have overturned these unjust laws." Of course, "classroom instruction and curriculum may not be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view inconsistent with the principles of this subsection or state academic standards."

And what are those standards? "No person is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex" is one. And "Meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are not racist but fundamental to the right to pursue happiness and be rewarded for industry." Not to mention "A person, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex." Oh, and the curriculum is now "Stories of Inspiration," about Americans who "demonstrate important life skills and the principles of individual freedom that enabled individuals to prosper even in the most difficult circumstances."

To go along with all that inspiration, the Florida DOE is sponsoring a Black History Month essay contest, open to all 4th-12th graders. Just 500 words long. It's actually called the "Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis’ Black History Month Essay Contest," so irony's head is spinning. The subject? "In the contest, students are encouraged to write about an African American who has had a notable effect on their community. The subject of the essay should be an African American Floridian." Then they give examples of some of the potential subjects. And here's where it gets weird.

For instance, the website lists James Weldon Johnson and describes him as a "Writer, civil rights activist, and a leader of the NAACP. He wrote 'Lift Every Voice and Sing,' which is known as the black national anthem." Sure, none of that is a lie. But Johnson's major work is the 1912 Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a novel about a biracial man in the post-Reconstruction period, living everywhere from Jacksonville to New York to Paris. And that book is about how whiteness is forced on Black people through legal, social, and cultural means, which, if you wanna get right down to it, is what critical race theory is about. Johnson writes, "I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them." He also writes, "So far as racial differences go, the United States puts a greater premium on color, or, better, lack of color, than upon anything else in the world." 

The book also has a graphic description of a lynching, which was an issue that Johnson devoted a great deal of energy to. In 1917, in response to multiple lynching incidents, as well as the destruction of Black-owned homes and businesses and the murder of dozens of Black people by rioting whites in East St. Louis, Illinois, Johnson,  then a vice president in the NAACP, organized a protest of 10,000 Black people marching down 5th Avenue in New York City. The flyers for the event are critical of the white political and power structures that oppress Black people, including things like "We march because the growing consciousness and solidarity of race coupled with sorrow and discrimination have made us one." Another line is a confrontation: "Your hands are full of blood."

Johnson wrote articles about the American occupation of Haiti, decrying the rapes and murders committed by Marines and declaring in 1920, "The United States has absolutely failed in Haiti. It has failed to accomplish any results that justify its military Occupation of that country." And he lobbied Congress to pass a national anti-lynching law, which got through the House but failed in the Senate (and the nation had to wait until last year for any federal bill to be passed on lynching). 

So, yeah, a student could write an essay about James Weldon Johnson, but they'd be hard-pressed to write it in a way that didn't completely defy what Republicans believe should be how African American history should be told. Johnson didn't see a few bad white apples spoiled the bunch. He saw an entire race basing its power on hatred of another race and violently using that power repeatedly. Sorry if that makes white people feel the sads.

There are others on that list that are head-scratchers. Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs? Yes, during Reconstruction, he held positions like Secretary of State of Florida. He also was a strong abolitionist and minister who spoke the day after the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, saying, "It is for white men to show that they are equal to the demands of these times, by putting away their stupid prejudices.”

There's also the Florida Highwaymen, described as "a group of 26 African American landscape artists who painted from the 1950s to the 1980s. They became some of Florida’s most well-known painters and focused on images of the state’s natural treasures." What really happened is that segregation caused them to be locked out of galleries, so they were forced to travel around, selling their paintings. Indeed, since this was fairly recent, it's possible that a kid's grandparents were jerks to the artists.

Florida's Department of Education wants to have its cake and shovel it down its ignorant throat, too. Yes, you can learn the history of Black people in this country. Yes, you can write an essay on one of the "Stories of Inspiration." But you can't deal with what the reality of that history without saying that the reason those lives became inspiring is because they faced down systemic racism that was built into the United States and Florida. These aren't stories about overcoming individual obstacles on the way to success. They're not about how this mean white person or that misguided white person hindered them. They are about people who confronted an embedded evil, and it's not "indoctrination" to call the racist history of our country "evil." It's just true.

The End of Roe v Wade Is Part of the End of the United States

I can pretty much guarantee you a few things are going to happen in the near to not-too-distant future regarding abortion rights in the United States. I don't believe a national ban will happen unless the Supreme Court decides to force it. Instead, the insanity of our abortion policy in this country and the Christian extremism driving the legislatures of many states will lead to even more ludicrous and oppressive laws.

For example, laws will be passed that will punish anyone who helps someone living in an anti-abortion state to travel to another state to receive an abortion. Those laws will evolve to allow an anti-abortion state to seek the extradition of providers who perform abortions on women from that state. It will get crazy: when a doctor in New Mexico performs an abortion on a woman from Texas and someone alerts Texas authorities, that New Mexico doctor will have a warrant for their arrest, which New Mexico will ignore, causing greater tension between the states. And if the doctor happens to travel to Texas, they are open to being locked up and charged. By the way, this isn't a fantasy. It's already in bills being filed in Texas and other states. 

I think it will go much further. I think we're going to get to the point where, if someone informs on them, pregnant women will be blocked from leaving the state to get an abortion, perhaps even imprisoning them. Once fetal personhood laws pass, I don't see how this isn't an immediate consequence. 

We're already seeing the madness over abortion pills. Texas, ground zero for cruel and brutal treatment of pregnant people who don't want to be pregnant, is looking to get internet providers to block access to websites that sell the medication. The state is already a tangle of laws on abortion pills, with many women turning to Mexico or elsewhere to get them. Nationally, use of medication to end pregnancies has risen to over half of all abortions. Meanwhile, there's a case out of Texas (of course) which is before a Trump-appointed judge (of course) and could lead to a national injunction on the distribution of the pills. The case is nonsense (of course), but it challenges the FDA's approval of Mifepristone, which is taken with another medication, Misoprostol, to end a pregnancy.

It's really not hard to game out the post-Roe v. Wade landscape. Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision in June 2022 tossed Roe onto history's bloody ashcan, it's already become dystopian in many states, with doctors refusing to perform abortions on women who meet the standard for exceptions, like rape or severe fetal abnormalities, with women being forced to keep pregnancies until their health becomes so dire that they almost die, with doctors and medical professionals being scared of losing their jobs or being sued by some bounty hunter or, indeed, being prosecuted. In the last seven months, every state that could has done everything from tighten abortion restrictions to banning it outright, with virtually no exceptions. In the sane states, like New York or California or Michigan (yes, Michigan),  the legislatures and voters are expanding rights and making themselves sanctuary states for those seeking abortions from the crazy states. Indeed, even when voters say they don't want abortion outlawed, like in Kansas, woman-hating legislators are coming up with things like allowing localities to ban it and other ways of undoing the voice of the people. The will of the voter doesn't matter here; what makes you think it will be respected when they vote out those legislators who want to overturn their vote? 

This should be the 50th anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that stated, quite clearly, that the people of the United States should be treated equally, that the religious views of a vocal group of Christian extremists shouldn't take precedence over the bodily autonomy of half the population. With Roe gone, we have taken another step towards the dissolution of the idea of a United States. It's unsustainable that half the states allow a woman control over her reproduction choices and half the states do not. It's impossible to reconcile that, and it's inevitable that conflicts between the states will arise over this. For now, those conflicts will be legal ones. 

But look at the extremism of the anti-choice Christian right. If the right to an abortion gets codified at the national level, it's not out of the realm of possibility that, say, Mississippi will say it won't abide by the law. And then what? Troops keeping clinics open like back in the days of desegregation and schools? More states following? Or what if the out-of-control right-wing Supreme Court takes the next step and outlaws abortion completely? Do you really think California is going to listen? In my most pessimistic hours, I believe that this is ultimately the goal of the Christian nationalists: if not an outright one, then a de facto dissolution of the United States, where the states declare a 10th Amendment right or something to disobey the Supreme Court or Congress. I'm not going full Handmaid's Tale, but I'm sure saying that a whole lot of the country wouldn't mind it.

Does that sound crazy? So does a modern country allowing for the outlawing of abortion in half of its territory. So do states treating women like property in the 21st century, with the savagery and hatefulness of one side being taken out on women's bodies. One school of thought said that the end of Roe was a dog catching a car it was chasing. What's it going to do with it now? Well, the dogs of the Christian right now want to chew up the roads the cars are on.

Martin Luther King Would Still Fuck Our Shit Up (Coretta Scott King Edition)

On April 27, 1968, little more than three weeks after her husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Coretta Scott King took his place as a speaker at an anti-Vietnam War rally in Central Park in New York City. She based the speech on notes she found in his pockets after his death. MLK had been speaking out against the bullshit war starting in 1967, and he was attacked mightily for it. CSK was continuing his work there as she was continuing his work in the civil rights movement. The Kings really saw no difference between the two.

After listing "Martin Luther King's ten commandments on Vietnam," which included "Thou shall not believe that the world supports the United States," CSK spoke on war and poverty in terms that are sadly still very real now, 55 years later:

"My husband always saw the problem of racism and poverty here at home and militarism abroad as two sides of the same coin. In fact, it is even very clear that our policy at home is to try to solve social problems through military means just as we have done abroad. The interrelatedness of domestic and foreign affairs is no longer questioned. The bombs we drop on the people of Vietnam continue to explode at home with all of their devastating potential...

"There is no reason why a nation as rich as ours should be blighted by poverty, disease, and illiteracy. It is plain that we don't care about our poor people except to exploit them as cheap labor and victimize them through excessive rents and consumer prices. Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations."

Imagine being that strong and kicking that much ass after suffering such trauma. Imagine what it took for her, just four days after MLK's murder, to lead a silent march through Memphis in support of the striking sanitation workers, as Coretta Scott King did on April 8, 1968.

A couple of months later, Coretta Scott King stood in for her husband at another event that was scheduled prior to his death. It was the June 1968 commencement at Harvard University. CSK's speech here, like many of her husband's, made an explicit connection between the suffering of Black Americans and the perverse history of the country:

"For me, as for millions of black Americans, there is a special dimension to our national crisis. We are not only caught up in all the evils of contemporary society, we are its lowest and most deprived component. For most of us this is not a society of abundance but a society of want. We are not newly victimized by the loss of identity and alienation. We have suffered an imposed heritage of exclusion and frustration for generations. Our future is doubly bleak as we face the unabated racism and deepened deprivation reserved for Black Americans."

Black people in the United States, she explained, "live in squalor in slums, they are cheated in education, they cannot hope for normal married lives, and they can expect more diseases and earlier death than their white counterparts. To be Negro in the United States is to be the victim of a system of deprival in a context of personal humiliation. I do not speak impersonally. I was reared in second-class citizenship and have known the sting of humiliation in countless days of my life."

By the way, that's critical race theory. If you oppose it, you oppose Martin Luther King and if you're one of the right-wing pukes who use this day to talk about the "content of character," you should have his words slapped out of your racist pig mouth.

Martin Luther King would still fuck our shit up because his movement didn't die with him. Coretta Scott King stood firm and relied on her faith to keep fighting, led by the guiding principle that you had to fuck shit up, that no one was going to fuck it up for you, and that the world would get better because you fucked it up. And so much of what they both talked about hasn't changed or, perhaps, is moving backwards because we don't fuck shit up enough, to our eternal shame.

The Assholery Is the Point

In his brilliant 2018 essay about the dark heart of Trumpism, "The Cruelty Is the Point," Adam Serwer asserted that "This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the [former] president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it." The book version expands the idea of that cruelty into policy, the legal system, and more, very clearly laying out the savage vision of America's slide into authoritarianism. It's all chilling and frighteningly prescient-feeling. 

There is another layer to this, though, one that is less invested in any principles or coherent ideology or, indeed, reality itself. In the post-Trump (for now) era, Republicans feel liberated to just be total assholes, reason be damned. The only guiding idea, if there is one, is doing shit that pisses off their imagined enemies. Yes, you can say it's an assertion for power for power's sake, but much of it is ludicrous, so insultingly dumb, that it really appears to be mostly being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.

Take, for instance, House Republicans changing the rules so that smoking is now allowed on the House side of the Capitol. Members could smoke in their offices, but that wasn't assholish enough, so now fuckpigs like Tom Cole of Oklahoma can cocksuck on a stogie in the House Rules Committee room, with the stench permeating large areas of the House of Representatives. The rule first changed to ban smoking in all but personal offices in 2007, when Democrats took the House, but even squishy toy Paul Ryan and human chimney John Boehner didn't change it again. The Senate doesn't allow smoking at all. Republicans are literally endangering people around them with secondhand smoke (honestly, I don't give a fuck if it murders the GOP smokers) for something that gets Tucker Carlson all hard and throbbing since he really sets the GOP agenda these days.

And let's see how quickly they end up putting back the metal detectors, which the GOP also had removed from the House. 

Everywhere you look, you see Republicans just doing asshole things. Some of them are incoherently dumb, as if they read a post on Truth Toilet or Twitter and decided the way to get the likes and thumbs up and hearts is to do it. In Arkansas, new governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (forgot that happened, didn't you?) has issued an executive order banning the use of "Latinx" from official communications and documents. And it's not enough that they are doing the asshole move. They have to go all Joe McCarthy on everything. Part of the executive order is this: "All state offices, departments, and agencies shall submit a written report to the Governor detailing the findings of their review regarding the current use of the terms 'Latinx,' 'latinx,' 'Latinxs,' or 'latinxs.'" Why? Why the hell would that matter? The change in language (or, you know, "censorship") will happen regardless of how it was used in the past. It's pure intimidation; it's putting any state employees on notice. It's assholishness, through and through. 

By the way, Arkansas was last led by another Republican, Asa Hutchinson, for 8 years. That means that "Latinx" was being used under a conservative. Of course, Hutchinson was the wrong kind of conservative because sanity bubbled up in him every now and then. He was an asshole, sure, but he wasn't doing things just to be an asshole. Sanders, though, has the Fox "news" cred to think of. Sanders just dissolved the Covid working groups in her state, declaring that there will be no vaccine or mask mandates and that Arkansas has "prioritized COVID-19 disproportionally." Again, everything she's saying is bad is what a fellow Republican did. And if it means killing the people of her state, nothing will halt her asshole march.

These asshole actions often have consequences on real lives. Take, for instance, the uber-asshole of the moment, Florida Governor and future loser of 2024 presidential race Ron DeSantis, who always looks like he's angry that anyone would accuse him of farting even though he totally was the one who dealt it. While it's an asshole move for any governor to order the transport of asylum-seeking migrants from border areas to places like outside Vice President Harris's residence, DeSantis went the extra asshole mile by flying migrants in Texas to Martha's Vineyard, wasting government resources to show he's the biggest anus around. 

DeSantis is working on levels of assholery that are almost metaphysically assholish. There's his battle with anything he sees as "woke," which I guess means "shit that makes straight white guys feel like they don't have all the power." In addition to the "Don't Say 'Gay'" bill, which bans any discussion of gender identity or sexuality in most school settings, and the "Stop WOKE Act," which prevents teaching anything that makes anyone sad about history, DeSantis and the nutzoid Republican legislature are now demanding that all Florida colleges and universities that receive any state funds to "report costs associated with campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs," meaning any "staff, programs, and campus activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and critical race theory." The memo requiring this was sent out on December 28. Everything was due this past Friday. They gave institutions of higher education two weeks to sort all this out, with the possibility of losing state funding if they didn't comply. On top of that fuckery, DeSantis is appointing completely unqualified right-wing and Christian extremists to the Board of Trustees of New College, a small liberal arts school. And let's not get into DeSantis's just fucking weird attack on Disney for daring to oppose the rampant homophobia of his administration. Who's fucking doing the canceling now, shitmonger? 

It's all assholery. On and on and on it goes. In Congress, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that the Republican-led House of Representatives just passed? Assholery. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which bravely says you can't kill babies and which passed the House before a sure doom in the Senate? Assholery.

Clearly, this is all just attention whoredom of the lowest order. Anything to get that sweet Tucker invite. Anything to make the other assholes tell you how awesome you are. But there is a real danger here, and it's different than the danger of the acts of wanton cruelty. Right now, all of these policies are based on completely invented issues. No one is murdering babies born after failed abortions. No one is trying to make your kids gay or transgender. No one is harmed by the use of "Latinx" and smoking is still fucking dangerous. And, yeah, people should feel fucking sad about our fucked up American history. That's what makes you change shit. That fantasy, though, drives people to behave in ways that prop up the fantasy. The death threats against teachers and hospital workers and anyone who doesn't join in the fantasy aren't going to stay just threats for long.

But the assholes don't care that it's all a fantasy. In fact, that's part of what makes it so much fucking fun. That shit drives us crazy. Yes, some people just want to watch the world burn, but some get off on making you watch it burn with them, whether you want to watch or not. And if you don't notice the fire, they'll fan the flames until the smoke suffocates you.

We Still Haven't Left January 6th

On January 7, 2021, one day after a plague of festering dickscabs swarmed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, I wrote the following: 

"Every single Republican who ever enabled Donald Trump, and that includes supporting his campaign, voting for his judges and his fucking bullshit wall, voting against his impeachment and removal from office, separating families and caging children, going along with and encouraging his denial about how deadly COVID-19 is, and so much more horrible shit, cannot be allowed to weasel out of their complicity. This didn't happen without Republicans rolling their eyes at and waving off Trump's extravagant fuckery. They made a deal with the Devil, and that spike-dicked motherfucker is ready to sodomize some souls. So I don't wanna hear about how brave and patriotic Mitch McConnell's speech was where he said that Biden won and Trump lost. I don't wanna hear how Lindsey Graham redeemed himself with his call to speak the truth to MAGA cretins. Even Republicans like Adam Kinzinger, who has been outspoken in his outrage at Trump's refusal to concede, don't get a pass when they spent their entire time in Congress helping Trump.  I don't wanna hear about the conscience that the now-resigning members of the administration have suddenly discovered like a long-lost, beat-up teddy bear. No, fuck all of you. This didn't happen without your blithe acceptance of every bowl of shit Trump fed you. You anonymously spoke against Trump while being too fucking cowardly to go on the record. You should all have a large 'Trump' carved into your foreheads so that for the rest of your lives, everyone will know where you stood when your country was falling the fuck apart."

I suppose the only thing I missed in that rant is that I didn't think they'd all carve "Trump" in their foreheads themselves and that they told the Devil, "Sodomize away" as they gleefully bent over, anxiously hoping for some spike-pricked action, blood and pain be damned. 

In so many ways, we've never left January 6, 2021 in this America, where we've been damned to watch the blatantly guilty run free and propagate their evil madness, acting as if their advocacy for and/or participation in an attempted coup is merely free speech and not an attempt to squelch and eliminate the purest expression of our free speech: voting. 

The insurrectionists try to compare themselves to the Founders and to the revolutionaries who legitimately risked everything to fight England. Of course, most of the Founders would have wanted the crazed mob fired upon and their leaders executed. It’s the blood of traitors that waters the tree of liberty. 

Of course, we pretend to be more civilized, and thus we have had two years of investigations with not a single coup leader indicted for anything close to activities related to, you know, doing a coup. Human-shaped facial scab Steve Bannon was indicted for contempt of Congress, but not for being a traitorous turdfucker. For the most part, they worst the people who tried to turn the country into a dictatorship have gotten is an uncomfortable interview or two with the January 6th Committee or Merrick Garland's Department of Law Enforcement Snails.

That’s on everyone involved in investigations. Barring some startling round of indictments, they’ve blown it. The lugubrious pace of the January 6th Committee and the Justice Department’s investigation has allowed those who took part in planning and propagating the coup attempt to emerge not only unscathed, but in the case of the House Republicans who couped the shit out of the Congress, emboldened by now being in the majority. And, as I have warned repeatedly, the stupidly named Freedom Caucus and its stupid, grunting whore members are threatening to use every means they have to hamstring or halt the prosecution of, well, fuck, any of themselves or anyone else like, you know, Trump.

This perverse idea that because we’ve never arrested and prosecuted a president, we must be extra super-duper careful is worthless. Just because you never did something before doesn’t mean that you proceed with so much caution that you end up not bothering to do it. The republic will not fall to pieces, no matter what the Chicken Littles of the punditocracy say. Indeed, it says something about the strength of a country if it can confidently prosecute a former leader for trying to steal an election.

Worst of all, they have allowed the small cabal of the maddest Trumpinistas to give the former president (that’s right – Donald Trump was once president of the United States. Fucks you up when you think about it, doesn’t it?) continued power. The timidity with which Trump has been handled would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. I mean, he held a rally at the US Capitol to protest the legitimacy of the election. He invited his idiot hordes to join him in marching on the Capitol. I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it a thousand more: I will never understand why Trump wasn’t cuffed and dragged out of the White House on January 6, 2021. Or, if you're thinking, "They'd never arrest the president" (which is just sad), then howzabout on January 20, 2021, as soon as Biden took the oath. I will also never understand why the niceties of an impeachment took precedence over law enforcement when he so clearly broke the law. And you can say he has a First Amendment right to say the crazy shit he says, but, and I say this again for the fuckteenth time, the First Amendment is not a suicide pact. 

As demonstrated by delirious debacle of voting pudding-brained Kevin McCarthy in as Speaker of the House on the 15th attempt, the newly emboldened House Nutzoid Caucus, promised everything from Marjorie Taylor Greene getting her toys licked by McCarthy to Matt Gaetz getting to watch when McCarthy blows Nestor to Lauren Boebert getting to ream McCarthy out with her rifle, are going to attempt to destroy shit because that’s all they know how to do. And no one has made them pay a price. 

So we all pay the price in watching those we know should have been arrested two years ago flaunting their freedom in our flustered faces. It will never not be January 6, 2021 until they pay.

Haiku Review of 2022: The Worst Person in the World

So we've done it again. As we have since 2004 in this rude piece of internet real estate, we've brought another year filled with the fantastic and the fucked to a fluttering close with our in-yer-face versions of lovely little haikus. Here's the last batch of them before we get the hell out of 2022 and welcome 2023, breath bated, loins girded, screams locked and loaded.

From Don J. in London, Ontario

Orange is the new Trump

The new Trump is the old Trump

Mar-a-Lago’s blue.

From Marcia in Massachusetts

Abortions happen

In shotgun shacks or back rooms

When choice is struck down

From Jeff in Alameda, CA

Kissing Putin’s ass

Stealing money right and left

I mean, fuck that guy

From Trans Dykes on Bikes for Christ, Emerald Triangle, CA

Plural pronouns thou

shalt not use for singular

We are not amused

From Plant Daddy in Portland, OR

Please die on your anti-vaxx hill

No MAGA asshole

Stay out of the woodchipper

I’ll be so triggered

From RG in Illinois

Knock Knock Knockin'...

"And you're here because...?

You do know I was brown, right?"

Said real Jesus.

And two more from me:

Drag Queens Aren't the Problem

Grooming is giving

Your child a gun and saying,

"Always shoot first, son."

It's Really Not So Difficult

"They" are we. We? Them.

Respect and love mean far more

Than abiding fools.

Much thanks to everyone who submitted. I mean, holy shit, I read a ton of haikus the last few days, with much amusement and even more delight and a touch of depression at what we've gone through this year. If I didn't choose yours, I'm still grateful I got the chance to check it out.

Now, fuck off, 2022. We're done with you. And, c'mon, 2023. Let's fuck shit up.

(Yeah, I know technically the film up top came out in 2021, but it didn't hit the US until this year, and it's terrific.)

Haiku Review of 2022: Speak No Evil

The haikus just keep pouring in. Everyone wants to get in their last digs at this fucked year, which comes on the heels of another fucked year, and another. We can't keep up with the fuckery. But you sure are in your entries, which are getting progressively nastier and darker. Here are a few more of my favorites.

From TallTrees in WA

Covid and traitors

What a fucked dance card that is

With no end in sight

From VJ in NJ

Lizzo's crystal flute

How many angry racists

Wished it was their dicks

From TMangrove in Wisconsin

Conservatives shout

"We are being silenced!" from

Thousands of platforms.

From Tim H.

Florida omen,

As Desantis fluffs the mob

Trump looks for his cock

From Craig K.

Solemn Remembrance 

We miss Rush Limbaugh

Passings forge gaps in our souls

He ate shit and died

From DJL

National Mood

2022

In like Ted Lasso, but out

Like Wednesday Addams

From Dick Fritter in Crazy AZ

A Hole in One

Dig up her grave now

Ivana, we hardly knew

you were stolen docs

And I'll end with a really great reacharound:

From Liz in Salt Lake

If I could not wake

to words from the rude pundit,

I would go insane.

Keep 'em coming. I still have a handful to go through for tomorrow's climactic post and then we can kick this year in the ass on the way out.  Once again: 5-7-5 syllables. Titled or untitled. Send 'em to: rudepundit (at) yahoo.com. And make sure you tell me your nom de rude and some place somewhere. 

(The title up there comes from the film that disturbed me more than any other this year. Don't watch it. It's great. Don't watch it.)

Haiku Review of 2022: Barbarian Prey

Once more, I have called upon you to send me haikus. And, once more, you have bestowed upon me a fuck-ton of haikus. It's like the haiku truck backed up to my email and dumped a pile of lovely and cruel words, angry and hilarious lines, all for my choosing. So here's the first batch of little poems after going through just one day of the dozens and dozens of submissions coming from sea to shining motherfuckin' sea in this decadent land. 

From Heather in Sun City

The red wave turned blue,

Their real red still spraying from

Bullets, more bullets.

From Steve

new mass extinction

the planet is not dying

humanity is

From MK in Tampa

Two Garbage Governors

Abbott, DeSantis:

Evil legitimized by

Their re-election.

From Anonymous in California

Putin’s enemies,

Suffer Tall Building Syndrome,

Fall and die a lot.

From Doug S. in Denver

Fetterman won it;

Oz can go back to Jersey,

Selling snake oil

From Rabbitearz in Los Angeles

Horny Target Lady

Dildos on aisle 6.

Rep Greene goes to check-out line

We have more of these?

And lastly for today, one that made me actually laugh...out loud.

From Esther in Hawaii

2022 the Mood

Optimism lost

I learned that sea otters are

Necrophiliacs

It's just the the first 24 hours of haiku. So keep your hopes alive if you've sent them in. More tomorrow and Friday. Once again: 5-7-5 syllables. Titled or untitled. Send 'em to: rudepundit (at) yahoo.com. And make sure you tell me your nom de rude and some place somewhere. 

(The title up there is two of my favorite horror flicks from the year. They are actually surprising, exciting, and twisted.)

Haiku Review of 2022: Everything Everywhere All at Once

This fuckin' year, man. Even as shit's not really that bad, shit just feels like it's spiraling down into the toilet of our abyssal politics. You can't turn around without some jagoff screeching about "wokeism" or "groomers" or whatever nonsense word or phrase they've come up with to mean "People who make me mad for completely irrational reasons that I probably got from some stupid video." And every single time we allow ourselves to be even slightly giddy heading down Hope Street, we know that around every corner is Despair, and that motherfucker's carrying a machete. 

We approach 2023 with the prospect that Donald Trump will finally be rooted out from the Republican Party, yet we know that the disease that he unleashed on our nation will not be cured and, in fact, its symptoms will be fostered by the craven DeSantises and Greenes and Noems. We are thrilled that Democrats held the Senate, even expanding their majority, but we know that, come January, the Republican-led House is gonna be a batshit hootenanny of conspiracy theories and vengeance. And Covid is still here and still murdering people, as I know personally. Machete after machete. Dodge one and there's another about to come at your face.

So around these parts, we kick the calendar year's ass out the door with haiku, those little 3-line poems you were forced to write in grade school and everyone made it about poop, except for that one kid who took it seriously and wrote something so beautiful that the teacher brought it home to show her family and prove to them that it was possible for children now to connect with the ethereal and allow the muse to flow through them and what was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, haiku. Send me yours. Here's the deal:

Submit your haiku about anything you want having to do with the fucked up 2022 to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com." I'm the only judge and jury here, and I am generally fickle, cranky, drunk, high, and yelling at birds.

I'm also a stickler for the form: one line of 5 syllables, one line of 7 syllables, and one line of 5 syllables, in that order. They can be as filthy, funny, or fucked-up as you like. You can be serious, silly, or sanctimonious. Titled or untitled. The ones I like the best get published on here over the next few days, so lemme know what name you want on it (in case your boss or mate or Mom sees it) and where you're from. Like "Elon Musk's Blood Emerald from Balltorture, AL" or "Alisha from San Francisco" or something.

Here's a few to inspire you:

The End of the Committee

A report's only

As good as the indictments

That come after it

Relax

One day, cold, alone,

Tucker Carlson will die, too.

That's it. That's the poem.

Climate Changed

No god is needed. 

We have all the floods and fires

We create ourselves.

Okay, now it's your turn. Send 'em on.

(Note: Yeah, the title up there was one of my favorite flicks of the year.)

The Rude Pundit's Annual Nativity-palooza, Now Including Wooden Blocks and More Skeletons

Like movies about suicidal snowmen and tortured ghosts and pole-frozen tongues, some things are a tradition around the rude house. Beloved reruns are good for the soul. My favorites to trot out this week are the Invader Zim Christmas episode and Olive the Other Reindeer. Even here, in Left Blogsylvania, we can indulge in revisiting old posts.

Before Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, and many other places you can get your fix of weird shit, I posted this Christmas blast back in 2004, updated yearly with new bits of freakishness (some links might not work anymore, but they were or are all real and unironic):

Xmas - And, lo, a small teddy bear will lead them:
In the days before Christmas, the Rude Pundit roamed his neighborhood, looking at the displays in the charming stores and corner markets. There he saw the agony of so many dichotomous feelings about this holiday. One window had a kneeling, praying Santa next to a baby Jesus in the manger. Santa's hat was off. He was balding. Another display had the jolly old fat man landing his sleigh and reindeer on the roof of the manger. Surprisingly, neither Mary nor Joseph seemed rattled by the noise, although a camel was looking upward, as if asking, "What the fuck?" The Rude Pundit loved that camel.

Ah, sweet camel, what the fuck, indeed. Christ and commerce, Alleluia. The Savior has been born and he thanks you for your presents. Santa showing that he'll even honor the king of the Jews in the land of Islam. There's no telling what it means (and don't get all up in the Rude Pundit's face about St. Nicholas). Except this: we want to embrace both things, good deconstructionists that we are: Santa, who soothes our greed, and Jesus, who promises us peace. Either way, we want them both to tell us we're good people, nice people. And, of course, guilt-ridden Christians want to make sure that Santa toes the party line, you know.

For the holiday, here's a few of my favorite nativity sets, none of which are intended to be mocking of the event:

That right there is the Veggie Tales Nativity. In case you don't know, Veggie Tales are cute vegetables who love Christ and salad tossing. The newborn savior up there is a carrot. Get it? A baby carrot? What a delight.


Holy shit, that bear nativity is one of the creepiest fucking things I've ever seen. Staring straight ahead with their dead eyes, it looks like a satanic cult sacrifice to some horrible bear-demon. Although, the three wise bears have provided snacks for the blood rite: salmon, honey, and berries. All go well with cub entrails.

Every year, I think, "I wonder if there's an even weirder nativity set that I can find" and every year I come across something where I think, "Yeah, that's friggin' crazy shit, man." Here, it's the snow people nativity, with a snow angel, a snow Joseph, a snow Mary, and horrible half-snow, half-flesh sheep chimera. Did Snow Mary give birth to Snow Baby Jesus? Or did they all just make Snow Baby Jesus out of snow?

That goddamn nightmare fuel isn't a lab experiment gone horrible awry. It's a bunch of white mice with eyes so wide they look like someone laced some cheese with meth and let the little bastards go crazy. It's gonna be horrible when baby Jesus mouse gets crucified in trap.

This is not to mention the Chickentivity, the Moosetivity, the Barntivity, the Native American Nativity, and the various Beartivities, all available unironically for your Christmas consumption.

And then there's the baby nativity:

You might think, "Oh, that's adorable. What's so wrong with it?" To which I can only inform you that the implication of it is that a baby Mary shoved a baby Jesus out of her baby vagina.

Speaking of implications, think of what this dog one means:  

This means there is a dog Pilate who will sentence dog Jesus to dog crucifixion. It means that there is a dog Mary Magdalene who is a dog prostitute. This is not to mention the dog centurions who routinely torture and kill dogs, the dog slaves who serve their dog masters, and the Jewish dogs who get blamed for everything. But don't worry. Dog Jesus will rise from the dead in three days. Have some damn kibble waiting for him. 

And to all a good night.

Oh, wait. What's that you say? You think that last one was kind of a weak one to end on? Well, then, fuck you. Here's the Day of the Dead nativity:

Yeah, you might think they're singing Christmas carols, but they're all screaming in horror and pain. Essentially, that's Christmas in the time of MAGA and Covid.

Oh, wait. What's that? Those aren't that bad after all we've suffered? Then how about these terrifying motherfuckers:

Or maybe that's just how we'll all look after climate change has its way with us.

All of those are preferable to this fucking thing here. This might be the first of these nativities to make me feel visceral anger. Check this shit out:

It's like someone was taking a crap in an IKEA bathroom and thought, "I've got it! The birth of our lord and savior, but stackable!" Imagine the fun you could have with these. I'm already thinking about arranging the Wise Men around Ass for a sticky menage. Mostly, though, this is just middle finger to your guests if you put this out, like you're saying, "Oh, you expect a nativity at Christmas? Suck on these posts."

Wooden blocks not your thing? Want something that's a bit more of a weapon so you can strike down the heathens who won't let you say, "Merry Christmas"? Maybe a little more Flintstone-ish? Then here's some fuckin' rocks. 

Finally (for real), here's one I actually like. It's the Recycled Auto Parts Nativity: 

C'mon. It's got everything. Skeletal camels, edges that would slice open a loaf of bread and some fishes, and baby Jesus sleeping on a bed of chicken wire. That's awesome art by Armando Ramirez, and I'd proudly put that up in my home next to my Peanuts creche and dare some internet asshole to talk shit about it. 

Merry Christmas, baby. Let's just get out of this year alive. May George Bailey finally get to push Mr. Potter into the frozen river.

(Note: Previous editions of the nativity post have included the Zombitivity, Dogtivity, the Boyd's Bears Nativity, and the Rubber Duck...oh, fuck, you get the idea.)

Hurrah for the January 6 Committee Report, But It's Not Enough

I dunno. It's kind of a feeling, you know? Just a sense that everything is kind of shitty, even when it objectively isn't. It's really more of a zeitgeist sort of thing, that what's in the air is a sense of impending doom. Maybe not doom. Maybe impending malaise, like everything is going to stagnate. Or maybe, yeah, doom, if you're thinking in other ways. Like I said, I dunno, but I guess I should try to explain.

Perhaps the most obvious way of conveying what I feel is through the quick fall of Twitter. For many, many, many of us, Twitter was our virtual street corner of choice. No, we didn't always feel safe, but we carved out a place where, for a lot of us, it worked. We could talk to large numbers of people at once. We could occasionally meet cool strangers and even interact with those we admire or despise. Honestly, I know of no other opportunity I would have ever had to converse with David Simon, get attacked by a former speechwriter for a president, and be able to trade ideas with Washington Post and New York Times writers. But since Elon musked up the joint, it just feels like a shit bar, like a place you used to go but now assholes have taken over and they've changed the jukebox from cool shit to bro tunes (Goddamnit, you don't have to play "Mr. Brightside" for the tenth fuckin' time). For a lot of us on the left, Elon Musk's Twitter is not just an unfriendly place, like someone took the bodega on our corner and turned it into a gun shop, but it's made us be more paranoid about what we say and who we interact with. For me, I'm more likely to block some whiny tittybaby right-winger if I think they might report me for calling Tucker Carlson "a cum-gobbling little bitch" (which he is). I mean, what about my freedom of speech?

But the real reason I think that feeling's hanging over us is the lack of prosecutions of leaders for the January 6 insurrection or, really, when it comes to Trump, for anything. The agonizingly slow pace of the investigations by the Justice Department, the Attorney General of Georgia, and even the just-concluded 1/6 Committee has been frustrating, despite some on the left telling us to be patient, that justice and Justice, however delayed, are coming, in almost the same tone that assured us the Mueller Report would do Trump in finally and forever . Yeah, the final report of the January 6 Committee is a compelling summation of the treachery and fuckery done by a fascist farrago of white supremacists, Trumpenistas, and Republican politicians. Yes, the committee collected a pile of witness testimony that ought to add up to...something. 

And yet it's not enough. The only elected official directly called out for criminal referral is Trump (along with skeevy lawyer John Eastman). Other Republicans were referred to the House Ethics Committee for what will almost certainly be, at best, a finger wave and a wink. I mean, there are at least a dozen people committing obstruction of justice during the investigation mentioned in the report, let alone what they did up to and on January 6, 2020, including Kayleigh McEnany, Ivanka Trump, and Mark Meadows. Jesus fuck, how could you not suggest that Cassidy Hutchinson's attorney, Stefan Passantino, be strung up by his balls for telling Hutchinson to lie to the committee. That's the top ethics lawyer for the White House advising a White House aide to commit perjury. 

As for me, I still can't fucking get my head around the fact that Trump wasn't arrested as soon as the phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was revealed. That shit isn't vague. It's not open for interpretation. It's an attempted criminal conspiracy by the President of the United States. (And, honestly, I have more hope that the Georgia case will have actual consequences for Trump than just about any other political one.)

I get it. I fucking get it that the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have accomplished a legitimately impressive legislative record, despite the savagely conservative Supreme Court and the bullshit of the filibuster in the Senate. I understand that there is much to appreciate, celebrate, even, on that account, along with the success in getting judges confirmed and more. But, goddamnit, I can't get over this dark cloud, this sense that the motherfuckers are gonna get away with it. For some, it's enough that the revelations of the 1/6 Committee ensure a permanent historical stain on the Trump presidency and the Republican Party, but no one gives a damn about that because it doesn't change a thing.

We need to know that some shit we believe in matters. We need to know that laws matter. We need to know that the legal system is capable of punishing people who wanted to torch democracy, who still want to do it. We need to know that something is fucking sacred. We just need to know that it's worth it to fucking care. Shit has to have meaning. We can't keep "moving on" when our leaders do something awful. We saw what that accomplished when President Obama implored us to move on from the vast crimes of the Bush Administration. Now, Bush is seen as some revered elder, not that fuckclown who wrecked two nations and degraded the country in the world and should have been in cuffs at the Hague. No, no, no. Not again. We can't let the compromising bastards tell us to suck it up for the good of the country. It's not for the good of the country. It's for the good of those telling us to suck it up. Fucking hell, we just need to know that some shit we believe in matters.

So, yeah, sincerely, great work, January 6 Committee, even though I'm convinced that a fuck-ton was compromised to satisfy Liz Cheney, a genuinely evil person in every other way. Despite that, we have a record in one place of a bunch of stuff we mostly knew or understood or believed about the events of the insurrection. But it's good to see it laid out so clearly. 

Now we need the indictments. We need the prosecutions. Like I said yesterday, sometimes we have to be who we say we are. 

It might not be all that's needed to get rid of this feeling that the joint's gone to shit. I mean, I haven't brought up all the other stresses around us, including the fact that we still are in a pandemic and we still haven't figured out what that means, not to mention that the kids in America are not doing okay, and, really, neither are the adults, and that's not to mention the constant barrage of horrors from right-wing media that is inescapable in this stupid media environment. No, prosecuting and imprisoning Donald Trump won't solve everything. But it sure would show that you can't try to tear the place down and get away with it. And, goddamn, that's something.

Zelensky Challenges Us to Live Up to Our American Hype

By the time Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finished his rather stunning speech to Congress yesterday, the Putin-humped conservatives had lost their tiny goddamn minds. There were the weirdo complaints that Zelensky, who flew in from a real, active war zone, didn't wear a suit, but instead wore the outfit he has been wearing in unity with his soldiers, as if it mattered one bit and as if the exact same people would have criticized him equally as childishly if he had worn a suit (as in "Oh, I thought he was at war. Why is he so dressed up?" And, c'mon, you know that's what these scumfucks would have done). The rest was like pure Russian propaganda coming out of American mouths and keyboards: bitching about the amount the United States has given Ukraine, bitching about... 

You know what? It doesn't matter. These are poisonous motherfuckers. I was gonna quote Tucker Carlson mouth-shitting something utterly appalling, but fuck him.

Here's the thing: I've been watching the United States fund bullshit fascists and totalitarians my entire fucking life. In Latin America, in Africa, in the Middle East, this country has provided arms and money to the worst goddamn people and the most worthless causes. We've funded mercenaries and weapons manufacturers. We've funded crazed terrorists by calling them "insurgents" and funded evil militaries crushing freedom-fighting insurgents. God, the madness this nation has helped unleash on other nations.  I've watched Democratic and Republican presidents justify all of this under some vague and incoherent notion of "national security" or whatever other serious-sounding nonsense they want to use to coerce us into buying into savagery. And I heard nary a peep from conservatives about virtually any of it. But now with Ukraine they decided to take a stand? Go fuck yourselves bloody.

What Zelensky did was say to us, to we who live in this goddamned ludicrously powerful country in this goddamned ludicrously debased age, that we're supposed to represent some fucking ideals to the rest of the world. "American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom, the freedom of people who stand for their values," he said, linking Ukrainian hopes to freedom to our own American belief in that nebulous idea of "freedom." And he invoked the military history of the United States, with his references to the Battle of the Bulge and FDR and the Battle of Saratoga, fer chrissake, demonstrating that he knows American history better than most Americans and that he wants us to believe in the myths we tell ourselves. Look, Zelensky said, your mythology is based on real shit that happened, real battles with real lives and real consequences. Now we have this battle against this enemy. The consequences for failure would be genocide and expanded aggression by the lunatic Putin. For the US to walk away would be shameful. It would make us an accessory to mass murder, even more than we usually are.

"Let’s do it. Let the terrorist state be held responsible for its terror and aggression and compensate all losses done by this war," Zelensky said about Russia, and then he pronounced, "Let the world see that the United States are here." 

That's why the conservatives who dangle from Putin's taint hair went crazy. It's because they say constantly that the United States is the greatest country in the history of everything. They say all the time that we are something special. And we're saying, and Zelensky is imploring, that we fucking well act like it once in a while. Sometimes even a superpower has to put the fuck up or shut the fuck up.