Herman Cain Celebrates His Appearance on Meet the Press: A Fantasia:
"Pour that hot cheese on my nipples," Herman Cain told the big-titted whore holding a freshly baked pizza over his chest. "You gotta do it now, before the grease congeals." The whore giggled nervously as she tilted a slice so that a white band of cheese dribbled off slowly, approaching the Republican presidential frontrunner's exposed flesh. When the mozzarella blend hit the areola, Cain yelped and laughed, shouting, "Yeah. Aw, shit. Now put some of that pepperoni oil on my balls and lick it off."

Cain had the hooker - Sophie? Sarah? Salty? Who the fuck cares since sluts don't use their real names - waiting for him at his suite at the Four Seasons for when he returned from his debut on NBC's Sunday morning gab show, Meet the Press. The prostitute, whose name was actually Audrey but went professionally as "Sadie," thought the pizza was going to be for lunch.

"Goddamn, how I tricked 'em all," Cain told Sadie when he arrived and dismissed his handlers, who were used to this part of the day. "Did you see me?" Sadie lied and said she had and why didn't he just come over to the bed. He ignored her. "Some of that shit, damn. I actually said to a national audience, 'Suppose one breadmaker says, "I'm going to charge $2.20 for a loaf of bread," and the other one says he's going to charge $2.40 for a loaf of bread. Well, guess which one is going to win out based upon the quality being essentially the same?' I actually said that shit, shit that schoolchildren know about money." He laughed heartily.

Fooling people is what Herman Cain has always been about. Making 'em buy shitty food. Making 'em think he's a man of the people. He ran a pizza business named "Godfather's," a patently offensive name, one that evoked mobsters even as it served Italian-ish food. If a white candidate had been CEO of Sambo's, he'd've never seen the light of day. Now, Cain makes money through motivational speaking, which is shorthand for "rubes pay me to say bullshit."

It's all about marketing, you know, keeping it simple. Cain used to market poison; his products are responsible for more deaths in America than al-Qaeda. But that doesn't stop him. "9-9-9," Cain said to Sadie, finally beginning to undress. "You hear how much everyone talks about it? Talking like there's anything behind that other than it's easy to say." He smirked and said, "9-9-9" first in a flat Minnesota accent and then in a Texas one. "Buncha fuckin' retards we got running for president."

In some ways, Cain had to admit, he's as surprised as anyone. Dropping his pants and folding them over a chair, he remarked, "I just had a book coming out. I just wanted to jack up my speaking fees. I thought I'd do a few debates and be done. This is god-damned funny." He loves that, as a black Republican, his never-elected-to-anything self gets more face time than all the black Democrats in Congress combined. And that's not even counting Fox.

"All right, all right, here we go," he moaned to Sadie, gesturing at his erect penis. "You just jack me off right onto that extra large combo pie." Sadie felt a bit disturbed at the request, but she had heard worse. She had been forced to eat food after Mike Huckabee had chewed it. Sarah Palin had once ridden her like a pony, swatting her ass until it bled with a riding crop while Todd fucked himself with a vibrator in the corner. So she diligently yanked away, and when she sensed Cain was about to orgasm, she moved the pizza box so that the pie caught the full amount of his ejaculation. "You deliver that to over to NBC. Tell 'em it's compliments of the Herminator," he said, as he quickly dressed.

He had to get going. He had a meeting with Roger Ailes about his next job.

Late Post Today:
The Rude Pundit's gotta clean all the dead Mexicans off his electric fence. (Aw, c'mon, it was just a joke. Let Herman Cain laugh at you.)

Back later with more stunning rudeness.

Photos That Point to the Inevitable Action Against the Occupation:


There's many pictures that the Rude Pundit could have chosen to end this week of the anti-Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. He could have shown you the people with brooms and scrub brushes getting down and cleaning the shit out of the park, making it cleaner than nearly every other park in the city. He could have showed you more of the great signs (his favorite from his visit yesterday: "I'll Believe Corporations Are People When Texas Executes One"). He could have shown you various people: the man standing on the corner, reading the entire U.S. Constitution to indifferent passersby or the rapper David Banner talking to the platinum blonde folk singer or the woman dressed as Marie Antoinette. He could have shown you the General Assembly when it was announced that Occupy Wall Street was going to resist the efforts of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD to enforce a demand by Brookfield Global Real Estate that the park be vacated for a power-hose washing. The speakers were resolved and eloquent in relaying the information they had, which was amplified in waves by the human microphone of everyone there ("This is an occupation," said one, "not a permitted picnic"), along with the plan to link arms and blockade the park in the early morning today, which turned out to not be necessary once Brookfield backed down.

Instead, the Rude Pundit chose this photo from today when, filled with the power that comes from winning a confrontation, the protesters marched up and down Broadway, heading towards the blocked-off and heavily-guarded Wall Street, while some of the police, cockblocked by Brookfield, had to relieve their aggro urges on the marchers.

Why this one? Because it is inevitable that there will be violence. The very movements that Occupy Wall Street is based on, in Egypt, in Spain, all faced violent confrontations with the police (or the military). Whether it happens now or, as numbers inevitably dwindle when it gets really fucking cold in the winter, in a revived spring of 2012, it will happen, and on a larger scale than it has happened already.

This is not said as a way to discourage the movement. No, in fact quite the opposite. It's just to say they should be ready for it, as the occupiers were ready for arrest this morning. Hopefully, as part of the training sessions in non-violent resistance that were held yesterday, they included how to look into the vicious face of the cop using the only power he's been allowed to wield as the protesters do the same.

Here's last night's Cheater and the Rude, where the Rude Pundit reports from Zuccotti Park and Jeff Kreisler reports from Occupy DC:

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Really? We're Doing Herman Cain Now? Okay, Fine...:


Honestly, the only reason the Rude Pundit is writing this is so he has an excuse to post that photo, which is from a 1988 Ebony magazine profile of Herman Cain, back when he was the god of Godfather's Pizza, just because it's pretty damn funny, doncha think?

So we're gonna indulge this now? Is this what we've moved onto? We're gonna spend the next week or so talking about whether or not Herman Cain can win the Republican nomination for president? And whether or not he could win in an election? Really? 'Cause the GOP's going through flavors of the month faster than Baskin-Robbins (Aw, yeah, high five anyone?).

No, really, please. Let's go ahead and pretend that one of the other candidates is gonna beat Mitt Romney, who has been as inevitable a 2012 nominee as Barack Obama. Let's just keep playing this game of seriously looking at proposals that are nonsensical and personalities who passed borderline on the way to crazytown. We were told by the pundidioits that Michele Bachmann was gonna be our mad queen. We were told that Rick Perry was absolutely going to ass rape every other nominee and ride his horse into the White House. That's not to mention the Chris Christie and Sarah Palin diversions.

So now it's Cain as the Romney-killer, with his bullshit 9-9-9 plan (mentioned no less than 24 times at this week's GOP circle jerk), his lack of anything beyond food business experience (oh, and time at the Kansas City Federal Reserve), and his failed Senate campaign (where he lost his party's nomination). You know this egotistical fucker ran for president in 2000? And he built up his resume' since then by having a talk radio show and doing motivational speaking. You couldn't name the president of Uzbekistan either, you elitist fuck, if you spent your life making money serving steaming piles of horseshit, either on a pizza pan or in a burger box or in a hotel conference room to the corporate tools who bought your time.

Cain is this year's Perot. He's Donald Trump with nothing better to do with his time right now. And he's now leading Romney in some polls, like Perry had, like Christie had, blah, blah, blah. But, hey, GOP, go ahead and play around. It's not like any of you are gonna beat Obama. This whole nomination process is all about your party's identity crisis.

What everyone should be asking is not whether or not Herman Cain can win. Instead, the question should be "How fucked is it that we're talking about him?"

The Super-Scary Iranian Assassination Plot: The FBI's Truman Show:
Man, the Rude Pundit hopes one day that someone cares enough about him to create an entire world for his most depraved delusions, just like the FBI apparently did with this used car salesman who said he was working with Iran to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. That'd be sweet, just to have a discussion with someone who seems serious about it, just to fuck with 'em and see the look on his face as he said, "Now, lemme get this straight, you want to sacrifice a midget who looks like Rick Santorum to Satan, cut off his arm, and fuck your own ass with it, all while a just-post-op transsexual is going down on a 70 year-old female porn star who's fellating an Irish setter? And everyone's gotta be bathing in the midget's blood? And then everyone gets killed at the end except you and you get to keep the arm as a souvenir? Umm, okay, we're gonna need to get some money wired in..."

'Cause, see, essentially, this oh-so-scary pre-Halloween appearance by the terrorism boogeyman is just a fantasy cooked up by the FBI. Someone heard that this broke loser, Manssor Arbabsiar, who looks like he's straight out of the Arab-looking evil character catalog, wants to get involved in some shit to kill the Saudi ambassador or something for the Iranian government. So the FBI creates a world for the schmuck where this is made to seem possible and they can watch, like the movie The Truman Show or The Spanish Prisoner. The informant, acting like he's part of a Mexican drug cartel that'll take the job and possibly kill a shitload of people while blowing up a restaurant, feeds into the fantasy plot and "Jack," as Arbabsiar is known to his friends, is drawn in, even pretending like he has a cousin that's part of the Iranian elite and very-scary-sounding military unit, the Quds Force.

Like the majority of so-called terror plots in the last few years, it's essentially all the concoction of the FBI. And it ended with the guy crumbling like a house of cards in a tornado. He fuckin' gave up everything he supposedly knew. And, sweet Jesus, it's like a funhouse of shit what we're supposed to fear. Iranians working with the ultra-violent Mexican drug gangs? Fuck, that's like Freddy Krueger impregnating the thing from Predator and breeding a human-skinning alien that kills you in your dreams and when you're awake; that fucker just never stops killing you.

Of course, the Saudi ambassador was never in any danger from Mexican assassins. Jack was egged on by the informant, and every conversation was recorded. It's just like the case of Hosam Smadi, the poor bastard in Dallas who got a little over-excited on a website and drew the attention of the FBI. They created a whole scenario where he could blow up a truck bomb in downtown Dallas. He got to play pretend terrorist for ten months. They let Smadi get to the point where he thought he was actually remotely detonating the truck. Give the three FBI actors in that case a fuckin' Oscar. (One note here: Smadi was sent to prison for 24 years. When he gets out, didn't the FBI just train him in how to go about blowing up a building?)

So is it possible that Iran wants to blow up a Saudi on American soil? Probably not. And, even if so, as Glenn Greenwald and others point out, it's pretty fuckin' hypocritical of us to say that they don't have that right, considering our own drone-rific attacks on people in other nations, with loads of collateral damage (or, you know, dead innocents).

To call this a "significant milestone" in the fight against terrorism, as Attorney General Eric Holder did, is overstatement of pathological proportions. No one was threatened at any point. No terrorist plot was ever actually conceived, just an illusion of one conjured by the Imagineers at the FBI in order to keep us believing in the magic of our Homeland Security operations, to possibly amp up to war with Iran, and who knows what else.

By the way, the FBI statement ends cutely with this: "The charges contained in a criminal complaint are mere allegations and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty." Sure.

Now the Rude Pundit's gotta get going. He's been told that he's gonna meet with potential little Santorums at lunch.

The Five Most Annoying Things About David Brooks' Attack on Occupy Wall Street:
Today, in his New York Times "column" (if by "column," you mean, "bland faux intellectual insights masking a deep desire by a rich nerd to be accepted by the cool kids"), David Brooks does one of his patented bullshit dances of superiority. In "analyzing" the Occupy Wall Street movement, Brooks engages in an mind-boggling level of reductionism, like a man who thinks the only way you can fuck is missionary and everything else is icky.

1. The title is "The Milquetoast Radicals." David Brooks calling someone "milquetoast" is like a herpes-ridden crack whore calling someone a "skank." One could either say, "Well, that's a bit hypocritical" or "Well, I guess that's an expert opinion."

2. Brooks attempts to discredit OWS by discrediting Adbusters, the Canadian magazine that gave the first protesters the idea of an Arab Spring-type movement in the United States. The magazine is "previously best known for the 2004 essay, 'Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?' — an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy." Actually, the article asked a question that many, on the right and left, asked: Why were we not allowed to discuss the neocons' emphasis on protecting Israel? And, actually, the only people who gave a shit about the article and found it controversial were the neocons, like, you know, Brooks.

3. Brooks takes one major slogan from the movement and extrapolates, no shit, for the bulk of his column about how it's wrong: "If there is a core theme to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is that the virtuous 99 percent of society is being cheated by the richest and greediest 1 percent." Where do you wanna go with that? Who the fuck is saying that the 99% is "virtuous"? They're saying, "Why should 1% control so much of the economy? Why should they get paid so much more than the average American? Why shouldn't they pay more taxes?" It's not about the 1% footing the bill for everyone else. It's that the 1% pay their fair fucking share. But notice how easy it is to get caught up in debating a slogan rather than an issue? "The 99-versus-1 frame is also extremely self-limiting," Brooks writes. Yeah. That's why OWS isn't limited to that single argument.

4. Brooks says, "A third believe the U.S. is no better than Al Qaeda, according to a New York magazine survey." Okay, let's fact-check this shit: The "survey" was a totally non-scientific poll of a hundred protesters. We know nothing about who the magazine chose to question. It was done nearly two weeks ago, before the protests took off. And New York magazine itself makes no claim to any kind of validity beyond, "Hey, we bugged a few people in Zuccotti Park with some kind of snarky questions. Here's what they said." But for Brooks? It's enough to discredit the entire enterprise.

5. To conclude, Brooks offers an opinion piece from Matt Miller in the Washington Post as something far more radical than what he thinks the OWS protesters want, but, since Brooks doesn't actually understand anything about the Occupy Together movement beyond the aforementioned slogan, he wouldn't realize that a good chunk of what Miller proposes is pretty damn similar to the Occupiers.

Brooks snorts, "The most radical people today are the ones that look the most boring." Now that's some fuckin' projection.

It's Columbus Day, So We May as Well Kill Some More Indians:
So by now, you probably haven't heard much about the Keystone XL pipeline because no one on the TV is squawking loudly because it's not as glamorously conspiratorially evil-sounding as Solyndra. Also, because most politicians of both parties love that filthy oil lucre. Really quickly: Keystone XL would be the next really long pipeline, taking delicious crude from the wild tar sand fields of Alberta, Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Because it crosses a border, the State Department has to approve it. Environmentalists oppose it because the company, TransCanada, is not, as one might expect a Toronto tranny bar but is, in fact, a really huge energy corporation and, as such, it has polluted the shit out of the environment. In fact, a previous pipeline sucked so badly that the U.S. shut it down because it leaked a dozen times in a year.

What does this have to do with Indians? Well, see, the Keystone XL pipeline would go through the tribal lands of many different indigenous people in the United States and Canada, possibly polluting water sources that, you know, keep them alive. As a resolution by the National Council of American Indians put it, the proposed pipeline "crosses through Indian country in northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, near and potentially over, many culturally significant areas for Tribal Nations within those provinces and states;" and, based on the record of Keystone and other pipelines, "it is probable that further environmental disasters will occur in Indian country if the new pipeline is allowed to be constructed."

For instance, the proposed route of the pipeline would take it right across the Oglala Sioux Rural Water Supply System in South Dakota, among others. And according to treaties with the U.S. government, the tribes are supposed to have approval of such things. As the United Tribes of North Dakota said, "The U. S. Department of State did not properly consult with the Tribes along the route of the Keystone Excel Pipeline and, as a result of the mechanisms used for what consultation was provided, the affected Tribal Nations were not provided the opportunity for 'free and informed consent; regarding the construction of the pipeline." They don't want it (and some have been arrested protesting it). So, in other words, if the Obama administration, which just finished holding hearings on the pipeline (which included an environmental impact statement done by a TransCanada contractor), approves the pipeline, it will violate treaties with Indian tribes and endanger the health of Native Americans. It's comforting to know that some things in America never change.

Of course, it's oil we're talking about, and no one can stop it, even if it's the filthiest, most environment-degrading kind of oil. All review is done now. It's up to Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, and President Obama. And how do you think that's gonna go?

Cheater and the Rude, Live from Liberty Plaza:
No, the sound's not state of the art (although it's not bad), but Jeff Kreisler and the Rude Pundit interviewed Occupy Wall Streeters live on the air this past Thursday. We talked to priests and elderly people and Ron Paul libertarians and high school kids and more. You want diversity? You want a heartbreaking story or two? You wanna hear people you'd think are idiots being articulate about economic issues? You wanna hear a crazy or two? Then listen in:

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This Is Herman Cain?:
Hey, kids, the Rude Pundit knows that now that a bunch of idiots in Florida sat around and thought, "Well, shit, we like that Godfather's pizza" and gave him the win in their caucus or straw poll or whatever the fuck it was, Republican presidential candidate is now America's Next Great Negro, but Herman Cain is kind of nuts. Oh, sure, he'll put on a good face of sanity, but it's way more fun to look at the shit he said back before he decided this whole running for president thing looked like a good racket. What's most fascinating is to see his engagement with issues of race.

Like on April 20, 2005, when, in his "column" (if by "column," you mean, "a pathetic attempt to exploit the novelty of being a conservative black guy for fun and profit"), Cain compared Democrats who opposed privatizing Social Security to Jim Crow-era racists who made blacks drink from separate water fountains. No, really: "[C]ongressional Democrats do not want all Americans to drink from the same retirement fountains. They insinuate that we are not smart enough to ride in the front of the retirement bus with them." And that includes the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP: "[B]lack Democratic leaders," he wrote, "are willing to see the next generation of Blacks remain in economic slavery on the Democratic plantation." Dude, that's not just playing the race card. That's keeping a few race cards up your sleeve to win every trick. (Boo-yah - bridge reference, motherfuckers.)

Throughout his columns, Cain is one analogy-making son of a bitch. From an April 23, 2007 column: "During the early half of the 1900s, Democrats discouraged black people from voting for Republicans with physical intimidation, including lynches by the Ku Klux Klan, a Democrat-inspired organization. Today, instead of a rope and a tree, Democrats try to deny black people from voting or running for office as Republicans using a keyboard and racially inspired media moments." (You gotta love the timing of that one, coming so soon before Barack Obama became one of the main Democratic candidates for president.)

It's big fun that a black guy who keeps using metaphors from America's racist past to condemn Democrats also writes about how it's time to get beyond race and that he can't understand why people concentrate on it, as when he said, "Isn’t it funny that it is the liberals who are obsessed with Obama’s race?" (He had just quoted Stanley Crouch, hardly a raging liberal.) And other times, he just says things about race that are just weirdly, obviously wrong, like "The unfortunate snapshot of poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina is not an accurate portrait of the equal opportunity available all across America." So, wait. Katrina just happened to hit the one place in America where black poverty is endemic? And it's all cool elsewhere? Imagine the luck.

What's Cain about? Oh, that's right. He's an executive from corporate America. It's pretty goddamn easy to figure out his goals.

Random Observations on the Occupy Wall Street Protest of October 5:


1. You see that picture there? That's a microphone and a reporter for the China Daily. The Rude Pundit arrived in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, near the courthouse, yesterday at around 3:15 for the 4:30 march. Sweet Jesus, the amount of media overcompensation was like a small-dicked executive buying an Escalade. At one point, there had to be a 10 to 1 ratio of protesters to media. You couldn't turn around without someone shoving a microphone, a camera, an audio recorder in your face. The Rude Pundit got interviewed twice, and he wasn't carrying a sign, playing a banjo, or wearing a funny hat. He spoke to people from no less than three Japanese news organizations, a German one, CBS, and Al-Jazeera English. He asked all of them the same question, about whether or not the protests had been improperly ignored at first. Everyone of the beleaguered reporters or camera operators, from outlets big and small, had the same answer: Well, the media's owned by corporations and they suck.

2. Yes, there were people there representing for not even tangentially-related causes. Sure, sure, the Indigenous Peoples group may have some valid concerns, but just because they had a dreamcatcher and a shirtless guy blowing a conch doesn't mean that the five of 'em deserved to be encircled by media. They didn't represent anything other than an opportunity to blow their own, well, shell in front of a big, big crowd. Oh, and if people couldn't smoke, then they shouldn't have been allowed to burn their stinky fucking sage bundle. "Oh, look," said one woman, gesturing over to the cloud of smoke nearby. "A shaman is purifying the space and blessing the crowd." It was the only time the Rude Pundit was tempted to commit violence.

3. To be sure, the crowd was huge. Thousands of people. The Rude Pundit walked away early, and, at Broadway, he met a line of marchers heading down to Worth Street, which you can see way in the back, to the top of Foley Square. It was far, far bigger than most might have imagined.


Oh, and on Church Street, a block further? He saw a line of paddy wagons, ready in case they were needed to haul away marchers.

4. Any dumbass who says that this is primarily a protest movement of white people can suck on this photo:


That's members of National Nurses United. They were there with other unions, including the transit workers, communications workers, and lots more. Some of the workers are, in fact, white. Some, in fact, are not. Just like the protesters.

Now, it's true that this primarily a protest against white people, who comprise the majority of that ultra-upper income bracket, the 1%.

5. Of course, there were fun signs:


But unlike other protests the Rude Pundit's been to recently, this one was far more serious-minded and less of a carnival, and perhaps that's because there is a chance, a growing chance, that the Occupy movement could end up having a significant effect on the 2012 elections, if not on actual legislation. That seriousness of purpose is what's garnering attention and supporters. This is life or death, and, unlike the war protests back in 2003 and 2004, the issues at stake really do directly touch the lives of nearly every American in clear and present ways.

6. Finally, regarding the police using batons and pepper spray on demonstrators who marched on Wall Street last night: Really? You're gonna Hulk out protecting the interests of Mike Bloomberg, who wants to cut your pensions, and his Wall Street cronies who fucked up your retirement funds over in the first place? Tell your white shirts to calm the fuck down. And let 'em march.

An Inarticulate Articulation of Why Occupy Wall Street Doesn't Need to Articulate a Damn Thing:
Oh, shut the fuck up, mainstream media. You know exactly what the Occupy Wall Street (and dozens of other places) protests are demanding. Everybody knows, even dunderheads who pretend not to. They are demanding what every truly great social movement has ever demanded: the right to have a say, to have power in a nation where the majority of people are disempowered. Yeah, you can narrow those into a list of specific goals, as the General Assembly at Zuccotti Park are attempting or as others from the protests or even some in the media have laid out, but so what?

They all come down to the same thing, the same thing: power, specifically of the economic sort. The United States government has allowed corporations, whether its oil companies, banks, pharmaceuticals, or whatever, to have the power in the nation under the lie that their rising profits are the key to economic salvation. Now, after decades of corporate-friendly policies, mostly to the detriment of the individual worker, the lie has been made plain. If the Tea Party had not been racist and gun-toting and stupid and easily manipulated from the start, it would have had the same message.

That message can be distilled to a simple, plaintive, two-word cry to our elected representatives: "Do something." We have watched as program after program has been watered down or blocked by the Republicans (and some of their Democratic lapdogs) in Congress. The hope of the Obama administration was that he would do those things that need to get done. Seeing him have to kowtow to special interests (by his own doing) or bow to thuggish GOP demands has been devastating to the movement he started, especially when he was so fucking clear in his 2008 campaign about what needed to happen in America. Perhaps, then, to make it more clear, the message can be: Do the obvious shit that you know has to be done.

All but the most deluded believers in the bullshit chimera of voodoo economics (as we called it back in the day) know that taxes must go up. They know that the government must spend more on infrastructure and education here. They know that health insurance must be nationalized. They know that the wars must end. They know that criminals must be prosecuted. They know that Wall Street needs to be regulated. They know it and either won't do it because it'll cut into corporate profits or they can't do it because it's being blocked by the maniacs.

These are not revolutionary concepts. It's not a call for the overthrow of the Congress or the President. It's not a call for all the bullshit constitutional amendments that the Tea Party has tossed into the trash heap of rhetorical history. It's a call to abide by the notion that we are a group of united states, not a bunch of demographics awaiting exploitation. Our division is what gives power to the corporations. Our division is what they demand so that we don't actually think about and discuss what's wrong and how it can be solved. They need our division. Our unity is a threat.

Perhaps one way to put this (for, indeed, there are and should be many) is "We love our country. Why don't you?"

In the simplest Marxist terms, capital must be taught a lesson that labor is its superior in the power structure. You want a real revolution, with unemployed, hungry masses demanding your heads? Then ignore this anger.

A banking CEO contacted the New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin to ask if he should be worried about the uprising.

Yes, dear criminal. You should be very worried. Not about your life. But about your grip on the throat of Americans.

The Rude Pundit Has the Bestest Fans a Vaguely Alcoholic Writer Could Ask For:
So 4:30 in the morning seems as good a time as any for doing the right thing and thanking the nearly 100 people who saw fit to donate their hard-earned (or maybe not-so-hard) cash to the Rude Pundit's 8th Anniversary Stick-Up last week. (He'll still take your money, by the way.)

Your truly heartening generosity in these times of hardship has enabled the purchase of that MacBook Pro that winked at him at the Apple store, thus freeing up other money to be used for the purchase of tongue-sweet, throat-burning liquor.

And you've inspired the Rude Pundit to offer even more on-the-scene coverage (which will be easier to edit on the aforementioned shiny piece of hardware) of the Occupy Wall Street actions and more.

But mostly you're not here to get a warm and fuzzy reacharound. You're here for the astute political commentary, like on this Monday's Stephanie Miller, where the Rude Pundit describes Chris Christie peeling Nancy Reagan off his blubbery manboobs.

Enjoy, and if wouldn't suck if you signed up for the free Rude Pundit podcast:

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The Case for Using Predator Drone Strikes Against Wall Street Executives:
From a secret Justice Department memorandum obtained by the Rude Pundit:

Mr. President,

Since it is now the policy of our administration to target American citizens for killing by missiles delivered by Predator drone aircraft, I am proposing an expansion of the program to include targets beyond our ongoing conflict with al-Qaeda and its affiliates. I propose that we now target executives and others in the finance industry who so far have not been prosecuted for potential crimes that forced the economy of the United States into a long-term decline.

The legal authority for these actions rests with an earlier memo dealing with the targeting of [name redacted, but presumably Anwar al-Awlaki]. To summarize, targeting of American citizens may be done: 1. on foreign soil, even if no actual battles are occurring in that nation; 2. as long as there is an ongoing war; and 3. without regard to due process, as long as the administration is confident that the target has committed crimes against the nation.

To deal with those in reverse order:
- We can say, with certainty, that particular executives in various firms were responsible either directly for or directed others to engage in the reckless investment schemes that resulted in firms going bankrupt or in need of a bailout from the federal government. Under this condition, we can target [name redacted] of [firm redacted] who concealed $50 billion in loans in order to inflate the firm's value while at the same time personally taking several hundred million dollars in compensation. We know this occurred. We have evidence that it occurred. We know that [redacted]'s actions, in part, led directly to the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

- If the targeted killing of American citizens is justified in our ongoing war with terrorists above and beyond any previous congressional authorization, and if the military has previously been involved in the ongoing war on drugs, then we can say with confidence that the proposed targeted attacks on financial executives falls under the purview of the "War on Poverty," which was declared by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and which, like the ten-year war on terrorists and the forty-year war on drugs, has not been successfully concluded. This might seem to strain legal justification, but we are talking about criminals who have done grievous harm to the nation.

- One concern must be where we could target American citizens. Surely, we do not wish to use Predator drones within the borders of the United States. So we must wait until the targeted executives are on vacation or doing business in foreign countries. Once, for instance, [name redacted] of [firm redacted] travels to his private island in the Bahamas, the collateral damage from Hellfire missiles would be minimal.

The final consideration for moving forward with these actions is whether or not the targets are an ongoing threat to American and its interests. To put this in perspective, what has caused greater damage to the United States? Attacks by al-Qaeda or the crimes of the targeted financial officers and executives? For the average American, loss of jobs, foreclosure, and loss of retirement income, all due to the massive fraud committed by the proposed targets, are far more of a threat than terrorists have ever been, yet we limit our drone program to them.

To take this further, one might be able to say, with some degree of certainty, that more Americans have died as a result of the actions of the proposed financial industry targets, through suicide and loss of income and health insurance due to a contracting economy, than have been killed as a result of actions by terrorists.

As for an ongoing and current threat, the sociopathic behavior of terrorists leads us to believe that they cannot be reformed; the same presumption can be made about the proposed targets in the financial sector. This office has no doubt that, given the chance, [name redacted], CEO of [firm redacted], would allow another convoluted series of billion-dollar transactions that might end up in another bailout, thus costing the United States more of its diminishing treasure.

The total use of Predator drones against financial industry executives would most likely be minimal. After several strikes, we anticipate that others will turn themselves in to authorities for prosecution out of fear for their lives.

To conclude, our policy of "Capture or Kill" towards American citizens who are terrorists should be expanded to include others who terrorize the nation in more subtle ways than bombs or bullets. And since the administration has shown no willingness to capture any of these proposed targets, we are only left with the latter option.

Respectfully submitted,
[name redacted]

The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Earn Their Merit Badges:
Genuine political and social movements fuck things up. The civil rights movement? The anti-Vietnam War movement? The labor movement of the early 20th-century? None of them would have progressed if they had only existed under the sanction of local, state, and federal governments, if they had only acted or marched with permission, if they had done nothing to disrupt the daily routines of everyday people, if they hadn't gotten in the faces of the powerful. If your protest is approved by city hall, then you are participating in civil obedience.

It's why the Tea Party was never anything other than a costume fad. And like any fad, it had its most devout adherents, but, truly, it was the Beanie Babies of political movements. The Tea Party gave comfort to the wealthy and played by the rules. It's why it was a movement of old people and families: there was no threat that anyone was going to spill any of their diabetic fucking blood on any goddamn mythical tree of liberty. And just like all those people who bought Beanie Babies thought they'd get rich by selling 'em on eBay, only to end up with basements full of dead-eyed, worthless bears and frogs, the Tea Party will soon be bagged up and brought to the thrift store of history.

No matter if it was intentional or not, the mass arrest of 700 of the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City on Saturday was a brilliant PR move, and it legitimized the snowballing activism as the beginning of a real movement. The media coverage has increased exponentially. For instance, NPR, which had been ignoring the protest, is now doing regular reports. The New York Times has had front page coverage.

The arrest of hundreds of peaceful marchers is proof that the demonstrations are having an effect. The NYPD, under the urging of the Bloomberg administration, no doubt, took a gamble, hoping that they could end the occupation once and for all. Instead, it ended up having the reverse effect, as the arrests and pepper-spraying the week before had, giving the protests more traction, more participants, and more power.

Wear those arrests as badges of honor, good provocateurs of the plaza. As Big Bill Haywood, the leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, said when he was imprisoned in Chicago in 1917, "A prison cell is the heritage we gain for the blood and lives our forefathers gave; they fought for religious freedom and left us with minds free from superstitious cant and dogma; they waged war for political justice; they carried on the struggle against chattel-slavery - these were the titanic battles that were fought, bringing us to the threshold of all wars - the class war - in which we are enlisted as workers." Now, Big Bill was given to hyperbole, but his point was that if you're gonna fuck with the powerful, the powerful are gonna try to fuck you up. But that the chance to battle should be inspirational, not dispiriting.

Remember, this is still the very, very beginning. Maybe, just maybe, as more actions happen, as unions get involved, as more arrests happen, as the tipping point of inevitable violence by authorities occurs, maybe we on the left can stop being such little bitches about the protests and unify behind them.

Later this week: Um, so what the fuck are we unifying behind?

In Brief: The Murder of Anwar al-Awlaki Stinks (Updated):
Sometimes there's cases where the liberal rubber hits reality road and you gotta decide whether your beliefs are beliefs or just conveniences based on circumstances and filled with holes. See, if you believe in due process, if you believe in innocent until proven guilty, if you believe in trials, if you believe in the Constitution, then you have to believe that all of us have those rights. And that includes presumptive terrorists, like Anwar al-Awlaki, whose death by U.S. drone attack is being danced over by the supposed upholders of the very laws his murder violates. This time, no matter what, it doesn't pass the smell test. It doesn't pass the basic "What if Bush did it" test. It's bullshit.

Let's just put this in plain language: An American citizen was killed by the United States because of his speech. And, no, it wasn't Glenn Beck (although by the standards used here, it could have been).

1. Anwar al-Awlaki was an American because he was born in the United States. He was raised in the United States until he was 7. He was college-educated in the United States, including two graduate degrees. He was an imam at a mosque in the United States. And MSNBC is one of the few places willing to call him an "American" and not just "U.S. born." He had dual citizenship in the U.S. and Yemen. He has as much right to be called American as Rick Perry.

2. As far as "justifying" his murder by drone attack, he has never been charged with killing anyone or in plotting to kill anyone or even treason by the United States. His crime was "inspiring" people to criminal actions, or, you know, speaking. He was just a mouthpiece with a good internet connection, and even if you think that's awful and deserves punishment, he was one of us and deserves the same protections as you do (yeah, he does).

4. "Viewed as a spiritual mentor, Awlaki is neither a senior Islamic cleric nor the leader of AQAP, which is headed by Nasser al-Wuhayshi. Eloquent in English and Arabic, Awlaki encouraged attacks on the US and was seen as a leader who could draw in more al-Qaeda recruits from Western countries."

5. Even by that standard, Yemen sentenced him, in abstentia, to ten years in prison for the crime of "inciting" a murder. If someone strangles Michael Moore, would we blow the shit out of Glenn Beck's house?

6. Unless the world is a battlefield, he was not killed in any goddamn war. He was killed by a missile targeting him specifically in a place where no battle was occurring.

7. And if you believe that the president, any president, should have that power over Americans, then you have no right to call the president a "tyrant" on anything else.

8. And if you believe that the president, any president, should have that power over Americans, then you have no right to call yourself "liberal."

(Note: A couple of clarifications added: that al-Awlaki's never been charged with any crimes by the United States and that he did not live here for part of his early life. That does not change the fact that we killed an American without a trial, even for treason.)

ACORNing Planned Parenthood (Another Battle in Our Neverending Abortion War):
As ever, we should look to animals to explain our destructive human behavior. There's one of those cool nature snuff videos that involves an anaconda. The gigantic fucking snake is hungry and, holy shit, look over there at the edge of the river: it's a happy family of capybaras. The capybara is just about the most adorable cross between a rat and a schnauzer that you're ever gonna see. Seriously, it's one cute motherfucker and it just wants to be left alone to prance with other capybaras and eat weeds. The anaconda, though, is a relentless prick. It stealthily stalks the furry prey through the water and mud until the freaked mammals start to run. Then the anaconda grabs one capybara and just squeezes the shit out of it. It wraps its massive body around and kills the fuck out of the capybara. And then, well, what the hell do you think? It's an anaconda. It swallows the capybara whole and, for all practical purposes, sits there engorged until it's time to kill the fuck out of something else. All that's left of the cute capybara is bony snake shit.

If you think about it, it's like the Republicans' approach to destroying entities it deems "bad." ACORN? Stalked, squeezed, swallowed, with "community organizing" and "voter registration drives" becoming shorthand for "evil." Teachers' unions? The stalking is done, the squeezing has begun. The same could be said for the right's war on Planned Parenthood. The women's health organization has become the freshest prey in the water, and, since it's the easiest way to appease their evangelical minions, Republicans are going after Planned Parenthood and abortion rights with a hunger that'd make the anaconda say, "C'mon, guys, don't be pigs. One capybara at a time."

So Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida (motto: "Come for our beaches; run from our GOP"), chair of some goddamned subcommittee, is launching an investigation of PPFA to make absolutely, positively certain that not a penny of your precious Afghan-killing, oil-corporation-subsidizing tax dollars is being used on a single drop of antibacterial soap in a space where abortions are performed. This fine use of your taxpayer dollars is occurring despite the fact that Planned Parenthood has to be audited yearly to ensure the very thing that Stearns has put on his Encyclopedia Brown hat over.

On and on this attack on women's rights continues, with the ACORN-ing of Planned Parenthood and beyond. Virginia just joined Kansas in requiring clinics where abortions occur (including just drug-induced ones) adhere to strict standards generally meant for places where brain surgery happens. The Virginia regulations are particularly odious because they allow state investigators to "enter a clinic to inspect at any time without notice to examine patient medical records, gather a list of current patients, and interview patients on site." You got that? Think about that standard existing for any other medical procedure. Like, say, vasectomies, which are invasive procedures often done in non-hospital settings: "Pardon me, sir, you just got your balls sliced. Can I ask you if you feel depressed now with that ice pack on your groin?"

It's absurd, and it's the stealth destruction of abortion access in this country. Right now, only 13% of the counties in America have abortion providers (and the number is declining rapidly). Right now, state after state, like Ohio and South Dakota, has come up with ways to cut off access to a legal medical procedure. Right now, Mississippi and other states are trying to have "personhood" amendments put in their state constitutions as a way of ending all legal abortions.

Yes, the economy sucks. Yes, there needs to be jobs programs. Yes, corporate money needs to be chased out of the political system. All that is true. But as we seek more rights and justice, we need to be sure we don't forget the rights that we thought we had won. Ask ACORN, which for years brought minority voters into the political process and worked to get poor people housing. Swallowed. Shit out. Now voting rights in general are under attack.

Planned Parenthood is in the squeeze. And that goddamned anaconda ain't gonna stop until the last breath is taken.

The Conclusion of the Rude Pundit's 8th Anniversary Marathon Beg:
Today is the day. Eight years ago, this blog began with a simple mission: Make fun of conservatives by degrading them with lots of dirty words and bodily function imagery. Yet, for some reason, others also find this a worthy place to spend time and money. For that, he thanks his readers (and podcast and Stephanie Miller Show listeners and YouTube viewers and Twitter followers and Facebookers), and he reminds you that he's still collecting cash in order to buy that shiny new MacBook Pro he's got his eye on, as well as stock up on decent vodka.

You can spread you wallet cheeks wide here:

Or click over on the side. Credit cards are accepted (wow, how do you say that without feeling douchey?).

The Rude Pundit offered to answer questions this week, and he's gotten a number of really interesting ones, not just "Why don't you allow comments?" (To which the Rude Pundit can only say, "Have you ever read the comment threads on blogs?")

More to the point, Garry in Nashville asks, "Why do you think the South is always so eager to swallow the GOP's BS? Is it because of the GOP's 'starve the lazy/immigrants/niggers' philosophy, or is it due to some sort of inherent self-hatred, or is it just plain, old-fashioned perpetual hillbilly ignorance? Do the vast legions of hillbillies on disability not realize that cutting Social Security will cut off their checks?"

God and guns and racism, Garry. The conservative Christianity of a great deal of the white South has so fucked with the heads of people that it's gonna take generations to breed that out, if ever. So, yeah, it's genuine ignorance (which is propagated by the shitty schools in so many of the states). There's genuine progressive pockets in the South, in, say, West Virginia and North Carolina, and not just in urban areas or college towns. Here's the conundrum, though: if you're a coal miner, for instance, you may want your union protected, but you also want to keep mining, even removing mountaintops, to keep your job, and Democratic policies on labor and the environment can complicate things, even if, more often than not, they might benefit the workers overall. (By the way, the Rude Pundit's lived in Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee. For years of his life. He knows from the South.)

Mark from California writes, "I spend a lot of time networking at the local chambers of commerce looking for business. A lot of these small business owners spend their time crying about taxes, Obama, healthcare, regulations, and a bunch of other shit that are not the real reasons that their businesses are down the shitter the last few years. What would be a good response for me to give these retards who consistently vote against their own self interest and do not even realize it?"

Hmm. How about: "How would a national health care plan ease your burden?" Or take the Elizabeth Warren approach: "Would you like to pave the roads leading to your business?"

Lisa from Toronto wants to know "You and Mark Russell of the Public Theater [in New York], uncanny resemblance or twins separated at birth?" Whoa, weird. But, hey, if you could get the Rude Pundit a meeting with him, he'd love to talk about doing something at the Under the Radar Festival. (By the way, speaking of New York theatre, the Rude Pundit's always thought he had an uncomfortable resemblance to actor Michael Chernus.)

And Lorraine from upstate New York writes, "Even knowing what you know, do you have hope that things will change? Or, if we can, should we just get the hell out of this country?"

Honestly, really, if you can afford to get the hell out, go to Canada. But the Rude Pundit will stay here and fight until the bitter end. Because he's a stupid-ass American, filled with as much idiot optimism as an explorer standing on the edge of a Massachusetts beach in the 17th-century while getting infected with diseases he never knew existed.

Okay, let's get out before this gets too long and self-indulgent. Perhaps more questions answered this weekend, so toss some into the pot. But, as ever, more rudeness tomorrow.

What Matters: A Contrast in Two Photos:


That's the Republican Party's jolly dream date, Gov. Chris Christie, before he gave his "electrifying" speech with nods to "bipartisanship" at the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum of Lies. Of course, that'd be true if by "electrifying," you mean, "A boring series of the typical conservative bullshit that almost any non-Rick Scott GOP governor could give," and if by "bipartisan," you mean, "He ragged on Obama and bragged about how he lied and bullied state Democratic leaders to agree to his hostage demands."

(Note: The Rude Pundit deliberately chose this picture of Christie seated next to Nancy Reagan, Oliver Hardy to her emaciated Stan Laurel, because it obviates the need to make any fat jokes.)

Apparently, whether or not the New Jersey governor runs for president is the most important thing going on in the country. Yep, a wealthy man being courted by other wealthy men and women to try to win an election in order to protect the wealth of the wealthy. In other words, pretty much everything these crazy-ass hippies are protesting down here:


That's an image from the Occupy Wall Street march on Saturday, where 80 people were arrested. Why? Because it was a real goddamn protest, one with 1000 people, and not one that had the blessing of the NYPD, not one sanctioned by the government with all the correct permits. A potential uprising by citizens that doesn't involve tri-corner hats? A violent response by the police? Nah, who cares. It was treated by most of the media as the silly game of overprivileged whiners with nothing better to do with their time, not as something genuine by people who give a shit about their nation.

Of course, Christie's cocktease of Republican donors is more important, according to the mainstream press. Of course, the actions of the Wall Street protesters are to be ignored while, for instance, an idiotic racist stunt at UC Berkeley gets on-the-scene reports. Because remember, good American liberals, nearly anything you actually do (short of a Wisconsin-like state shutdown) matters exponentially less than even the overwrought inaction of a single conservative.

The Rude Pundit's 8th Anniversary Robbing of the Readers Continues:
Tomorrow, this unfair and imbalanced blog turns a big 8 years old. And to celebrate, the Rude Pundit's throwin' hisself a little party. He's making his once-every-coupla-years polite request for money in order to get a shiny new laptop and a few more bottles of Bulleit whiskey and Casa Noble tequila. You can click this button right here

or the one on the side over there. And just know that your donation is going to fund more rudeness with a hint of liver damage.

Or, if you're somebody who likes to get "things" for her or his "cash," feel free to purchase even more copies of The Rude Pundit's Almanack.

Also, the Rude Pundit's a-takin' questions and answerin' some of em. Like reader Neil, who misses Karl Rove's leather slave. (Recent readers should probably Google that, but not at work.) Well, Neil, Karl Rove's leather slave misses you. He misses your tender kisses up and down his body, with your extra tonguing on his taint. He misses your flowers and chocolates and the way that you'd go ass-to-ass with a double-sided dildo. It was romantic. You should call him, Neil, and you should run to him.

Along these lines, several readers have asked a variation of "What's the deal? You gay, bi, straight, what?" To which the Rude Pundit can only respond that he enjoys the pleasures of all sorts of orifices, most of them connected to human beings, and so should we all.

You can send your sexy questions to rudepundit_at_yahoo.com. More to be revealed tomorrow.

Oh, and one last thing: The Rude Pundit will be appearing at Words and Music 2011, a literary and, well, music conference in New Orleans. He'll be on a panel on internet stuff on Friday, November 11, and he'll be on a humor panel with Roy Blount, Jr. Saturday, November 12, as well as drinking all over the French Quarter for the weekend. He's gonna try to set up another non-conference gig while he's in the Crescent City.

Accept It, GOP: Mitt Romney Is All You've Got:
There's one part of the Rick-Perry-sucks-at-debatin' story that's been left out: it wasn't just that Perry may as well have been on stage blowing goats for how appalling he was. That's the easy headline. No, the truth is that Mitt Romney kicked Perry's ass all over the Orlando Convention Center last week. When he first announced he was running, pundits across the spectrum expected Perry to just saunter into the GOP saloon, order whiskey, shoot the piano player, down the shot, and take the whore upstairs, all before the doors had stopped swinging.

But at the Fox "news"/Google (really?) debate in batshit insane central Florida, it was the Harvard-educated milk drinker who told Perry that he didn't like his pretty girl hair and then wiped the floor with him.

Inasmuch as one can enjoy these truly painful events, where a bunch of buffoons and opportunists try to out-cruel each other while an audience of subhuman yahoos yawp at every savage bleat and hoot when someone dares to offer a vaguely compassionate sentiment as the moderators solemnly pretend that any of the belching and farting from the candidates is worth our time, a couple of the Romney retorts were awesome just because they smacked down that cowboy hard-on that's been fucking the nation.

For instance, when Perry tried to say that Romney supported President Obama's Race to the Top education legislation, Romney just smiled and said, "Nice try" and then "I'm not sure exactly what he's saying," which, by that point, we could all agree with. And later, when Perry attempted to tie Romney to the federal health care reform law, Romney responded, "I don't think he knows what he was talking about." Then Romney hogtied the Texas governor, took Perry's book, Fed Up!, and shoved it up Perry's ass, which, not unexpectedly, Perry found himself enjoying, especially as the ropes cut into his wrists and ankles, the Republicans' power bottom loving the reaming.

Look, dear GOP: Mitt Romney will be your nominee and, truly, there is nothing you can do about it. You can go through this whole charade. You can get Sarah Palin in on the party. Chris Christie ain't gonna run no matter how much money or pie you dangle in front of him because, while he may be despicable, he's smart: he knows that he's got a far better chance of winning in 2016. So there is no savior for you. There is no genuine hope on the horizon. You are stuck with the boring Mormon who is desperately trying for crazy conservative street cred by beating up on the cowboy. Sorry to tell you all, but this year is about Romney finally buying the nomination and then losing to Obama. End of story. (Note: Unless Republican efforts to steal the election through limiting voter access succeed.)

And why is that? Obviously, because the Republican Party is fucking insane right now. Yes, both Democrats and Republicans are beholden to their corporate masters, but the Republican is being pulled apart by the Tea Party nutzoids, who just won't shut the fuck up and go away. Obama is finally exploiting their madness to ask what direction you want the country to go in, and he's just getting warmed up. It's a pretty basic question: "Do you wanna be with the people who dress in colonial drag and carry around illiterate signs? No, didn't think so. But Mitt sure does." Game over. (Note: Local insanity is far more likely to succeed than national insanity, so the nutzoids could win more congressional seats.)

Let's put it this way, as we should when we want to see how devolved the GOP has become: as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan vastly expanded abortion access in his state, signed into law the largest state tax increase in U.S. history, and nearly doubled the size of his government. That Republican would be hooted off the stage and run out of town. But that didn't stop the candidates from evoking his mythical name again and again.