Treatment of Louisiana Teacher Is Just a Literal Version of How All Teachers in the State Are Treated

If you watch the full tape of the part of the meeting of the Vermilion Parish School Board in Abbeville, Louisiana, when middle school teacher Deyshia Hargrave speaks, you see an educator who is passionately concerned about her profession, her peers, and the students in her classroom. Making a point about why the superintendent should be voted a pay raise when the teachers and school staff have not seen a raise in seven years, Hargrave says, "How are you going to take a raise when...when I first started teaching ELA there were like 20, 21 kids in a class and now there’s 29 kids in a class that we are now having and we have not got raises. How are you going to take that money, because it’s basically taking out of the pockets of teachers."

Think about that for a second. Essentially, the school gave her 1/3 more work. That's 33% more tests and papers to grade, 33% more children to supervise and work with, 33% more conferences with parents, and so very much more. And for that 33% more work, they gave her not a single damn penny. It's not only unfair; it's shameful, and it harms the kids and the teachers.

So, yeah, when she was called on - and she was called on both times she stood to speak - Hargrave brought up the unfairness of Superintendent Jerome Puyau's salary going from $110,130 to $148,811. That $38,000 bump in pay is around the annual salary of a first-year teacher in Vermilion Paris, where the average for all teachers is $47,000. Most start around $40,000. That's less than $20 an hour.

Hargrave, a Teacher of the Year at her school in 2016, was told by board president Anthony Fontana to stop talking, that her protest (which was respectful the entire time she spoke) was out of order, and that she needed to leave. The others attending the meeting were audibly outraged by Fontana. A city marshal, there for security, walked over to Hargrave and escorted her out. While in the hallway, Hargrave was thrown to the floor by the marshal and handcuffed. As she cried out, wondering why this was happening, the marshal shoved her outside, called for backup, and put her into a police car.

You can watch all of this happen on the video. It's pretty clear that Hargrave's treatment was bullshit, so much so that the Abbeville city prosecutor has declined to press charges and the ACLU has gotten involved. And, of course, the video went viral, becoming a Reddit and Twitter sensation. And, of course, national and international media picked up on it. And, of course, multiple death threats have been made against the school board because that's just the stupid world we live in now.

This happened in the backyard of where my family lives. When I called a friend of mine who is an education professor in that area of Louisiana, he was standing outside a meeting of the teacher's union there, which has little power since Louisiana is one of many verminous, anti-employee right-to-work states. He had taught Hargrave when she was in college, and he remembered her as a solid, enthusiastic student who cares a great deal about her students. In addition to the outrage over the incident, "people are pretty fucking discouraged here" in Vermilion Parish. Louisiana has always treated its teachers like shit, and Hargrave's arrest was just that treatment made literal. "We're no longer just handcuffing you in the classroom," the school board was saying, "we will actually put handcuffs on you."

Fontana was a total asshole about the incident, telling the local paper, "We have certain rules: three minute speech, it has to be civilized, it can't get off target, it has to be related to the issue before the board. That's not what was happening last night." Except everyone can see that that is exactly what was happening. And she hadn't spoken for three minutes at all, as Fontana asserted later. He sees it as "a set-up," a way of drawing attention to a superintendent that teachers have disliked since he was hired and whose contract they wanted to see ended.

But board member Sarah Duplechain told the AP, "No reason for anyone to be treated this way. So far in 3 years, only women have been removed from board room meetings." She said this in the meeting and was greeted with grumbles and verbal dismissal. By the way, Duplechain had called the police in April 2017 when Fontana was yelling at her in the parking lot after a meeting, so, you know, comity is in short supply. Another board member, Laura LeBeouf, said, "Women in this parish are not getting the same treatment" as men.

In a video posted today on the Facebook page of the Louisiana Association of Educators, Hargrave said, "I hope you choose to speak out after seeing what happened to me. Don't let it be an intimidation to you." That was something she had said at the meeting, that teachers were afraid to speak up against the school board. It's what happens when teacher tenure is almost impossible to achieve in Vermilion Parish. You need 5 straight years of perfect evaluations from administration. Getting choked up talking about the support she's received, especially from her students, Hargrave continued, "Don't let the conversation end with me. Please. Go to your local school board meetings. Speak out. Be vocal." That engagement on a local level is something we should all be involved in.

The Vermilion Parish school system is probably the best in the area. That's primarily a result of the work of teachers who give a damn, like Deyshia Hargrave. Maybe we should stop treating them as disposable. Maybe we should treat a job that is primarily done by women as the profession it is, needing degrees and training. Maybe we should give a shit about teachers.

Tomorrow, there will be a Stand with Deyshia march in Abbeville after school at Magdalen Square. I hope the place is filled to overflowing. I hope the cops stand down and aren't assholes. And I hope that Anthony Fontana's piggish ears burn so badly that he has to jump in the bayou.

Prove That Trump Isn't a Fucking Moron

Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury is filled with quotes from people stating, quite simply, that Donald Trump, ersatz president of the United States, is a barely literate dunce. A "fucking moron," if you will. In interview after interview, Wolff has asserted that every single person he spoke with in the White House agreed that Trump is a goddamned dimwit, someone barely able to walk and breathe at the same time, a mental toddler, a shit-for-brains rich puke who dumb-lucked his way through life because his daddy's money kept him...Wait, what was I talking about? Yeah, that's it. He's stupid.

Predictably, whenever anyone says that Trump is not the greatest at something, the administration lickspittles go out in force to say, in essence, "Fuck you, fake news fuckos. I know Trump is the best human who ever existed and I thank God every day that He allowed me to be alive at the same time as Trump." Or words to that effect.

Here's Stephen Miller, a White House Nazi who is just begging for a punch in the dick, shortly before Jake Tapper threw him the fuck off CNN: "The reality is, is the president is a political genius who won against a field of 17 incredibly talented people" and a bunch of other opponents. Miller continued, plucking orange pubes out of his teeth, "And he did it all through the people and through his strategy and his vision and his insight and his experience." Miller's the type of creepy motherfucker who you know jacks it to murder porn. Honestly, Tapper should have grabbed Miller by the scruff of his neck and tossed him into the street like a bouncer with a noisy drunk.

Trump's brain has got other, slightly less odious defenders. CIA Director Mike Pompeo went on Fox "news" Sunday and also pretended that President Dunceface leaves Stephen Hawking in the dust. He declared, "I watched him take the information that the intelligence community delivers and translate that into policies that are of enormous benefit to America...He deals with the most complex issues and has handled them in a way that I have great admiration and respect for." Pompeo also assured us that Trump "reads."

Let's take a page from Trump himself. When questions were created by right-wing nutzoids about whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, Trump hounded Obama about producing his birth certificate. The best-known birther in the nation, Trump wouldn't let it go until Obama did finally make the document public. Even then, that wasn't enough for Trump, who fanned the flames of crazy until it no longer served a political purpose for him.

So let's demand that Trump fucking prove that he's not an idiot, that he's actually engaged and understands the issues. That he is "like, really smart" and that he understands tax law better than any CPA or health care as well or better than anyone. That he's fit for office. Prove it. Put the fuck up or shut the fuck up. Because right now, we're just supposed to take his word and the word of his lackeys and sycophants. And if President Obama's word wasn't good enough on his place of birth, then Trump's word sure as shit ain't enough.

Trump's gotta do a press conference, a real one, not a spontaneous one. He's gotta sit for an interview with someone who isn't one of his conservative ball washers. It's gotta be a real reporter who will ask him specific questions about specific policies and demand detail. C'mon, motherfucker. Let's see what you've got.

Also, Trump's gotta show he can act like a leader and not just an asshole pretending to be a tough guy. He's gotta give a speech where he talks actual policy and not just slogans. He's gotta focus and not just go through a list of shit like a brain-damaged monkey who can't decide what branch to sit on and throw feces, like he did yesterday in Nashville. No mentioning his electoral college win. No discussion of "Crooked Hillary." An intelligent, grown-up speech that an intelligent grown-up would make. It doesn't even have to be genius. Just stable. Show us all this magnificent man that all of his defenders see. Because right now, we sure as shit can't see it through the fog of degrading tweets and incoherent speech.

Of course, he won't do any of this. Even if Trump were asked to do it, he wouldn't because he can't. And those same obsequious fucks would get out there and tell us that he's too fucking smart for us to understand his layers and depths. Meanwhile, his idiot hordes will tell us that Trump is smart because, indeed, idiots want one of their own as their idiot king.

Here, in what we might quaintly refer to as "reality," we know that Trump's inability to speak in fluid sentences or his constant repetition and simple vocabulary isn't hidden genius. It's just a pathetic lack of intelligence. If we fail to question Trump on his basic ability to function, we are participating in a cover-up as surely as his family and every single person who won't go public with what they know about the man who bumblefucked into the presidency.

Note: Trump's lack of brain power doesn't forgive him or his vile family for any of their venal criminality. You can be dumb and evil.

Puerto Rico Is Suffering for Our Sins

Before we forget about it completely in the fog of Michael Wolff's book about the fog that Donald Trump apparently exists in, let's pause to recognize that, post-Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is still fucked and it won't be unfucked for a long time. How can we list the ways?

- It might be May before the entire island has power. Half the people on the island, including those in some urban areas, do not have electricity. And while the Army Corps of Engineers thinks that power will be restored to 95% of Puerto Rico by March, we're still talking Americans living without power for 6 months since the storm, and, in the more remote areas, 8-9 months, just in time for the 2018 hurricane season to start. (Those areas still have over 80,000 people in them.)

- Some of those remote areas still don't have potable water. FEMA has been insisting that 95% of Puerto Ricans have access to drinkable water, but the island's water was a fucking mess before the storm. Yeah, pre-Maria, 99.5% of the island's citizens drank water that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. And after the storm, with water treatment plants needing, you know, electricity, even if you get your water from your kitchen sink, it still was contaminated with bacteria, as seen by an uptick in illnesses caused by those little fuckers.

- Connecticut's two senators, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats, returned this week from a visit to the island. Murphy, in particular, was stunned by what he saw. He said that "'almost none' of the aid Puerto Rico was supposed to receive has been delivered as part of a $36.5 billion October package that also allocated relief for Florida and Texas." And Murphy believes that the final death toll from the failure of the federal government to send the aid needed will be "in the multiple thousands."

- Speaking of the death toll, it's already estimated to be over 1000, when you take into account things like the people who died because the power grid was destroyed and they couldn't get dialysis. Don't take my word for it. Listen to the demographer who helped come up with that number. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada believes that the lower number of 64 directly attributable to the hurricane in action will remain the official death count. She warns, "[M]inimized figures could weaken efforts to provide relief to communities affected by the hurricane at the local and international level." The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, just launched an effort to look into the actual number of deaths.

- While it looks like the issue might be shortly fixed, Puerto Rico is a primary place where IV bags and saline fluid are made, and so there has been a shortage of those in hospitals on the mainland. Amazing how this shit works. The FDA is saying that the manufacturing plant is back on the commercial grid, but, holy shitballs, did you even know this was happening?

- Meanwhile, there has been an exodus of Puerto Ricans to the mainland United States, which they can do freely and legally (sorry, Trumpenheimers) because they are Americans. Hundreds of thousands of them have come to settle here. At least 200,000 are now living in Florida, which Trump won by 113,000 votes in 2016. Anecdotally, many of those new residents are registering to vote. PR Gov. Rosselló is saying he will work to mobilize the millions of Puerto Ricans in the states to take revenge on Republicans in 2018.

And that, in the end, will be the only way to unfuck a part of the United States that our madman president wants us to forget about.

Gauging the Level of Screwed: The Fusion GPS Editorial Is More Important Than the Wolff Book Excerpts

Look, we already knew that Donald Trump was a shitty human being. Anyone who paid any attention to him knew that his entire life was devoted to avarice and humiliation. He's garbage and has been for his entire selfish, pathetic time polluting the earth. And it was always obvious that he was a fucking idiot, an incurious dullard whose wealth gave him the illusion of wisdom because he was surrounded by people who pretended he was wise. I have never heard or read an interview with Trump where he said anything other than simple-minded statements, stupid jokes, and belligerent braggadocio.

So, except for the Steve Bannon shit, the New York magazine excerpt from Michael Wolff's upcoming book on the end of the Trump campaign and the beginning of the Trump presidency that reveals that Trump is a moron who didn't want to be president and who is desperate for any media attention isn't much of a revelation. It's pretty much just confirmation of what we all suspected, even if it turns out just a tenth of it is true. Oh, really? Trump's an erratic madman who has no business as president? Color us shocked.

More important is the New York Times editorial by Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the two former journalists who run the private research firm Fusion GPS, responsible for the dossier on Trump, funded by both Republicans and Democrats, put together by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Sick of being attacked by Trump and his GOP congressional lackeys, Simpson and Fritsch lay out just how fucked up shit is.

Not only do they plainly state that Republicans on committees looking into Trump's ties to Russia are lying about Fusion GPS, but they clearly have no fucks left to give. In their telling, the Steele dossier is seen less as a sensationalistic fiction created to embarrass Trump with piss tales and more as a roadmap of our doom if we stay on our current path. It is not hyperbole to describe the entire Trump corporation as an elaborate money-laundering scheme for Russian oligarchs (and other criminals around the world). Even Ivanka Trump's diamond business is being investgated for money-laundering. It's all filthy.

This one line struck me like a wet slap in the face: "Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I." Steele had information from unpaid sources in Russia that the Kremlin was, in essence, working to get Trump elected.

I keep coming back to that idea, as I have ever since I first heard about the meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and that Russian lawyer. If a foreign national tells you they have dirt on your political opponent, you go to the FBI. The very fact that they didn't says as much about the guilt of all these men as it does about their ease with dealing with Russian emissaries with skeevy motivations.

Which brings us back to the more interesting part of the Wolff book. An article in The Guardian reveals that Steve Bannon told Wolff that the Trump Tower meeting was "treasonous" and that Trump himself likely met with the Russian lawyer. The gist of what Bannon says is that Junior and the rest were so fucking dumb for having the meeting without their lawyers present, not that they should have gone to the FBI. In other words, they weren't evil enough for Bannon and now that has ended up biting them all on their asses.

So Bannon is either singing to Robert Mueller or will be soon. Cockroaches tend towards self-preservation. Trump's gotta know this, and that's what makes the end of another day of insane news just a little more insane. Because, see, Trump released a statement disavowing Bannon, who was once Trump's chief strategist and an equal with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus in the White House. "Steve was a staffer," Trump says, once again reducing a major player to another disposable worker bee. "Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look," Trump continues by stroking himself vigorously, "Steve had very little to do with our historic victory." Bannon had used the Breitbart website to promote Trump as a viable candidate, but, sure, yeah, whatevs.

Of course, back in November 2016, shortly after the election, Trump was defending Bannon after hiring him to work in the White House. "I’ve known Steve Bannon a long time. If I thought he was a racist or alt-right, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him," Trump explained. Like I said, Trump's garbage, and he'll say or do whatever he needs to make himself look like he's in control, even if it's contradictory or even if it's just a goddamned lie.

Man, in prison, they're gonna love Trump talking about his electoral college victory.

What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now (and Are We Gonna Get Nukey)?

Apparently, "much work to do," as President Donald Trump proclaimed he would be heading back to DC for after spending most of the last two weeks golfing and, presumably, attempting to fuck Melania (per her contractual obligations) only to end up screaming at her for keeping her eyes open and that's why his dick couldn't get hard, and, no, Melania, it's not all the fast food sodium and Diet Coke chemicals, the fuck are you talking about, means "tweeting a shit-ton." Because that's pretty much all Trump did today. It was like a greatest hits concert of tweets, slamming Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, North Korea, Iran, Democrats, the New York Times, and the "fake news" media. Seriously, it was like it was Skynyrd doing "Freebird" nonstop for an entire day.

There was lots of weird and disturbing shit, sure, and we'll get to that, but there was also a demonstrably false, batshit tweet where Trump took credit for something that he had nothing to do with: "Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!" It was the safest year around the entire goddamn world for airline passengers. That means Trump is taking credit for airline safety in China, in Iran, everywhere, which is just pure fucking idiocy. Hell, the report is from a Dutch agency. And it's been nine years since a U.S. plane has crashed with fatalities. So, you know, thanks Obama. This is some "Dear Leader" dictator shit right here, where the president just says that he makes the sun rise and pies taste delicious, just so his idiot hordes can love him for things they're too idiotic to understand. It's like when he jumped on stage at an AIDS benefit in 1996 and acted like he had given to the cause when, in reality, he hadn't done a thing.

It's even more ludicrous when you think about what he's taking credit for. If Trump's responsible for no deaths on airlines worldwide, then life and death is all on him. He's done shit on guns, so he's responsible for all gun deaths. He's done nothing except for show on opioid addiction, so all those overdoses are on him. C'mon, motherfucker, you wanna play this game, let's fuckin' play. (Thanks to rude tweeter DixiDoodle for this analogy.)

Meanwhile, Trump started the day by shitting on Kim Jong-un, calling the North Korean jack-off "Rocket man" again for reaching out to South Korea for talks. And now Trump's ended it by threatening to nuke North Korea as a response to Kim saying that he has "a nuclear button on the desk in my office." It's the usual bullshit that petty tyrants say.

But Trump apparently saw Kim's New Year's Eve statement, thought, "You think that's acting like a petty tyrant? Hold my Diet Coke," and then tweeted (and it cannot be said enough that this is the goddamned president of the United States saying this): "Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" Yes, the goddamned president is having a nearly literal dick-measuring contest with Kim Jong-un. We're gonna need a couple of pairs of tweezers and two microscopes to see who wins.

All of this is just bluster. Trump's as likely to nuke North Korea as he is to follow through on a threat to sue someone who says mean shit about his disgusting family. But it gives Kim even greater justification to push forward with a nuclear weapons program. I mean, really, wouldn't you? If some dumb, irrational motherfucker with no impulse control is saying he might nuke you, you'd sure as shit want some nukes to make that dumb motherfucker think twice. Trump is making the world a more dangerous place, almost as if he just has some nostalgia for the 1980s, the last decade he was actually relevant, and wants everyone to have the nonstop anxiety about being annihilated by nuclear bombs that we all had during the bad old days of Daddy Reagan and the Soviet Union.

We just have to get through 10 months or so of this shit because, barring a Mueller nuke, we gotta wait for the midterms for anything to change. 10 months of childish, deranged tantrums and Republicans pretending it's all fine. Just hang in there until we can show them all the fuckin' door.

Oh, there was one more tweet that deserves mention. "I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!" Trump spouted from the shitter. You got that? He's got "much work to do." And, obviously, it can wait while he undermines the free press.

Or maybe that really is what he thinks his job is.

The Haiku Review of 2017: Atomic Haiku

The now-dead 2017 inspired more rage haiku than anyone should ever read. Like in the neighborhood of 250 entries. Great huge thanks for all the efforts. Even if you didn't get posted over these last few entries, your effort is not unappreciated. It's just not as appreciated as the ones that did get posted because, well, obviously.

From Kate from Albany, NY:

Global climate change,
Even if you don’t believe,
Will still kill your ass

From Kristen from Akron, NY:

Laugh to stop the tears
He can't even hold a glass
And he has the nukes

From Seattle Steamer:

Tender Broflakes rage
rage against the dying of
the right. Fuck all y'all.

From Don from Albuquerque:

Republican Voter

If you can only
Parrot mean, stupid, racists
Maybe they are you

From BB in LA:

Two different courts
Have now thrown out Judge Roy Moore:
state civil and food

From Rabbitearz:

On a tragic note
Erica Garner can't breathe
Another one down

From Beth in Alexandria, VA:

First time I heard it,
President Trump, felt like a
Punch in the stomach

From Bob from Minnesota:

Poor Puerto Rico
totally thought they were part
of the States, so screwed.

From Toby in Michigan:

America, will you
Wake up now? Will you not screw
The pooch once again?

From Jimmy in Kentucky:

I sign petitions
As this world gets scarier
Flailing at windmills

So let's bid farewell to that shitsack of a year and gird our loins for the 2018 fight to the death. No, literally, I think we'll be fighting for the actual life or death of our country.

The Haiku Review of 2017, Part 3: The Shape of Haiku

So...many...haiku. Rude readers have been in a poetry-writing mood, like angry teens whose parents make them take a phone timeout. You have sent in upwards of 200 haiku. It's almost as if you have something you need to get off your chests, like you wanna just scream, "Fuck off, 2017!" except in three lines of 5 syllables, then 7, then 5 again. I just fuckin' love how smart these are. Hell, at this point, I'm just gratified when people use the correct "there," "their," or "they're."

Here are a few more of the best ones:

From Jody in Washington:

Move in like a bitch
Pink Pussy hat on my head
Grab my country back

From Dave from Ann Arbor:

I learned as a boy
Harassment is not okay
Not a hard concept

From VJ in NJ:

"What is the dick move?”
Trump thinks as he sips his Coke
President Asshole

From Alex in Pittsburgh:

The Oval Office
Smells like somebody fucked it
Can't imagine why

From Tom in Tuscon:

Ninety-two million
To subsidize his golf game
In one fucking year.

From RJ in San Jose:

When Trickle-Down fails
again, Trumpsters will bravely
condemn Kaepernick.

From Wendy:

How do you do it?
What lies do you tell yourself?
You are in a cult

From Steve in San Diego:

Skinny polar bear
Now ice free Arctic summer
Make way for the drills

From Sister of Ye in Michigan:

"See, I saved Christmas,"
Trumpy Grinch said as he threw
Christ off Mt. Crumpit

And while I generally hate this kind of shit, this one made me giggle:

From Adam in South Carolina:

One day I googled
Why Ann Coulter is a cunt
Then I found this blog

There are a ton more, and I'll post some tomorrow as we tell send this goddamn year into the trash heap. You can still send yours to "rudepundit" at the ol' Yahoo.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted so far.  One more today from me.

Come November 2018

Channel all of that
Rage and energy into
Election grenades

The Haiku Review of 2017, Part 2: Call Me By Your Haiku

Yesterday, I put out the call for rude readers to submit their summary of 2017 in tender little haiku form. And, holy shit, as you have every year, you delivered, with over 100 submissions so far from coasts left and right, from Trump country and foreign countries. Here are some of the best.

(Quick note: The overwhelming number of entries were about Donald Trump. It's quite the comment on how much of our psychic space he has devoured that we can barely see beyond his orange mane and jibbering jowls.)

From Laurie Moore:

This just summed it up
That pig, throwing paper towels
Like a game show host

From Douglas R:

No more white people
I am a white person, too
And I say no more

From L.B. from NYC

Arrogance Personified
Gorsuch on the Court:
Scalia with better hair.
Just as nasty, tho.

From Sarah from Seattle:

Cuyahoga Burns
Again! Let's throw Scott Pruitt
in! He can swim, right?

From Jeff in Oregon:

Good people don’t toke
Says the Keebler elf asshat
Dude needs a bong rip

From Bob from Minnesota:

Mnuchin is a
two hundred pound bag of crap
dressed in a nice suit.

From Doug in Oakland:

Black women showed up
Again like they always do
It worked so thank you

From AxshinJaxn in a red part of Illinois:

“Fine folks on both sides…”,
Charlottesville revealed Trump’s id;
A racist affirmed.

From Thomas from Indy:

His rep precedes him.
Still, they suck his flaccid junk
all the way to hell.

From Lorenzo from Cranston, RI:

Kellyanne Conway
her facile lying shitshow
creeps me the fuck out

From Susan in Shrub-steppe-istan:

He is on the green,
again, cheating game, stirring
up rage in the world.

From me:

MTM

Mary Richards did
Her job well and stayed single
A woman in full.

Jammin' Me

Petty and Allman,
Guitars wailing, voices strained,
Show God how to rock.

Blueberry Cloud

Fats and Chuck, gliding
Through their walkin', talkin' tunes,
Show God how to roll

Keep 'em coming. You can send all haiku (legit ones, 5-7-5) to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com." More tomorrow.

The Haiku Review of 2017: Adios, You Motherfucker of a Year

One of the few traditions around these parts of Left Blogsylvania is that we kick the ass of the year out the door in the least wordy way possible. That means haiku, the tiny poems that can put on big boots. It's a way of purging before we get to the next year, filled with hope. No, really. Man, every fuckin' day of 2018 is one closer to the midterms where we can actually make America great again.

And you can join in the fun. Send me legit haiku: 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. The best ones 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 "Cockknocker from Shitheel, AK" or "Linda from San Francisco" or something.

Send your entries to "rudepundit(at)yahoo(dot)com." I'm the sole judge and I'm susceptible to whim, mood, and whatever I'm drinking or ingesting or smoking.

Let's get this haiku party started:

Trump's inaugural.
Rain, "carnage," and "some weird shit."
Before empty space.

Russia stuff is bad
But I care more about why
Many believed Trump

It was racism.
Don't be blind. Don't be stupid.
It was racism.

See? That was easy-peazy, as dearly departed Bob would say. Send 'em in, and I'll put a bunch up, along with some more of my own.

Things That Made 2017 Worth Living Through

As bad as 2016 was (and, fuck, do you remember how bad that was?), 2017 made 2016 look like a goddamn orgy on a fluffy cloud. From Trump's terrible inauguration to our fucked climate to the tax bill that will rape our children's future, it was one shit thing after another. The only hope going into 2018 is that the bastards might finally pay, someone has to, whether that's the pricks who assaulted and harassed women or the prick-in-chief and all his lackeys. We're wide awake in America, and too many are looking around as if they are seeing the country as it is for the first time in their closed-blinder lives. Welcome to the party, motherfuckers. Grab a hammer or a shovel. We've got shit to do.

This year, the comfort of distraction simply felt more necessary. And, fortunately, there were some quality distractions out there:

1. One of the most cathartic moments in a movie this year was in Wonder Woman, when the title character was told she couldn't cross the aptly-named No Man's Land, the space between warring armies (of, yes, men). Diana defies the men accompanying her because a village needs saving, and, in a stirring action sequence, she charges into the fray to save it. That was the straight-up superhero shit right there, pure and uncut. And Thor: Ragnarok was a genuinely funny action-comedy, finally taking the Marvel characters and showing us how absurd the whole thing is. It was subversive and intentionally silly, which strangely gave all of the deities and the Hulk greater humanity than they had ever had.

It was a great year for father-teenage daughter relationships in great films. In Lady Bird, the daughter got her father to agree to be a co-conspirator in her striving to get into college far away from home. In The Meyerowitz Stories, the father supported his daughter's cutting edge (and nearly pornographic) video art. And in The Devil's Candy, the father and daughter shared a love of heavy metal music that bonded them even as Satan crept into their home.

Other blasts: The climax of Get Out, when Chris takes his revenge against the white liberals who sought to steal his body and enslave his soul; every moment in a car in Baby Driver; every moment with a gun in John Wick 2.

2. It was a pretty damn good year of peak TV. The Good Place not only had the mind-blowing, completely show-altering twist at the end of its first season; its second season had one of the funniest episodes of any TV program I've ever seen. It was written by Megan Amram, it was titled "Dance Dance Resolution," and it had so many hilarious puns in the background that you could pause scenes just to try to find them all.

The most entertaining shows shared that sense of anarchy. In a batshit world, why not just go batshit? Rick and Morty continued to rampage through every line of good taste while still being, within its crazed, dimension-leaping logic, one of the most incisive shows about family dynamics. Legion blew the doors off the comic book show with Aubrey Plaza's demon literally dancing through the psychic scars of the mutant hero. American Vandal pulled the greatest trick on its viewers: making us give a shit about the characters in a fake documentary filled with dick jokes. Glow took its cheesy premise about the exploited women in wrestling in the 1980s and created one of the few shows about people living on the financial and social margins and what they do to survive.

3. Music that got me through the year: Broken Social Scene's Hug of Thunder album, Everybody Work by Jay Som, Colors by Beck, and Soft Sounds from Another Planet by Japanese Breakfast were on constant play. And Kendrick Lamar's Damn is as great and powerful and adventurous as you've heard. For my political soul, Algiers' The Underside of Power paints a world that's spun off its axis, infusing it with howling soul and raging rock. Midnight Oil's return to the United States in a concert at the smallish Webster Hall was pure adrenaline, the Aussie rock band not missing a chance to spit in the face of a collapsing American empire. God, how we leaped and danced, hurting ourselves from expressing our anger at a nation that had betrayed itself.

4. What else here...at the theatre, two one-person shows, In and Of Itself and The Object Lesson, were about the magic in the everyday. Enda Walsh's Arlington at St. Ann's Warehouse was a moving dance and monologue piece about trying to connect one's past with one's present. The podcast S-Town offered one of the most honest portrayals of the small town South I've ever heard/read/seen, in all its weirdness and community and poverty.

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff here. U2 put on a great, huge show at MetLife Stadium, with insanely gorgeous visuals. Clive Owen was intensely good on Broadway in M. Butterfly. Aziz Ansari's Master of None couldn't have been more beautiful, funny, and life-affirming. I thought the Whitney Biennial was challenging and disruptive and, occasionally, lovely. Better Call Saul...you get the idea.

And I'm sure we're all going to need many, many more things to give our bedraggled brains and souls a break in 2018.

(I've left out some incredibly serious and disturbing stuff, like the bruising film mother! or the Belarus Free Theatre's despairing Burning Doors or Lynn Nottage's take on the destruction wrought by late capitalism in Sweat or this stressful season of Mr. Robot.)

The "Merry Christmas" Nonsense from a Real Atheist's Perspective

One of the fun parts of being a total atheist is that you don't give a damn what religion someone believes. Seriously, someone can tell me they think that God is a toilet and shitting is the way to give thanks to Him for His blessings of indoor plumbing. It doesn't fucking matter. In fact, unless you are making laws according to your religion and imposing them on me or you're harming others based on your faith, why should I care? You're just a harmless person who believes that fairy tales are real and, c'mon, who gives a fuck? You think Cinderella really went to a ball so you wear glass slippers around your neck? Groovy, man. Enjoy.

So when President Donald Trump made a big fuckin' deal about being "allowed" to say, "Merry Christmas" again, I wondered who the fuck was stopping him. I mean, you wanna say, "Merry Christmas" or "Hail Satan" or "I fuck unicorns," I'm not gonna care (ok, I'll be a little judgmental about the unicorn fucking - or at least curious as to what that fucking is like). Who said you couldn't say, "Merry Christmas"? Everyone I've known ever has always said, "Merry Christmas." I say, "Merry Christmas" and I think that Jesus is a fictional character in an overlong, poorly-plotted book.

The whole "War on Christmas" started because back in the late 1990s/early 2000s desperate attention whores like Bill O'Reilly heard about some stores that said their employees needed to say, "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" because, you know, they're stores and don't wanna piss off prickly Jews, Muslims, atheists, and whoever else. It was stupid, sure, but so is worshipping an invisible sky wizard (and so is going to war because you think your invisible sky wizard is better than someone else's invisible sky wizard and fuck them for daring to say that the place where their totally fictional did some totally fictional magical thing should belong to them. Or whatever. It's all just nonsense).

The point here is that while Trump was tweeting insane shit about how he "led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase" and while a Trump PAC was putting out a propaganda video with a little girl "fanking" the "pwesident" for "wetting" her say, "Mewwy Chwistmas" again, a video that'd make Joseph Goebbels roll his eyes from how obvious it is, the rest of us were thinking, "The fuck? When couldn't we say, 'Merry Christmas'?" Because, see, we always could. Sometimes we choose not to because we want to be polite to people who don't celebrate it. Sometimes we say, "Happy Holidays" when we're talking about Christmas and New Year's and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa whatever else the fuck is celebrated that we gotta list because it's shorter.

This is one of the joys of true atheism. "Man, those Jehovah's Witnesses, they're crazy," I've been told by people who think that eating the flesh of their Lord and Savior is a benign ritual. When I was asked to be a godfather at a baptism, I agreed, and, at the ceremony, when I was asked, "Do you deny Satan and all his works?" I answered, "Yeah, sure" because it meant the same thing to me as if you had asked me if I really hate Voldemort and want to destroy his Horcruxes.

It also works fine when someone gets upset about Kwanzaa, calling it a "made-up holiday." Motherfucker, they're all made-up holidays. Every single religious holiday is just made up based on someone's fictional book of faith. The only holidays that aren't are the ones that celebrate real, living, breathing people, like Presidents' Day or Martin Luther King Day. Still, I've always liked Christmas because a lot of people genuinely try to be nicer. And there's eggnog. And gifts. What's not to like? Hell, the decorations, even the religious ones, can be awfully lovely. So hope you had a merry one. Or happy, if you're British.

As desperately as conservatives want this "Merry Christmas" thing to be, well, a thing, it's not. Every Jew and Muslim and Hindu I've ever met has no fuckin' problem with "Merry Christmas." A few dicks might, but a few dicks will always be dickish. And some of those dicks exploit minor dickishness in order to show that they are major dicks.

Trump taking credit for "bringing Christmas back...bigger and better" is like standing in a rainstorm in a boat in the middle of a reservoir that was always full and declaring you have ended a drought. As much of a liar as you are, there will always be people who believe there was a drought and that you made it rain. But then again, that's how we got religions.

Real, confident atheists don't think it's offensive to say, "Merry Christmas." We think it's adorable.

Christmas Nativities 2017: Now with Creepy Snowpeople

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

You know how gnomes used to be just those creepy little bitches you put out on your lawn and forgot about? Well, now they can apparently give birth to the Gnome God's child, who will, no doubt, be crucified on a cute little cross one day for the sins of all gnomes. Oh, so many sins.

What I love about the cardinal nativity is that they're morbidly obese birds, every one of them. In fact, Baby Jesus cardinal looks like he's a tubby little bastard who's stuck in his nest/cradle. Also, all of them look kind of pissed off about the whole event.

That nightmare fuel is the dachsund nativity. Frankly, who needs to wage a war on Christmas when the supposed believers actually advertise an anthropomorphized birth of their Lord and Savior with "Bring the true meaning of Christmas into your house year round with the Wiener Dog Nativity!"

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

And, finally, the baby nativity:

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

And to all a good night.

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

Yeah, they're all screaming in horror and pain. Essentially, that's Christmas in the time of Trump.

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

The Great Grovel of 2017: Republicans Declare Trump Their King

If I were the greatest fuck-genie with the biggest dick and a tongue so dexterous that anteaters get jealous, I'd be fuckin' embarrassed if my lovers kept telling me how awesome I am, how they've never squirted or vibrated with such intensity, how "exquisite" my abilities are. Hell, in reality, I'm not half-bad in the sack (as far as middle-aged men go), but, even so, I don't want every guy and gal who ever had a great rude ride to walk up to a microphone and announce that their sexual satisfaction is only due to my mad skillz. I mean, Jesus, how pathetic must you be to need that kind of ego stroke? Send me an Edible Arrangement or something.

Then again, I'm not Donald Trump, who still remains our goddamn president. Apparently, Trump is the kind of lay who needs to be told constantly that his tiny prick is huge, that his fumbling fingers are hitting the g-spot, and that your moans aren't cries of pain, but of ecstasy. In the span of a little over 4 hours, two groups of grown men and women prostrated themselves before Trump and told him how he gave them screaming orgasms.

In the afternoon, at an event that could have been called "Republicans Dance On Your Grave," Trump and congressional leaders celebrated the passage of the tax bill that, at a minimum, will fuck us while we're dry. But Senator after House member freely walked up to the microphone to praise their godhead Trump.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch "I Always Look Like Someone Surprised Me by Sticking Something in My Asshole and I Don't Know How to Feel About It" McConnell gushed like a slobbering hyena, "This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment for the Trump administration" before listing those accomplishments, which have been listed a million fucking times before by Trump himself.

Savage creep Paul Ryan praised Trump's "exquisite presidential leadership," as if using "exquisite" to describe anything about Trump isn't a hate crime on language.

Rep. Diane Black of one of the dumbest areas of Tennessee really said, "Thank you, President Trump, for allowing us to have you as our President and to make America great again." That's porn shit right there. "Thank you for letting me suck your cock" isn't any filthier than what Black said.

There were more, but let's end with Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, whose picture is shown to Mormon teenagers whenever they are tempted to masturbate, who threatened, "This is just the beginning. If you stop and think about it, this President hasn’t even been in office for a year, and look at all the things that he’s been able to get done." And then he saw Trump's presidency as proof that "God loves this country." Up in heaven, God rolled his eyes and made a jack-off gesture.

As for Vice-President Mike Pence, who must drink Trump's semen as a protein supplement, no words from the effusive, humiliating praise he said could make the point more than this image from the angle Fox "news" had while Pence was speaking at a morning cabinet meeting.

What a fucking degrading display for the entire nation. Goddamn, Trump must have some serious shit on these people. Or they are just groveling tools. Or both. Either way, this was a coronation moment. They have declared Trump their king, immaculate and omnipotent, and they his loyal subjects. There are no checks now. And the world is out of balance.

Make the Bastards Pay

There was no deadline, really, to pass the tax bill that Donald Trump will be jizzing over every time he talks about it for however long he has left in office. It won't take effect until January 1, 2018, and you won't see what it does, fully, until you file in April 2019. For most of us, until then, it'll mean a couple of extra bucks in the paycheck. For rich fucks, it'll mean millions, yeah, but we're not rich fucks (and if you're reading this and are a rich fuck, fucking pay me for the privilege, bitch). If it had been passed in the new year, they could have made it retroactive to January 1.

If you listened to the Republicans savages, shoving this thing onto the United States like a fist dildo into a virgin anus, it had to be done nownownow before they went home for the holiday break when their filthy constituents would have confronted them about the fuckery done in their names. Or they might have been forced to have a couple of weeks of hearings where actual experts would have said, "Hey, this is all horseshit disguised with pixie dust." Or the "fake news" media would have had a greater chance to get the word out there that this bill will dick all of us over. If it's not in the hike in taxes that comes 10 years down the road or the hike in insurance premiums for anyone on the ACA exchanges or the end of the state and local tax deduction, then it's in the way the bill will be used to go after Social Security and Medicare or the way it will make real infrastructure spending impossible. It's a pile of dicking, and there was no deadline to do it other than a desire to get the dicking done and give the deranged president one legislative win in his first year.

But you know what did have a deadline? The Children's Health Insurance Program, and that deadline fuckin' passed in September. Now, states that have been gliding by on residual funding are facing the real possibility that they are going to kick some of the 9 million, you know, children who rely on this for health care. Connecticut has been informing families with kids on their CHIP program, HUSKY B (a terrible name, for so many reasons), that they will not be able to pay for medical services starting on January 31, 2018. And, surprise, surprise, it looks like the Republicans motherfuckers in Congress ain't gonna get to it until next year.

You got that? Is that any more crystal-fuckin'-clear? They worked their asses off to ram through a tax cut for corporations and the wealthy. Day and fuckin' night they worked to do this. And the most we've gotten on medical care for children is Orrin Hatch, one of the people who wrote the original goddamn law, screeching that because he was poor once, of course he cares, even if his every word and legislative action say, quite clearly, "The kids can go fuck themselves." They chose corporations and their own wealthy selves over children. Bob Corker wanted more money, so fuck you, poor kids in Tennessee.

I've got skin in this game. I've got nieces and nephews on CHIP programs. And if you wanna really save money in this country, keep the kids healthy so they don't get worse health problems that cost a shit-ton later on. It's really pretty fuckin' simple. Fix this shit, Susan fuckin' Collins, you goddamn tool. Fix it.

It's time to make these bastards pay. The ones who voted for this bill and the ones whose money funded the effort to get this bill passed. Make all of them pariahs in their communities. Constantly flood their offices with phone calls and demand town halls and one-on-one meetings. Be ready to march and rally against them. Do not let them get away for one second with pretending like they've done something good for the nation. And we need to figure out how to go after their donations from rich people. Fuck, demand a bill that will overturn Citizens United. Call it the "No George Soros or Union Money in Elections Act" or some such shit that'll fool the yahoos.

And vote, motherfuckers in everything from primary to runoff, in every election from school board to president. Vote like your life depends on it because it actually fucking does.

When Democrats get back into power in 2018, and, at this point, we're down to figuring out if they'll just win the House or the House and Senate, they should vote to reverse all the tax cuts for the wealthy and keep the tax cuts for the middle class (even though those run out in 10 years). Shit, make those tax cuts marginally bigger. Force Trump (or Pence) to veto that.

Don't fucking negotiate on bipartisan solutions. Republicans murdered bipartisanship in 2009. Stop trying to revive that corpse. We look like political naifs when we try to act like we're gonna be the fair ones. Set a progressive agenda and fucking stick to it.

There are no rules anymore. There is only a cycle of payback until someone has to just leave the game. The Republican Party, as it exists today, needs to be ground into the dirt with the heel of raging democracy, with voices, with vigilance, with votes. If we are unable to do that or if we are too far gone to where we can do that, then we are the bastards who will pay.

Trump to the World: "Go Fuck Yourselves. Also, Give Us Money."

Yesterday, President Donald Trump, a man who is so physically weak that he needs two hands to pick up a glass of water, gave a speech outlining his administration's "National Security Strategy" (if by "strategy," you mean, "barking a series of narcissistic catchphrases that don't vaguely coalesce into anything resembling a strategy"). It was a usual Trumpish ramble, with bullying, half-thoughts, self-fellatio, and nonsense. But since Trump is the president and the world will take it like this fucknut is actually serious about shit, let's spend a moment or two checking out what exactly he bullshitted about.

Trump started by bragging about how many places he's been: "Over the past 11 months, I have traveled tens of thousands of miles to visit 13 countries. I have met with more than 100 world leaders." He's taken, what, 3 trips overseas? And those leaders were gathered at long-scheduled summits. It's like boasting that you had access to the cuisine of a dozen different cultures when, really, you were just at a Vegas buffet. Mostly, though, it's the usual ego-fluffing masking deep insecurity about his own godforsaken stupidity: "I'm not dumb. I go to places. See?"

He continued by telling us again that he won the election: "On November 8, 2016, you voted to make America great again. You embraced new leadership and very new strategies, and also a glorious new hope." Motherfucker, every time a new president is elected, we're embracing new leadership and new strategies and Star Wars: Episode IV. You're not special in that regard. In fact, most of us didn't vote to make America your version of great. We just have an idiotic electoral system that gives greater power to shitheads in middle America.

And, of course, like every asshole ever, Trump shit all over the presidents that came before him. He didn't even give a happy rat fuck that he was including Republicans when he said, "Our leaders drifted from American principles. They lost sight of America’s destiny. And they lost their belief in American greatness. As a result, our citizens lost something as well. The people lost confidence in their government and, eventually, even lost confidence in their future." He's not talking about the United States. He's talking about the Fantasy America as presented by Fox "news." In Fantasy America, every president but Trump has been something of a traitor. In Fantasy America, we've been begging for a barely literate strongman to force us to love our country. In Fantasy America, greatness is possible only through Trump. Thank fucking Jesus in heaven that the nation in its wisdom elected him (even though, you know, the majority of us didn't elect him).

And, of course, Trump added one of his most worthless ideas: "We have made clear that countries that are immensely wealthy should reimburse the United States for the cost of defending them. This is a major departure from the past, but a fair and necessary one — necessary for our country, necessary for our taxpayer, necessary for our own thought process." I don't know what that "thought process" is (other than a really fucking weird thing to say), but I do know that it's pretty fucked up to say that countries need to pay us for their protection. The idea is that protecting them protects us. That's why we do it. That and to have our troops stationed, ready for possible conflicts. And if we demand payment for our services, then other nations become our customers. If we're paying, we get to say what we do. If they're paying, they get to make demands on us. Essentially, the U.S. military becomes a mercenary force, which is likely what Erik Prince has told Trump we really need.

So what is this strategy? Well, after going over a list of his "accomplishments," the vast majority of which exist only because of what President Obama set in motion before he left office, including the economic growth and the ISIS-fighting victories, he gives us this: "I am announcing today, we are declaring that America is in the game and America is going to win." It is an utterly meaningless line, so devoid of depth that it should have collapsed into itself and sucked Trump into the void through an anus-like vortex. Yes, I'm saying I wished Trump had been swallowed by the universe's asshole.

Most of what he proposed is the same pile of bullshit he's been proposing: the wall, a vetting process for immigrants that is so tough strong men and women will cower in fear at its toughness, and "a complete rebuilding of American infrastructure — our roads, bridges, airports, waterways, and communications infrastructure." That last one would have been nice before we add at least $1.5 trillion to the deficit in this disastrous tax bill. Probably would have created more jobs, too. And, of course, of course, he's a fuckin' Republican, so we're gonna waste another shit-ton of money on military spending. Essentially, the new strategy is "Go fuck yourselves, world. And now excuse me while I chant, 'USA, USA' until I choke on blood."

As he slurped and slurred towards his conclusion, Trump offered this seemingly revelatory observation: "In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign." Well, no, we're not or Trump wouldn't be president.

Trump's truculence is always on display in these speeches, an idiot's defiant stand against a version of history that is simply false. When he says that Americans need to have a "rebirth of patriotism," he's talking to those who thought the nation was in its death throes when a black man was president. Trump is leading us into an era of conflict abroad and at home, where an anxious public is awaiting the next step towards chaos. The strategy is that there is no strategy. For Trump, America is now attached to him on a cellular level. Whither he goes, we must, by force if necessary, go with him.

A Failure in Writing About the Tax Bill Today

So it's midnight here on the East Coast, and I have tried about a half-dozen times today to write something about that nightmare of a tax bill that the House is going to approve today and that, barring some asteroid-like miracle, the Senate will approve on Wednesday. But every time I've attempted it, I come up empty because, frankly, I don't know what the fuck to say about it.

See, as I've said before, there was always some underlying ideology to Republican fuckery, something you could point to and say, "Okay, I fundamentally think this is full of shit, but at least it's a philosophy." But in this case, there is nothing there except the belief that making the wealthy wealthier is an innate good, even at the expense of the poor, even at the cost of their very bodies. And there is nothing, not a goddamn thing, that has ever demonstrated that that's a solid approach to economics.

This is cynicism and greed at its most base, where the fucking deranged president convinces his most loyal fucking deranged voters that he is going to unleash their ability to get wealthy, like every con man at Holiday Inn conference room seminars across the country. It's just embarrassing, like deeply fucked, like all the way from sphincter to intestines fucked, to see grown-ass politicians attempt to justify this act of genuine savagery against the vast majority of the country. From gutting the heart of the Affordable Care Act to the sections that ensure that members of Congress and the Trump urban hillbillies keep more of their not-hard-earned money, we are watching a robbery of the poor and middle class as sure as if David Koch clubbed 'em with a blackjack, took their wallets and purses, and pissed in their faces before running off and giggling.

And Republicans are going to tell us for the next year about how great they've made things, even as the well-oiled Obama economy gives way to the heaving, wheezing Trump economy. They'll blame everyone but themselves for the reversal in the progress we've made since the financial crash in 2008-09. And then they'll insist that shit needs to be cut in order to make things into the tortured paradise of a few rich fucks lording it over the teeming, cowering masses.

Jesus, I'd've had more fucking respect for 'em if they had gone into this saying, "Yeah, we're reverse Robin Hooding this shit right here. Suck our balls. In fact, we'll pay you to suck our balls, and you'll take that money and lap away at the waxy folds of our scrotums."

Nope, I couldn't get my head around this one. Some evil is too corrupt to be understood. I'll be back tomorrow with more rudeness about that bullshit speech Trump gave today.

Random Observations on a Minor Miracle in Alabama

1. Right after the 2016 election nightmare, I wrote, "It's time for Democrats to stop trying to appeal to a white demographic that constantly turns against it and to do everything possible to energize the non-white vote." What last night's win in the Alabama Senate race proved is that the non-white vote is energized, and it was fostered by an active, engaged Democratic Party and other organizations in a massive get-out-the-vote effort that specifically targeted African Americans in Alabama. The campaign of Doug Jones coordinated with several groups, giving them the resources needed to knock on thousands of doors and make nearly a million phone calls.

Democrats need to understand that the black vote has now saved them in Alabama as it did in Virginia. It's time to go even further and, to continue the quote above, "that means, in as many cases as it is possible, nominating and running non-white candidates." African Americans, and especially African American women, are trying to save this country from the stupidity of our inexhaustible white ignorance. It's time to center the concerns of non-white communities in the Democratic Party and not just ask them to vote, time and again, without those things being addressed.

2. As I've also said repeatedly, fuck the white working class. Fuck them. When their needs cross with those of the non-white working class voters you're courting, then great. And you know what? Most of those needs do cross because they are class-based. They need health care, poverty programs, jobs programs, decent education. Democrats keep wanting to pretend that racist fucknuts can be appealed to based on class. It's a comforting lie that is proven to be bullshit time and again. Roy Moore got 68% of the white vote, and that motherfucker was a wretched candidate before it was revealed he finger-fucked a 14 year-old. This country doesn't belong exclusively to white people anymore. The Republicans are fighting a desperate battle to try to maintain that white dominance. They will lose.

So no more fucking speeches about how we "understand" the pain of the white working class. It's up to the the white working class to fucking get that Democrats are the only ones who give a shit about their pain and economic hardship. And no more fucking articles about dumb fucks who are clinging to Donald Trump. They are dumb fucks. Let them drown in their stupidity for a few minutes before we throw them the life preserver.

3. Let's make sure we have some perspective here. Until the allegations of sexual assault on a minor and openly predatory behavior towards underage girls were revealed, Republican Roy Moore was going to win this race despite being a racist, homophobic, Christian extremist dickhead who has no respect for the Constitution. Even though Doug Jones was a great candidate who might have had an infinitesimal chance, Moore is a fucking nutzoid pro-lifer and no amount of compassion towards people outside the womb was going to overcome that. Yes, Jones might very well have won, but he only won by 1.5% last night and that was after the skeevy allegations against Moore came out.

4. Fight for every goddamn seat. Go for the fuckin' throat. Take these bastards down. Play the ground game. Go for the people who couldn't give a flea fart about what's being said on Twitter. IRL beats online every time. And build the right coalitions, ones that prominently feature the people who keep rescuing America's stupid ass despite the best efforts of white people to fuck it all up.

(Yes, obviously there's a large number of white working class voters who are liberal, just as there are conservative non-whites. Your objection is noted.)

(Correction: An earlier version of this said that Moore received 92% of the white vote. That was wrong and based on early exit polls. It was 68%. Still disgraceful, just not completely horrifying. Thanks to rude reader Rose for making sure I'm not putting out fake news.)

Alabama Goddam

In Birmingham, Alabama, Kelly Ingram Park is filled with statues. It's quite a stunning place, if you've never been. Along with large statues of Martin Luther King and other civil rights icons, there's one of four girls, representing the four who were killed in the 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is right there at the northwest corner of the park.

Other statues are even more moving. A water cannon is pointed at two cowering teenagers, as a reminder of how the police and authorities, under the leadership of Bull Connor, had no problem hurting kids. And there's this one:

Obviously, it represents the dogs that were used to intimidate and attack civil rights protesters. You can walk between them, and it's an eerie feeling, even in stillness, to do so.

Alabama's legacy is one of abject hatred of non-white people. And, despite the public displays that recognize that legacy, the hatred continues to this day. We can see it in the repugnant poverty that many African Americans are forced to live in all over Alabama, poverty that has led to third-world conditions and diseases. We see it in voter i.d. laws that are targeting black and Hispanic Alabamians who have less access to such i.d.'s or the transportation and funds needed to get one.

Unless some small miracle happens, Alabama, a mostly white, mostly Republican state, will elect Roy Moore, a man who, disgusting, disqualifying, and illegal sexual proclivities aside, believes that life was more civilized during the time of slavery, a man who believes that the country would be better off if the amendments to the Constitution ended at the Bill of Rights, thus leaving out the end of slavery, as well as women's right to vote and, ironically, the election of senators by popular vote. He attacks LGBT people with regularity, calling for homosexuality to be illegal and to reverse same sex marriage and rules allowing gays to serve in the military. Hell, his positions on his campaign website are barely as complex as a bumper sticker on some jerk's car. And he has broken his oath of office multiple times already.

Alabama believes, like many states in the South before it, that it has gotten past its horrific heritage, from slavery to lynchings and Jim Crow. But it hasn't. It's just come up with quieter ways to decimate and hinder the non-white population.  Even though there are lots of good people there of all races, of all economic classes, Alabama's organizing principle is still oppression of those who would challenge a straight, white, male power structure. It is more important to Alabamians to uphold that than it is to elect an accused child molester.  Doug Jones should be revered as a hero, instantly electable, for his role in prosecuting two of the perpetrators of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Voting in Jones, the Democrat, would be a way of saying that Alabama is ready to move beyond the past. But it most definitely is not.

I'd say that Alabama needs to reflect. I'd say that Alabama needs to evolve. But it won't until demographic changes wreck that white hegemony. Until then, Alabama is a lost state, a Flying Dutchman of our racist past, damned to remind us again and again of who we really are as a country, demanding all of us to do better than Alabama.

Democrats Must Unceasingly Call on Donald Trump to Resign.

The exclamation point at the end of all the discussions about the sexual predators in powerful positions, all the rapists and gropers and masturbators, all the harassers, all their victims, so many victims, goddamnit, at the end of that is the President of the United States. Simply put, the progress being made by the "Silence Breakers," as Time magazine called the women speaking out, is tempered by an obvious statement:

Donald Trump has to go because of the credible allegations against him by more than a dozen women.

What Trump is accused of is worse than what Senator Al Franken is resigning from the Senate over, with actions ranging from forced kissing to genital grabbing to the rape of his then-wife Ivana. It should simply be a constant refrain from Democrats that the president likely committed sexual assault repeatedly, that he is unfit for office because of this, and that he needs to step down now.

Yeah, I get your Russia boners and your desire to see Trump frogmarched out and jailed for what will inevitably be money-laundering with a secret sauce of treason. But that's complicated shit. It takes a lot of work to get people to understand complicated shit. So do it the easy way. Go with the sex stuff. Do you think for a second anyone would have given two shits if Bill Clinton had lied under oath about his investment in a land deal? Hell, no. They understood because he lied about blow jobs.

(And let's remember that this bloated, moldy, deranged tangerine of a president paraded President Clinton's accusers before the cameras and before Hillary Clinton at a debate. Seriously, fuck everything about Trump, his family, his ancestors, and his descendants.)

Besides, even out of office, Trump can still be prosecuted. I guarantee that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is licking his lips to get a shot at Trump.

So task number one for Democrats every day, every goddamn day, needs to be calling out Donald Trump as a perpetrator of sexual assault. Every day, they need to call on him to resign, like Al Franken, like Anthony Weiner, like John Conyers. Don't give a fucking inch. And every chance they have to bring it up, they should. And every time they can confront him right to his stupid fucking face, they should. Make it fucking inescapable. Make Republicans have to either agree or actively deny that Trump did the shit he's accused of. Grind those fuckers down.

We are in the midst of a genuine reckoning for toxic masculinity. Things are going to get even uglier as we go along, and, yeah, some things will not seem nearly as bad as others. It's likely that there will be false accusations, but that's what happens when you've kept something silent for years and the floodgates finally open. And while it's easy to make this a political calculation (get rid of Franken so that you have the moral high ground to go after Trump and skeevy teen fondler Roy Moore), I can't help but think about the women whose careers, political or otherwise, were stunted or hindered by the men who have done this shit.

Today people are bitching about Franken's resignation, saying that Democrats don't fight like Republicans. Maybe not, but howzabout instead we fight like we're right?

Other Terrible Jobs Hope Hicks Does for Donald Trump

Man-sized carbuncle and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has a book coming out that he co-authored about his time working on the 2016 election. No doubt, it's filled with so many blow jobs for his former boss that his lips are chapped and bloody and he's had enough protein to last for months. But one of the weirder things that leaked from the book is that Donald Trump's communications director and loyal lackey Hope Hicks would steam Trump's suits while he wore them, including "She’d steam the jacket first and then sit in a chair in front of him and steam his pants," a job that sounds so awful that you'd just need to drink entire mini-bars of whiskey to forget that you degraded yourself that much for a terrible human being.

Of course, then there are her other jobs:

1. Denture glue check before Trump goes out to speak. Hicks is always ready with the Polident for the president's shiny chompers. She apparently failed today.

2. Melania wrangler. Hicks has to run interference whenever the First Lady tries to escape with Barron. Emergency tranq gun available.

3. Tie knotter. Hicks must make sure that all of Trump's ties are absurdly long and dangle right over his dick so he can hide that he gets a tiny erection whenever he's near a microphone or hears his name on the TV.

4. Eyebrow crafter. How does Trump maintain that Brezhnev-like spikiness in those mini-manes over his beady, inbred eyes? Lots of mousse and spit applied by Hicks.

5. Scalp stitcher. Whenever Trump has worked too hard on the swish of his implanted hair, his paper-thin scalp will tear. Hicks is responsible for stitching it whenever it starts bleeding.

6. Calming Eric down. Ivanka and Donald, Jr.'s idiot brother can sometimes get very upset when no one will tell him any classified secrets. Hicks must distract him with cheese and a sock monkey until he stops crying.

7. Taint powderer. Hicks keeps a puff of talc in her purse so that if Donald proclaims that his taint is feeling sweaty, she can gently powder the space between his balls and anus. She has to fight with Donald, Jr. sometimes for the right to do this.

8. Tiffany talker. If Tiffany calls, somebody's gotta fuckin' talk to her.

9. McDonald's runner. Now that Trump's loyal bodyguard is gone, Hicks has to make sure that Trump's gaping maw is constantly filled with as much Fillet o' Fish as that bastard can stuff in there.

10. Ivanka guard. Hicks makes sure that Trump is never alone with his oldest daughter because, really, who needs more of those goddamn photos of him groping his little girl.

11. Fall guy.

A Relevant Tale from the Recent Rude Past: Directing a Rape Scene

(Today is my birthday, and so I get to be a little more indulgent than usual by telling you a story. Oh, and if you wanna give me anything, join my Patreon.)

About five years ago, I was directing a production of The Conduct of Life by Maria Irene Fornes. It is one of my favorite plays by one of my favorite playwrights, but it is some dark, dark shit involving a military man in an unnamed Central American country who is a torturer, his wife, and a young teenage girl he has kidnapped and is keeping as a sex slave in their basement. I wanted to convey the horror the girl, Nina, experiences without being exploitative, but the play does contain her on-stage rape.

I had worked with the actress playing Nina before, and so we trusted each other. The theatre was a small black box and that part of the set, Nina's room, including her small bed, was fairly close to the audience. I talked through some ideas about the scene with Erica and Ken (who was playing the officer). When it was time to put that moment together in rehearsal, I cleared the theatre of everyone but me, the actors, and Amy, the stage manager.

We started by figuring out how to do this, how the actors should be positioned, and how graphic and violent it should be, making sure they felt about as at ease as they could. Then the actors did the scene, which involves the officer telling Nina that he does this because he loves her. Like I said, it's a fucked-up but incredibly potent play. When they got to the end, we were all silent for a moment until I asked Erica how she was doing. Ever the professional, she said that it didn't feel like it worked. And she was honest about how traumatic it felt for her. (Before casting her, I had asked if she was okay with the part, but I never asked her about any experiences she might have had and I still wasn't going to. Not my business.)

We all decided at that moment that what we were doing didn't make artistic sense, and that it was right on top of the audience. We decided that we felt uncomfortable in creating a scene that was so startling that it would take power away from the entirety of the play (which is also about the way that women of different classes treat each other). Mostly, though, I didn't want to force Erica to do something that I thought could be done in a way that honored the play and the actors.

So I said, "What if Nina is a doll?" I found a child-sized stuffed, faceless dummy in the prop room and brought it out. We did the scene again with the officer raping the Nina doll while Nina stood on the side, distanced from her own body, but still reacting in muted pain and shock. We all realized that this was a far more powerful way to do this scene and it ended up that we did the entire play with Erica sitting and standing near the doll. When a friendly character tried to comfort Nina, it was the doll that was embraced, not the human actor.

The point here is that you don't have to hurt women to make art. Sure, I could have pushed Erica to continue to do a scene that she obviously felt was too much. I could have justified it with the script, a play written by a woman. Erica would have done it because she is a brave and dedicated actor who said she was fine doing it during auditions. And I'm not saying that sometimes the graphic stuff isn't absolutely necessary. I've directed shows with sex, nudity, and all kinds of violence on stage.

But what made me step back in this case was that the power dynamic involved in forcing an actress to do a rape scene is only a few steps removed from, well, a kind of sexual assault. And there was no goddamn way that I was going to victimize an actress while directing a play that was an attack on the rape culture that creates the conditions for the victimization. There was no goddamn way that I wasn't going to respect Erica as an artist herself.

In the end, the play was a success, and audiences found the use of the doll heartbreaking (although, admittedly, there were a few titters now and then). Erica now does national commercials and is on her way to becoming a successful performer. And, in this case, no one had to be exploited or harmed or harassed.

Is that really all that difficult to ask of artists?

A Simple Question for Alabamians: Would You Hire Roy Moore?

Look, look, we all get it, Alabama. You really, really care about ending abortion. Abortion is more important than anything else in the entire Senate campaign for a really big percentage of you. It's more important than jobs (and, to be fair, the state has only a 3.6% unemployment rate). It's more important than the rest of health care and, well, obviously, education, (both of which, to be fair, place Alabama near the bottom of the nation). It's more important than whether or not Republican Roy Moore finger-fucked a 14-year-old girl through her panties while he took her hand and used it fondle himself. We totally get where you're at. We may not like it. We may think it's about one of the most viciously backwards, dumbass redneck, fucked-up things we've ever heard, but at least you're clear about how deep a pile of shit you're willing to stand in because you think you're protecting "babies."

And, today, you even got the criminal president to go all in on Moore. This morning, Trump not only tweeted his support for Moore (and, fuck you, if it's under Trump's name, it's Trump's), but he called Moore to offer encouragement by saying, according to Moore, "Go get 'em, Roy," which is what Moore told himself in the food court at the Dothan mall. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a man whose dick gets semi-stiff when he guts medical care for the poor, has backed off his call for Moore to get out of the race and now says he'll "let the people of Alabama make the call" on whether an accused pedophile and proud lawbreaker should be in the Senate. All for tax cuts, man, all for tax cuts.

Let's be clear here, Alabama. Moore ain't on trial. In posts and tweets supporting Moore, his idiot followers are acting like Moore is facing a jury. Moore is running for an elected office. The worst thing that can happen to him is that he doesn't get that office. No one (as of now) is saying he oughta be arrested for sexual assault and for drooling over high school girls at JC Penney and, well, the high school. Roy Moore doesn't have to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in order to lose the election. These are political decisions, not judicial ones.

But, yeah, you don't have to say it again, Alabama's Moore voters. Abortion is far more important. Fetus protection outweighs the harm Moore likely did to an already-born human girl. That's how you roll, and it's disgusting and perverse and you should be ashamed, but you're not. That shit's a given at this point. You're proudly voting for Moore or against Doug Jones. You are so goddamn please with your ignorance that if someone said that Moore ass-fucked a herd of goats, you'd holler, "What did the goats have to say? Nothing, I bet."

Still, I said I had a question for you, Alabama. And it's a pretty simple one: Would you hire Roy Moore? Not for Senate. Would you hire Roy Moore to work, say, in your restaurant? Perhaps as a greeter at Cracker Barrel? No, let's go even further here.

Let us say, and why not, that you need some work done on your house. You want to build a new back porch for you and the wife and the kids and expand an archway in the front hall, get a little more light in there. You talk to two contractors. Now, one is gonna do a great job. He's gonna get everything done just fine, except he costs just a bit more than the other contractor. Contractor number 2 has come in under the cost of the first contractor and he's a badass when it comes to archways. Man, you really wanna go with the second contractor, except you heard that he likes to hit on teenage girls and he might have even had some relations with some really young ones. This guy who is gonna come and go while the project is happening, entering your home, perhaps using the bathroom, perhaps peeking into your daughter's room, perhaps peeking at your daughter. Are you okay with that? I mean, if you don't hire him because of these things you've heard, you're not calling the cops. You're just hiring the first guy. Is it worth a few bucks?

Sure, though, you wanna come back and tell me that if you heard one contractor liked abortion and the other didn't, that'd tilt it for you. But would it? When it comes to letting someone like Moore hang around your kids?

The answer to that question lets you know how much you actually give a shit about the safety of your real and out-of-the-womb family, not just the theoretical fetuses of the future.