Republicans Force Ketanji Brown Jackson (and All of Us) to Live in Their Disturbing Fantasy World

The Republican Party demands that we accept a reality that is not reality. That much is clear. If they're not demanding that we accept that the 2020 presidential election was really won by Donald Trump, they're demanding that laws be passed to prevent "voter fraud" that doesn't happen. That's the range of opinion on that matter, and to accept either as a rational position is to allow the GOP to keep spinning a fucked-up web of that fantasy. 

But the GOP Fantasy World is not limited to the Big Lie of 2020. It's not limited to declarations that the first impeachment of Donald Trump was based on what they see as Democratic delusions about Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia and his blackmailing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to get dirt on Joe Biden. No, the GOP say, all of that is innocent and fine. It's not even limited to whatever bizarro shit they think is on Hunter Biden's laptop computer, like it's a Rosetta Stone of corruption (side note: Republicans treat technology like it's some kind of mystical art with sigils that cannot be understood by mere mortals).

Now, as the GOP slips deeper and deeper into the absurd world of QAnon conspiracies, they want us to live in a world where all Democrats must be child sex traffickers, rapists, and pornographers. They dragged Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson into that fictional world during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings this week. It didn't matter that Jackson is easily one of the most qualified people ever nominated for the Supreme Court, vastly superior to all three justices that Trump put on there. It didn't matter that she's supported by groups across the political spectrum, with an A+ rating from the American Bar Association and two previous Senate confirmations under her belt, both with Republican support. It didn't matter that she's adjudicated over 500 cases. 

No, all that mattered is that in seven cases, Jackson didn't give as punitive a sentence as she could have to some scummy fucks who collected, looked at, and, in a couple of cases, traded child pornography. Most of the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee grilled Jackson on those cases. The clear implications of that questioning goes beyond an attack on her judicial philosophy. I mean, lots of judges believe that sentencing guidelines are ludicrously over-punitive, and that's a real debate Graham, Cruz, Hawley, etc. could have had with Jackson. 

But that wasn't the point of this. The real point was to say that Jackson enables child fucking and enables people to look at photos and videos of child fucking. The real point was to tie Jackson to all the fucked beyond fucked bullshit that a large portion of the GOP base and, increasingly, GOP legislators believe. That Graham, Cruz, and the rest decided to go apeshit on Jackson about her entirely mainstream sentencing of child porn offenders showed how desperate they all are to win that nutzoid base. There's nothing there. Nothing at all. They all stood there with flaccid, little cocks, screaming about how big a hard-on they had and the QAnon onanists nodded in agreement that, yes, those soft choads were mighty flesh rods of vengeance for the abused kids. It was revolting. (Sure, yeah, for Marsha Blackburn, change it to a dry pussy she said was gushing.)

But if you are inclined to want to rip your eyeballs out and flush them down the toilet, you can check out some of the QAnon message boards and see how outraged the onanists are that an "apologist for child molesters," as one of them described Jackson, will now sit on the Supreme Court. And it doesn't fucking help that Jackson was the judge who sentenced the guy who shot up the DC restaurant Comet Ping-Pong in the Pizzagate madness to four years in prison. If you remember, crazy motherfucker thought Hillary Clinton was raping and eating kids in the basement of the place or some such shit that is just as fucking absurd. Yeah, so Jackson's involvement there proves their shit, and they're all just declaring outright that "She's a pedophile" and theorizing (sorry, but you gotta know how fucked up this is) "I think she was groomed at a young age. She talked about how her uncles use to come over a lot. I bet she had a relationship with one of them, one that she still holds dear even though she knows it was 'wrong.'" Yeah, someone wrote that. And then that dickscab goes on about it. 

It's all because the Republicans on the committee decided to make her, again, entirely mainstream sentencing of child porn offenders into something insidious, just so they had something to attack her on. It's frankly slanderous, and they all put her and her entire family in danger. 

Another part of this is that preening pompous pricks like Graham keep talking about how the questioning is like some kind of payback for the "mistreatment" of Brett Kavanaugh, who had multiple people talking about him as a rapist and all-around creepy fuck, and Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote an article about the role her faith plays in her legal decisions. Those were real issues with real questions behind them. Jackson's sentences rise to the level of a question in passing, not a full-on gallop into a mad world. 

We are heading into the potential for a real nightmare, where the people that one party's leaders are trying to please are increasingly divorced from reality, where those fucking loons are getting elected, and where they try to impose that unreality on everyone else. We're seeing it in those voter fraud laws or anti-critical race theory laws or "Don't Say 'Gay'" laws, all existing to deal with problems that simply don't exist but feel like they exist to dumb people so fuck it, pass the laws. These are not politicians who give a fuck about the lives of anyone, child or adult. They are not serious people.

And yet throughout the hearing, Senator Dick Durbin and other Democrats kept talking to Republicans as if they weren't spouting shit-scrawling insane nonsense, insisting on talking about bills they were working on together, pretending to some kind of comity, as if that would slow them down. Instead, they bulldozed the Democrats, so the only fucking thing anyone is going to remember from this hearing is all this child porn bullshit and not what a compassionate, intelligent, wise, and experienced person Jackson is. They tainted her nomination, which was also the point.

Jackson would have been well within her rights to say, "Senators, you are accusing me of supporting child predators. You can go fuck yourselves" and walked out. Frankly, we don't deserve her. And this post doesn't even get into the crazed levels of racism and sexism in her mistreatment by the GOP. 

(One note here: If we've learned anything about Republicans, it's that when they get worked up about a legal or moral issue, it's almost certainly because they're covering for themselves or others who are doing the very thing they are decrying. I'm not saying Graham or Cruz or Hawley or Sasse or Tillis sexually exploit children. But, like their beloved Tucker Carlson, I'm just asking questions.)

Everything Is There for Democrats to Wreck Republicans in the Midterms and Beyond

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Rick Scott, GOP Senator from Florida and the last thing you see before you're dropped into Dip, put out a pamphlet of conservative fantasies that was essentially spanking material for Federalist interns. In it, he proposed that "All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again." Now, you might read that and think, "So...no one can plan anything for more than five years out because shit might just get shoved back up Congress's ass and we all have to deal with it?" You might also think about laws that needed to be renewed that weren't or were delayed, like the assault weapons ban or the just-reauthorized (after a dickish delay) Violence Against Women Act. 

Of course, it should immediately occur to you that Social Security and Medicare are "federal legislation." And that it's been a dream of Republicans to cut, get rid of, or privatize those entitlements for ages. Yes, some in the GOP like Mitch McConnell, who always looks like he was just told that women can have orgasms, have scolded Scott for that and the part of his plan that reads, "All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax," which, of course, would entail raising taxes on low- or no-income people. But Scott has support in the GOP, including Alabama Senator and winner of the 2021 "Are you fucking kidding me? That idiot is a senator?" award Tommy Tuberville and rapey forehead Matt Gaetz, also of the increasingly shitty state of Florida.

Lots of pundit-y types have written about the beautifully-wrapped gift that Rick Scott has given to Democrats. "Whoa, whoa, you mean we can campaign on Republicans saying they wanna shitcan Social Security and Medicare? And raise taxes on the poor?" I can imagine a consultant for Democratic Senate candidates saying. "Oh, fuck, just jack that shit right into my veins."

But the gifts don't stop there. You know how Republicans like to scream about deficits whenever Democrats are in office and then tell everyone to "Suck it" when they pass tax cuts for the rich? Yeah, deficits are falling under Biden, by a trillion bucks next year. That kind of shit shouldn't matter, but it's one of the nails that the GOP likes to hammer Democrats with and Democrats tend to cower and say, "You're right" instead of telling them to shove their tax cuts up their asses. 

Last week, I said that Democrats need to go all out in joining the culture war that the GOP has been fighting. There, I was talking about Democrats embracing abortion rights and campaigning on them. But we can go toe-to-motherfuckin'-toe on a bunch of culture war issues and use them to turn out our base just like Republicans use them to turn out theirs. 

Start with federal funding for Covid response, which was cut out of the budget because Senate Republicans would have balked on the rest of the $1.5 trillion budget if Democrats had tried to push it through. Without that money, it means the federal government's response on a new variant would have to be somewhere between "fuck us" and "go fuck yourself." This is not to mention the slowdown in vaccinations here and around the world (which can prevent the next variant from even evolving), as well as testing, treatment, and research. The math here is easy: Most of the country is vaccinated. Most of the country wants to make sure we don't face a new corona fucking. While Republicans screech about mask mandates, Democrats can campaign on "Okay, then why won't you fund the shit that will prevent mask mandates?" 

Go to town, motherfuckers. Face them down on the anti-trans kids bills. Face them down on all the bullshit about what teachers can teach in the classroom. In Virginia, all 133 school superintendents wrote to Gov. Glenn "Tricked You Suburban Douches, Didn't I?" Youngkin and said, in essence, "Fer fuck's sake, you're being a dick to educators with your idiot tip line on teachers who piss off a parent and ban on things no one is teaching. Stop it." That was supported by superintendents in districts from Wokesville near DC to Fuckacousin near the Tennessee border. You know how hard it is to get all of these people of a scary range of political beliefs to agree? And it's an ad for Democrats that writes itself. 

Add into that the opposition to bans on critical race theory (which, again, is not being taught in elementary schools) in places like Indiana. Yeah, the GOP-controlled Senate there killed an anti-CRT bill because of an outcry from parents, religious leaders, civil rights groups, and others who saw it for the punitive bullshit it is. That happened in fucking Indiana, where Mike Pence's tight ass was elected a few different times. This hysteria is losing its erection, and Democrats need to punch it in the balls and be on the side of teachers. Jesus, just say that teachers and parents need to work together, like they already are in most places. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are stepping on their own dicks, making unforced errors. The leadership can't control the crazies and the Jesus fellaters like Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Rick Scott insanity has the potential to split the caucus. And Trump's out there, wandering the country freely for some reason, the presidential candidate who won't announce he's a presidential candidate, saying completely bizarre shit like that parents need to "lay down their very lives" against critical race theory, which means...what? Suicide bombing a school? Throwing yourself in front of a bus going to a Black history museum? The wheels are coming off the GOP clown car and that means a bunch of clowns will be slamming to a halt and running around, tripping on their oversize shoes, scaring the children.

Again, we're not appealing to the idiot hordes of MAGA cretins and anti-science ghouls. They can go live on plague island and fuck each other until their nipples bleed or whatever. No, we're talking about moving that sliver of a semi-rational middle that is easily manipulated by scary talk but has at least a lick of sense when presented with reality. We can't leave anything unanswered because the majority is on the Democrats' side and we have let them control the cultural narrative in the political realm for way, way too long. It's just that Democrats are like actors who get a dozen great reviews on a play and then obsess on the one bad one, perversely thinking it's more important than what everyone else fucking says. Stop giving power to assholes.

Everything is there to blunt the attacks on Democrats over inflation and other issues. It just takes a little fucking effort to not run away when someone accuses you of being a Marxist or anti-white. Take the shit they throw and use it to fertilize a thousand ads and speeches.

(And to anyone responding to this with "Well, they're Democrats. They won't do it," all I can say is that you're probably right. But I'm fucking trying and now it's time for you to give me your bright ideas.)

Democrats Need to Embrace Abortion Rights Because Republicans Want to Kill Women

If there's one thing that you can count on, it's that crazy-ass GOP motherfuckers who are elected to GOP-majority state legislatures will propose crazy-ass motherfucking legislation that sounds like something conjured by a sweaty Heritage Foundation intern who's trying to impress the boss. You can count on a bunch of people getting upset about the crazy-ass legislation and you can count on it not passing or even making it out of committee because there are enough semi-rational Republicans to tell them to fuck all the way off with that distraction. 

However, there is something else you can always count on, and that's that sometimes those crazy-ass motherfuckers hit the sweet spot of timing and a critical mass of crazies in the legislature and statehouse so that they actually make that shit into law. And, often, that happens when Christian extremist men and cynical pretenders gang up on women and limit or eliminate abortion rights. 

The prime example of this lately is the Texas anti-choice law that turns every citizen of the state into a bounty hunter trying to catch women attempting to get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and narc on anyone helping them do it. And the law has succeeded in forcing women in Texas who need an abortion into becoming de facto fugitives, trying to negotiate a way to get the procedure out of state at great expense or to get abortion pills so they can self-induce. It's a goddamn nightmare in the 2nd most populous state in the country, one where its biggest cities have Democratic mayors, and one where the number of people who identify themselves as Democrats is pretty much equal to Republicans (but with a large number of "independents," which generally means "Republican").

When the bill was first proposed, it was plainly so egregiously punitive, so insane in its methodology, so backwards in its approach that it seemed like another one destined for the legislative dustbin. However, tasting the blood of women as the end of Roe v. Wade is imminent, the legislature went for it and the savage fucknuts on the Supreme Court have let it stand, not giving a single fuck about how much actual harm is being done because, yeah, that's the fucking point. Punish women for daring not to carry a man's seed to fruition. It's like an incel fantasy come true. 

Republican-led and controlled states are sharpening the knives to cut the legs out from women so they can be forced to have children, even the children of men who raped them (and that includes incest, since "incest" generally means "rape by a relative"). In addition to trying to pass bills identical to the one in Texas, states keep pushing back the number of weeks by which a woman can get an abortion (down to 15 in Florida and Mississippi, for instance), and South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Idaho went with the Texas "fetal heartbeat" nonsense, at 6 weeks, all of which are direct confrontations to Roe v. Wade and a sane Supreme Court would put a halt to that shit immediately.

But it gets even more savage when we get to the legislation that they are teeing up, even if it doesn't go anywhere yet. Yet. There was the attempt, twice, in Ohio to force doctors to try to implant in the uterus an ectopic pregnancy, one where the fetus grows outside the uterus, which is not medically possible. In Missouri, some Republicans not only want to end treatment that removes an ectopic pregnancy (which is always fatal to the fetus and, if not removed, fatal or deeply harmful to the woman), but they want to expand the Texas approach and allow people to sue anyone who helps a woman leave the state to receive an abortion, essentially imprisoning women and forcing them to give birth.

That's what these states are doing instead of making life better for their citizens. Republicans are actively harming women and stripping them of bodily autonomy.  The next step is to continue to make it harder and harder for women to get abortion medication, which accounts for over 50% of all abortions in the United States. Meanwhile, 60% of Americans support Roe v. Wade, with 65% opposing laws like the one in Texas. Only 27% want Roe overturned, which is almost certainly going to happen in June. 

And, yet, with notable exceptions, it's only Republicans who are fighting at the front lines of the culture war on abortion. Yes, Democrats tried and failed to pass a law that would codify Roe, which everyone knew would fail and thus was only a symbolic vote. (Honestly, the symbolic vote is one of the most bullshit things both parties do. How many fucking votes to overturn the Affordable Care Act were taken by the GOP? You know what's still there? The Affordable Care Act.) But, in many cases, because they have been cowed by right-wing media and religious nutzoids, Democrats don't fucking go full "Fuck, yeah, abortion rights!" on Republicans.

Democrats can fight and win on abortion access because we're no longer talking about anything in the realm of compassion. Anti-choice Republicans are pushing their fanaticism into other people's lives, too, with their bounty bills. How's this for an ad: "If you live in Missouri and drive an Uber and you bring a woman to a bus station so she can get an abortion in Illinois, you could be sued if a new law passes." And it's fucking true. 

Yeah, you're gonna have to dive into some dark places here, but make the case that a 12 year-old raped by her father would be forced to go through with any pregnancy that happened. That's reality in Texas. Hell, if you really wanna fuck with the white suburbanites, play with their racism and tell them that if their daughters are raped and made pregnant by undocumented immigrants, they'd have to have the baby. These aren't exaggerations. The laws that are being passed by Republicans do this. 

This is a visceral way to demonstrate just how fucking insane the GOP has gone. You're not gonna do that by talking about Trump or January 6 or Russia. For decades, Republicans have made it visceral, with pictures of literal viscera and endless talk about the death of a fetus. It's always been implicit, but now the anti-choice right is making it explicit: they don't fucking care about the women. They don't. They don't care if women are raped. They don't care if a doctor says an abortion is necessary for a woman's mental health. They don't care about hurting anyone close to the woman.  And they sure don't fucking care if women die in the process. That's just an object lesson for other women not to try.

So get on the fucking field on this, Democrats. Center campaigns around women having freedom. We've ceded this rhetorical battle on this issue for far, far too long, relying on Roe to keep some measure of sanity. By the end of June, the guardrails are coming off and we better be in the fight already because Republicans will be.

(Note: The Missouri Republican who wrote the bill that prevents ending ectopic pregnancy says he will revise it to exclude that, but it will still be vague as fuck and why trust these fucks.)

Putin's U.S. Stooges Must Be Called Out

I gotta admit one thought that passed through my mind after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I wondered what would happen if Putin did succeed in winning quickly, if he came in and Ukraine surrendered and it was over in a day, as he had delusionally hoped, thus affirming the worship that way too many Americans have for him. I wondered what if he then said he wanted to take over the United States and I thought about all the armed fucknuts willingly to say they'd rather be led by Putin than Joe Biden and I wondered about the Republican Party, with all the Putin apologists and tyranny humpers, and I thought, "Fuck me. He might have a shot. At least he'd end up stirring up more shit than he has already."

But the myth of Putin, the smart, savvy strategist and technocrat, has been bombed into pieces by a fiasco of an invasion where the best possible outcome is seeming like Russia not completely demolishing the country and massacring people by the thousands. Even that awful outcome, though, is quickly fading as Putin acts like a freaked-out bear who got stuck in Walmart and decides to just fuck everything up, hump the mannequins, and shit on the torn up corpses of the employees. Unless Putin is removed in some way, I'm not even sure at this point that we're not looking at the use of some kind of nukes, from dirty bomb to full-scale ICBM world fuckage. I don't think that will happen, but it's not out of the realm of possibility because that motherfucker is crazier than a shithouse rat right now. 

For years, Putin has been appeased by most of the world as a loony asshole who is gonna mostly stay in his lane. And that was embarrassing enough (and let's face it - Democratic and Republican presidents starting with Bill Clinton have been responsible for letting him get away with awful shit while thinking he wasn't really serious about getting the Soviet band back together). Even more embarrassing are the Putin supporters and his fans, who are those who obviously get all moist for some big dictator energy but won't commit to saying they agree with his actions.

Back in the early 2010s, some conservatives, annoyed that LGBT people were heading towards getting the right to marry someone of the same sex, embraced Russia's anti-gay policies, leading to some hot Putin lovin'. In 2013, Pat Buchanan wondered of Putin, "In the culture war for mankind’s future, is he one of us?" because the Russian leader claimed he loved him some Jesus and hated him some gays and was all about white nationalism. This strain of Putin lust continues to this day by people who are just terrible.

Of course, it was with the rise of Putin's pissy poodle Donald Trump (who really was once president of the United States, believe it or not) that nutzoid right-wingers could let their tricolor flag fly. By 2016, 37% of Republicans viewed Putin "favorably," a rise from 10% in 2014, with only 14% viewing him "very unfavorably," down from 51% two years before. 47% viewed him "somewhat or very unfavorably," so not even half of the polled Republicans. Trump chose Putin pal Rex Tillerson for his Secretary of State and batshit Russia lover Michael Flynn for national security adviser, and Trump vigorously rode Putin's jock for all four years of his tragicomedy of a presidency.

And now? Fuck, up until last Thursday, Putin's stooges were proliferating throughout the United States, climaxing in the deranged chant of his name at the Nazi rally called the America First Political Action Conference last weekend. Republicans recently polled said they viewed Putin better than they viewed President Biden. And while we can expect the right-wing media vulture cocks like Tucker Carlson, who always looks like he is trying to figure out where to bury the child's body, to get all high snorting uncut tyranny, it's more alarming that fringe fucks who are elected to Congress, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, and others, give aid and comfort to the increasing numbers of Republicans who want a Putin-like government here, with Donald Trump in charge. That's the same Donald Trump who, since the invasion of Ukraine, has called Putin "smart," "genius," and "savvy," while calling NATO and the United States "dumb."

As the war gets more brutal, anyone who ever enabled this shit needs to be called out. George Stephanopoulos made Sen. Tom Cotton, who always looks like he's afraid he's going to get a call from Tucker Carlson for help burying the child's body, very uncomfortable by asking him to condemn Trump's sloppy blow job. That should be the same with every goddamn Republican. Do you agree with Trump on Putin? Do you condemn what he said? Is Trump full of shit or are you? 

Because this is the kind of time where silence equals acquiescence, which, ironically enough, is what Putin had hoped would happen with Ukraine. Instead, we see the power of resistance to shift the narrative. As Russia uses banned weapons and talks about public executions, the US media can aid the resistance or give comfort to the domestic enemies.

The GOP Put Out "An 11-Point Plan to Save America" and It's Hysterical Hysteria

Perhaps reacting to the fact that the Republican Party has given up on everything to do with actually governing, choosing, instead, to become a cabal devoted to fake outrage and outdated ideas of morality, Sen. Rick "This Fucking Skull of Doom Will Haunt Your Dreams" Scott has put out a pamphlet titled "An 11-Point Plan to Save America." Yes, it is exactly as fucking idiotic and worthless as you already know it is. Perhaps even more so. From its preamble to its conclusions, it's nonstop hysteria over "wokeness" and trans rights, along with policies based on complete lies and nothing about the actual issues facing the country. 

I mean, how do you take seriously any however many point plan to "save America" that starts with (and, no shit, this is number one), "Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them." Oh, it goes way further than that in the explanation: "Kids in public schools will say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand for the National Anthem, and honor the American Flag. We must foster national unity." The only way to assure that this happens is to pass a law and punish those who don't. Is that what you're gonna do, Sen. Skeletor? Are you gonna arrest kids who say, "Fuck you, I'm not standing"? Maybe send them to reeducation camps since the rest of the fuckin' "plan" is all about enforcing beliefs.

There's so much conservative extremist fuckery in here that it reads like porn for the Federalist Society, like a bunch of Hillsdale grads are gonna sit around and circle jerk to things like finishing the stupid border wall and naming it for Donald Trump. "Yeah, that'll own the libs," they'll say as they jizz and then immediately feel shame and then immediately start jacking off again when they read the next line about funding the police.

Look at this savagery in attacking the poor: "No government assistance unless you are disabled or aggressively seeking work" (okay, so are you gonna provide child care?) and "Eliminate federal programs that can be done locally" (sounds good if you're in Massachusetts, scary if you're in Texas) and "All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount" (which is raising taxes on the poor instead of forcing million/billionaires to pay their share). There's fucking nothing in there about poverty other than that "socialism" apparently causes it. Not paying shit wages or corporations dicking over workers in favor of shareholders and executives. 

On it goes, just a steaming shit pile that you'd just have to be a sociopath, and a fucking dumb one, to buy into. In addition to essentially ending the federal government except for the military, the paranoia over "cancel culture" bullshit and the outright terror over trans people is bizarrely overwhelming. In a weird merging of "science" and religion, the plan declares "Men and women are biologically different, 'male and female He created them.'" And "No doctor will be allowed to perform irreversible surgical or gender-altering procedures on any minor child," going against the advice of every major medical organization when it comes to gender dysphoria (and it's something Texas is already on board with). 

And then there's "All social media platforms that censor speech and cancel people will be treated like publishers and subject to legal action," which makes no fucking sense at all. Publishers cancel books all the time. It's their right as a business. But I guess rights only exist to make right-wingers feel good about shit and they suck when they make Nazis sad. Quoting the only thing that the GOP knows about Martin Luther King, it says, "We will be a nation where people will be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin." And if they meant, "We need to make sure that laws are applied equally and without current racial disparities," well, sure. But all that means is "I don't like my white kids hearing that white people did bad things to nonwhite people."

Much of it is really just a call to anarchy. "Americans will not be required to go against their core values and beliefs in order to conform to culture or government," it reads, and yet it doesn't define what happens when one person's "core values" conflicts with another person's "core values." This is beyond "reasonable accommodation" and into "unreasonable clusterfuck." Of course, Sen. Voldemort goes all in on the Big Lie, with a section on "voting rights" that is all about how to prevent Democrats from voting and will assure a completely unmanageable electoral system.

Helping them out, the thing says that the police should be allowed to run wild and consequence free as Point 2 is all about "safety" and "crime" and says, among other things, "We will strengthen qualified immunity and legal protections for law enforcement officers to protect them from frivolous lawsuits." But that goes against my core values on holding cops accountable. 

This maniacal shitpost of a declaration is about a nation that simply doesn't exist except in the heated, phantasmagoric delusions of the most MAGA-broken brains and the political garbage humans who exploit them, no matter the consequences. It imagines a country in flames, repressing true Americans, one where the greatest issue facing us is white people not allowed to say the n-word without consequences. It's hyper-Christian, nationalistic, fascistic, and deranged, ignoring all the real problems in this nation, which, to be fair, are mostly caused by Republicans. 

Interestingly, it doesn't mention the Supreme Court. In fact, the only mention of courts at all is the assertion that Democrats want to "pack the courts." And it doesn't call for abortion to be outlawed, usually a central tenet of these fucking weirdo right-wing documents. I don't think that's an oversight, though. It's something that's way, way worse. 

I think it means they know where they already won and are focusing on other battles. And that's scarier than anything in the thing itself.

Coming Out of the Pandemic, Some of Us Faster Than Others (and That's Okay)

Lemme admit something here. I haven't been the most dedicated Covid warrior. I mean, sure, yeah, I got vaccinated and boosted as soon as I could because you're just a motherfucking delusional piece of shit if you don't. And, for a good while, I wore masks pretty devotedly, especially once I found one style that fit my big, bearded face decently. Hell, I started wearing a mask before wearing a mask was cool, before it was recommended. I had people in grocery stores staring at me a long time ago.  I also had Covid really early on, in late March 2020, a mild case, but, still, during the scary period where each of the days I had a low fever I wondered if all that cocaine was gonna finally catch up to me, if I was gonna take the plunge into the depths of the virus's effects, fucking up my lungs and more. It didn't. 

So what I'm admitting is that I've been a bit cocky since I got my second Moderna shot a little over a year ago. My thinking has been that, at some level, you gotta believe that the vaccine works. Early on, we thought it prevented you from getting Covid, but now, with that bitch Omicron, we know now that it prevents serious illness and death, which, you know, still means you're just a motherfucking delusional piece of shit if you don't get it. 

I've been living my life, going to concerts indoors, eating indoors at restaurants, drinking indoors at bars, going to movies, plays, and comedy shows. I've traveled on planes and trains and buses. When I say, "I haven't been the most dedicated Covid fighter," it's because that, in situations where I can take off my mask, I usually take off my mask. And I almost never wear it outside. I haven't for a long time. Shocking, right?

I'm not a dick about it. If a place wants me to keep a mask on, I keep my damn mask on because other people are allowed to want that. I suppose if I felt strongly enough, I could avoid places that demand masking, but why be that person? I hate those people. Those of us who want to get out in the world and do shit ought to have the good sense to know there are limitations. 

It's really not that hard to give a damn about other people. I'm fortunate in that I don't live with a child under the vaccination age or someone who is immunocompromised. I don't even see people in that situation too much. I recently visited a dear friend who had a bone marrow transplant. I took a rapid Covid test before going to see him, as I would before seeing anyone in such a position.  If someone would like me to put on a mask, sure, I'll put on a mask. 

And, yeah, despite what right-wing cumrags say about us, I fucking hate wearing a mask, even if I've found a relatively comfortable one. But my feeling of discomfort for a short period isn't worth being a total asshole to others. What is worth it is acting like we can live again. And if I say I believe in science, then I fucking well should act like it.

I'm not saying we're getting back to normal because that implies that we can ever return to the pre-2020 times. That's over. And our leaders need to be honest about that. It's a fucking lie to say we can ever not take the kinds of precautions that prevent the spread of Covid, even if it's just a buzz in the back of our head when we're in a crowd, even if it's just taking a test before going to Grandma's house, even if it's just an awareness that it could all close down again, that we know what that's like. And it's also a fucking shame that we haven't done all the things that would make everyone feel safer about the lifting of restrictions. 

Let's put aside the danger that antivaxxers are putting everyone in as being incubators for variants or for clogging the hospitals with their failing bodies. I'm talking about the practical things that could be done with some effort and expenditure.

We could have invested a shit-ton of money on new ventilation systems at schools or offices or, really, in lots of places, but especially schools. We know that having upgraded ventilation helps prevent Covid from spreading, and some school systems are using federal funds to get new HVAC systems and HEPA filters and other things that I'm sure begin with H. But it's not enough and not fast enough. The great thing about those kinds of coronavirus mitigation projects is that they're passive enough that even willingly unvaccinated assholes are protected and we're protected from their unvaccinated asses. 

We could have done something about our ongoing horror of a health care system and poured funding into nursing training and salaries and more on a permanent basis, not just as crisis pay. We already had a shortage of health care workers, especially nurses, and now it's a full-blown crisis on top of the crisis of the pandemic. We could have said, "You know what? It's just motherfucking dumb to not have a national health care system. People shouldn't be afraid of their co-pays so they don't go to the doctor and spread the sick around." We could make mental health care far more widely available for all the trauma everyone has suffered. We still get more than 4 rapid tests to households. There are all kinds of things we could do so that everyone could participate in the world again with some amount of caution, sure, but still able to do so. 

A nation that really gave a shit as a whole would have passed a Covid tax on the wealthy to help get us the fuck out of the crisis. We are not that nation. So, instead of roaring into the end of the pandemic, we have a two-tier reopening: a decent level of safety for most of us, an indecent level of risk for those most at risk and for families with young children.

The nation is still ridiculously bifurcated between the places with high vaccination rates and places with low ones. The reason we have 2500-3000 people a day still dying of Covid is because the corpses are piled up in Unvaxxed America. It'll be a while before those numbers decline, as well as the numbers in hospitals (which will also be playing catch up with all the surgeries and other things that were put off because of the Omicron and Delta surges). 

As the nation opens up, even in the unvaccinated places, the people to thank are the vaccinated and the masked. If you're unvaccinated and all of a sudden vaccination card checks go away so you can go back to Chili's again, thank all your vaccinated friends and family and everyone else. It's because enough of us did what we're supposed to do and weren't selfish twatfleas about it like you that you can get your baby back ribs again. It wasn't ivermectin or piss-drinking that got us to where we are. It's because a bunch of us are responsible goddamn people. You're welcome, you pathetic fucks.

(Note: I'm sure some of you will get all pissy about my relatively relaxed attitude towards getting out in the world. But I respect your fear of the virus. I respect your limitations. Mine are just different.)

(Note 2: Obviously, you could respond that "It's not over" and you're right. But it kind of is for a lot of people. We just have to not be cavalier about things, like back in April of last year when everyone went fucking crazy and having orgies in the streets.)

Why Those Saying AG Garland Needs to Act Soon on Trump Aren't Wrong

The podcast Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy is a genuinely fascinating look into the lives of the illusionists who had a long-running Las Vegas show performing magic with their white tigers. The focus of the podcast is the night in October 2003 when one of the tigers attacked Roy Horn during a performance at the Mirage Hotel, almost killing him. Host Steven Leckart talks to the main investigator from the USDA, and the podcast discusses a few times how the USDA was denied the videotape of the attack by Feld Entertainment, the company that produced Siegfried and Roy's show. The magicians and Feld were so distressed by the possibility of the USDA having the tape that a friend of theirs contacted Nevada's then-senators, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign, for help.

The senators probably made phone calls to get the USDA to stop pursuing the tape. They might have reached out directly to the investigator himself. But, as Wild Things discusses, Reid and Ensign went much, much further. They drafted an amendment to the 2004 budget bill that would have specifically prohibited federal money from being used for obtaining the tape "through a subpoena...or any other means." Reid said then and he says on the podcast in one of his last interviews that he was concerned with the privacy of Roy Horn because images from the tape might leak. Agree or disagree (as the podcast discusses, the USDA was pretty lax in enforcing its rules on Siegfried and Roy, a major Vegas money generator), just the threat of the amendment worked. The USDA backed down and agreed to view the footage in a supervised situation. Even then, the investigator was only shown a small clip of the incident.

This isn't really about the truth or lies behind a tiger attack, which was really just a tiger being a damn tiger. It's about Congress's power of the purse and how it can be wielded. Two senators from different parties were ready to make it impossible for an agency of the government to do an investigation in the way it saw fit. While the amendment threat did not shut down the investigation, it sure as hell hampered it. 

Congress has the ability to do that, to target with precision how money cannot be spent. Remember Iran-Contra? That had to do with Ronald Reagan trying to get around the Boland Amendment, when Congress said that federal money could not be used to support the Contras attempting to overthrow the government in Nicaragua. 

The power of the purse is something that has been used to affect policy for good reasons, especially with a bad actor (on so many levels) like Reagan. And it is something that is occasionally used for petty political points. It's also one of those many things that we've learned in the last few years absolutely depends on our leaders actually caring that government functions. It relies on the legislative branch not being jerks. We've seen the fraying of that since Newt Gingrich decided to shut down the government in a hissy fit. We see it with the Republicans' bad faith in the wielding of the debt ceiling as a weapon. 

When some of us say the committee looking into the January 6 insurrection needs to act quickly, it's because there is a decent chance that the GOP takes over the House of Representatives and simply ends the committee. Any referrals to the Justice Department need to happen soon because if the House changes hands, then in January 2023, it's over. When we say that Attorney General Merrick Garland better have charges out there, it's not because we're anxious and curious and need to move the plot forward for our emotional satisfaction and our need for vengeance against the Trump mob. 

It's because the Republicans who will take over the House are motherfucking crazy and don't give a single shit if they blow the whole place up. And I'm not sure I just mean that metaphorically with these insane lizard-brained savages. 

There is nothing that stops a Jim Jordan-led House (you heard me) from passing a budget resolution that defunds any effort by the DOJ from pursuing any case against Donald Trump or his shitty children or the assorted clowns, whores, thieves, and Jared that made up his administration. They won't play chicken with Democrats because the idea with chicken is that both sides have the chance of turning before the crash. That's not the way a House of Representatives with barking mad mongrels like Paul Gosar or Marjorie Taylor Greene leading or in the majority on committees will work. They're not playing chicken. They're playing demolition derby. These America-hating cockscabs will gladly shut down the government. And Democrats will give in because they want the government to function. They will give in with the bullshit hope of fighting another day.

And you might say that the investigations in Georgia or New York would do the trick on Trump. Except the same kind of targeted budgetary action can take place. I'd bet that New York's own shit Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik would sponsor a resolution saying that federal funding for her state is contingent on dropping the cases against Trump and the Trumplings because that's exactly how fucked up Republicans have made the whole fucking political system now. 

And you might say that this kind of blatant fuckery can be taken to court. Except, you know, the Supreme Court has lost its shit, too.

Yes, we don't know what exactly is going on with all the investigations. Yes, they are doing so much work, interviewing so may witnesses, going through mountains of documents, all with no leaks, and we don't know if something is going to drop any day now. All of that can be true, but the motherfucking clock is ticking. 

If a couple of senators can use the power of the purse to protect some rich-ass magicians, a criminally insane political party, freed of the straitjacket of minority status in Congress, is gonna go much, much further and strangle the investigations with the purse strings.

Why I Was Serious When I Said Jailing Donald Trump Until Trial Would Be Good for the Country (Part 2)

Earlier this week, I said that former president and current terrorist Donald Trump should receive the same treatment as the leader of the terrorist Oath Keepers. That is, he should be held in jail without bail, unable to rally his supporters until he's faced trial. Not only that, but it would be good for the country to see an ex-president face justice and treated like other alleged criminals are. Let me list the ways:

1. It would prove to a fickle public that the Justice Department and law enforcement are absolutely serious about this shit. Right now, with very little actual news coming from the DOJ or the January 6 committee in the House, and with this investigation taking so very much longer than it ought to have, the attitude on the right is that all of that shit is just one more thing they'll eliminate should Republicans win one or both houses of Congress. The narrative conservative media and politicians are creating about the Trump investigations is one of boredom, bias, vengeance, and incompetence. I know that doesn't matter should indictment come from any of it, but it sure as fuck is damaging the public image among the majority of the nation that doesn't anally-probe every tweet or statement from Liz Cheney or Letitia James. 

2. I'm not worried that arresting Trump on suspicion of seditious conspiracy will make his armed lunatics go apeshit. In fact, I think quite the opposite for most of them (there will always be a stray lunatic). It would make a whole lot of people fucking realize that they better back the fuck down and/or give up what they know. The delay tactics by potential witnesses is working, forcing the 1/6 committee to postpone public hearings for at least a month, from April to May. If all of a sudden real consequences were in the mix, those who participated in or helped plan the insurrection would be shitting themselves in fear, wondering, "If law enforcement is willing to arrest a former president, what the fuck else might they do to me?" Democrats don't understand the power of fear in the same way Republicans do. So while there are totally legitimate reasons to lock up Trump, the intimidation factor would be a huge benefit to the investigations. I'd bet that at least one Trumpling turns on dear ol' grabby, abusive dad.

3. While bewilderingly roaming free, Trump keeps having rallies and putting out statements that profess support for the 1/6 rioters and promise they will not be punished for crimes that some of them have confessed to. He refuses to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election fairly, which has kept a not-insignificant portion of the population enraged and ready for action, action that Trump has already stated he wants if he's indicted federally or in New York or Georgia. Trump has done nothing to disabuse the armed fucknuts of the notion that he is telling them to lock and load and go on his command. He is unwilling to turn down the heat in the country, preferring to piss gasoline wherever he can. Shutting Trump the fuck up would leave all the troop-rallying to his surrogates, none of whom have a scintilla of the deranged orange juice that Trump brings.

4. Republicans are normalizing the attack on the Capitol. This goes hand-in-hand with the first point. The more distance we get from January 6 without visible progress beyond arresting the ground troops for the coup, the more it will seem like No Big Deal, and that's what the GOP wants more than anything. It's why so many of them can say shit like it was "legitimate political discourse." The GOP has taken the side of the insurrectionists, which means they will welcome this fuckery when it happens again. Whatever shreds of a mask of democracy remained on the face of the Republican Party have fallen off. They got a taste of tyranny, and they fucking liked it. You put Trump in jail and you change the whole conversation and throw off the whole plan. And I guarantee that some Republicans will be fucking relieved.

5. Everything we keep learning points to a conspiracy to steal the election by Trump and the Trumpinistas, including preparing for the possibility before recounts or anything could happen. They tossed around things like sending the military to seize voting machines. They organized the attempt to get the fake rosters of electors accepted. This is on top of trying to get the Attorney General to sign off on the lie of election fraud and the obvious crime of pushing the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" just enough votes to put Trump on top there. A jailed Trump would give a frame to hang all of this on and make it easier to comprehend. 

Look, I'm not a fucking idiot nor a childish naif. I'm in an area of speculation, if not outright fantasy, that this would actually happen. But I'll stand by the idea that Trump should have been arrested on January 6 or even earlier. To me, it's absurd that he hasn't been. 

Because, sure, we can say that arresting a former president would never happen. Except if we're a country that really does want to live up to the ideas of our founding, as so many people on all sides of the political spectrum like to pretend, then no person is above the law. Arresting Trump would prove we are, occasionally, who we say we are.

Jailing Donald Trump Until He Faces Trial Is the Best Thing for the Country (Part 1)

It's genuinely shocking to realize how much of the American electoral process is less about laws and codified procedures and more about elected officials not being dicks. Think about it: The whole idea of a "peaceful transfer of power" is that the loser isn't a dick about it. What we've learned since the 2020 election is that all it takes to start wrecking the entire system is for the loser to decide, "Yeah, I'm gonna be a dick about it" and move ahead with tearing shit apart. And it seems like there's no law that says, "Whoa, whoa, you can't be a dick even if you want to be one."

But the legal system, you know, the whole Law and Order shit, does have a way to put dicks away so that they can't spread their dickishness far and wide. 

Check this out. It's from U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly C. Priest Johnson in her decision to hold Stewart Rhodes, the one-eyed leader of the band of feculent-brained loons and goons known as the Oath Keepers, in jail without bail pending his trial on seditious conspiracy related to the events of January 6, 2021. She writes, "It is not unusual for Americans to be disappointed by election results or offput by the functioning of federal, state, or local governments. Indeed, the right for such individuals to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances is enshrined in the Constitution and is core to American freedom and our system of governance. Here, the Court is not faced with a peaceable assembly and petitioning, as Defendant’s extraordinary actions and the ripple effects that followed are outside the bounds of protected activities." She's talking about the First Amendment here, saying that Rhodes's calling for halting Congress's certification of the election results, including planning to actually do it, isn't protected because that's how you get fucking anarchy. 

The First Amendment is not a suicide pact. It's time we stopped treating it like that. There are responsibilities that go along with freedom of speech, assembly, etc. And one of those is not using it to overthrow the government that is protecting your speech, assembly, etc. because you don't like who won the election. It doesn't fucking matter how much you believe an election was actually stolen. Reality isn't negotiable. A guy who tries to burn down his neighbor's house isn't let off because he sincerely believes his neighbor is Satan.

Johnson continues on Rhodes, "The evidence shows Defendant orchestrated a large-scale attack on the federal government with the purpose of intimidating, by violence, federal officials and disrupting official governmental proceedings incident to the transfer of power in the Executive Branch following a national election...Defendant’s authoritative role in the conspiracy, access to substantial weaponry, and ability to finance any future insurrection, combined with his continued advocacy for violence against the federal government, gives rise to a credible threat that Defendant’s release might endanger others by fostering the planning and execution of additional violent events." Now, obviously, Rhodes is a crazed fucknut, armed to the teeth and leading a bunch of other crazed fucknuts. But what about the fucknuts above him when it comes to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and future attempts to overthrow a legally elected government? Like Donald Trump, clearly the fucknut-in-chief?

What Johnson worried that Rhodes would do in fomenting further rebellion is exactly what Trump is doing. His speech in Conroe, Texas (motto: "Conroe: Crazy and Caucasian"), this past weekend was an abject, shameless call to action, promising to pardon the idiot hordes who fight for his delusions of victory. In addition to flat-out committing obstruction of justice, Trump commanded his stormtroopers to be ready: "If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt." Those just happen to be the places where they're investigating his ass. Jesus fuck, he says the intention of his Leni Riefenstahl-ready rallies is to "Save America." From what? Legal elections? In an interview with some fucking bullshit conservative outlet, the only places he's not too much of a little bitch to appear, Trump again asserted that he would pardon the 1/6 criminals. This is not to mention that statement he put out where he said that Vice President Mike Pence "could have overturned the election." 

So, yeah, Stewart Rhodes should be kept locked up because of what he might do and what he might say. I would argue it's even more important for the President of the United States or even the former one to not engage in language that might lead to violence as an intended consequence. And if that former president refuses to back down from calling for an organized attack to put him back in power, then he should be fucking jailed, pending trial for seditious conspiracy. Jail him. Silence him. For fuck's sake, this should have been done on 1/6, and it's more imperative than ever. 

In Part 2: "Wait, you're fucking serious about this?" Yeah. Yeah, I am.

One More Time: Nearly Every Parent Is Too Fucking Dumb to Decide on School Curriculum

In the early 1970s, my mom became the secretary for Gus Sakkis, the Superintendent of Schools in Pinellas County, Florida. Sakkis got the job during an insanely tumultuous period in the school system, what with desegregation, teacher walkouts, student protests, and more. It was enough to have driven several superintendents out after a short time on the job. One of the things he did during his 9-year tenure was give teachers and parents more of a role by creating school advisory committees. While that was mostly a good thing, of course, it also bit him in the ass. 

Now, I don't remember a whole lot about this time because I was a wee Rude Pundit, but I do remember one battle that Mom was closely involved in. A group of parents were demanding that several books, including, as I recall, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, be banned from county school libraries and classrooms. As secretary, Mom had to field all the angry, threatening phone calls and open all the mail from shitty people saying shitty things. They yelled at her, they cursed at her for allowing books with curse words, and they demanded that they knew better about what their precious children should have put in front of their innocent eyes. Sakkis wasn't having any of it. The way Mom told it, he walked into a school board meeting, looked in their stupid faces, and told the parents that he wasn't getting rid of the books and that, in essence, they can go fuck themselves because they're not educators. 

They clamored for his head, Mom said. But Sakkis had them beat before he ever said a word. See, for years, student test scores in Pinellas County had been in the shitter. But once Sakkis arrived and reorganized the district and instituted reforms, the scores started to go up, for elementary school students, for high school students on their SATs. Eventually, the scores were some of the best in the state. He had also brought cooperation and progress to the county's school system, including due process and fairness for students who were accused of bad behavior. No one was gonna fire Sakkis because he had been right about just about everything else. Mom was proud as hell to be working for him.

I've been thinking about that story a lot lately and not as some lesson in history repeating itself, although, surely, that fucker does.  See, here's the problem with all of this critical race theory and book banning and anti-LGBTQ bullshit. We rarely hear about the students. How are the kids doing? Not emotionally, although that matters. I mean, we base everything on test scores and shit. How are the schools doing in actually teaching students? 

Because, see, Loudoun County, Virginia, where some of the most heated, screaming fights about teaching racial history have taken place, is actually a successful school district prior to this whole blow-up. Average SAT scores are higher than the average in Virginia or the United States. On the bullshit tests that we force students to take every year, the kids in Loudoun County are doing quite well, with 85-91% of middle- and high-school students doing their reading and rithmetic at or above grade level. Clearly, like, really, statistically, demonstrably fucking clearly, the teachers are doing something right in Loudoun County. So why the hell would you try to fix something that isn't broken? Whatever is being taught is getting nearly every student to graduate high school. As a parent, you should be supporting an education system that is doing that good of a job and not make the life of teachers even more fucking miserable in the middle of a motherfucking pandemic.

But that's just what so many states are doing. They're empowering parents, the vast, vast majority of whom have no fucking business having any say in how teachers teach shit (and, as I've said before, the only ones who should are those in education themselves like, well, fuck, me), to narc out any educator who teaches anything that makes their kids feel uncomfortable. Or, to be more precise, anything that makes the parents feel uncomfortable because they're racist, homophobic shitheels whose children are on the short road to fucking hating them.

In Florida, the state legislature is considering two bills, both recently voted out of committees: one would prevent teachers from discussing anything related to LGBTQ topics and allow parents to sue a school if a teacher does; the other forces educators to "objectively" teach everything and not do or say anything that might make a student "feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin." Think about that from the perspective of a teacher. You've already got parents screaming at you every time you give their tender babe a grade below A. You've got administrators demanding you do more and more work with assessment and planning. You have to buy toilet paper for the school with your own money. You have to teach so that students can do well on annual tests that lawmakers demand they take. And now you've gotta gauge if talking about Ruby Bridges to your 5th graders in Social Studies is going to cause distress? Fuck that. Why bother? And who the fuck are parents and legislators to tell you how to do your fucking job?

By the way, what if not teaching about, say, Ruby Bridges causes distress to Black students? What if whitewashing that history gives them feelings of anguish? But, of course, these bills are written by people who don't give a shit about the feelings of non-white students or LGBTQ students. They are strictly for parents who think they know better than teachers and they fucking don't. But expertise doesn't matter any more in this stupid country where some troglodyte grunting on a YouTube video or podcast has more authority and sway than people who devoted their lives to something.

It keeps going. In Texas, Governor Greg "Fuck DeSantis. I'm the Craziest Motherfucker" Abbott has proposed a "Parental Bill of Rights" that would amend the state's constitution to give parents more say over school curriculums (and, weirdly, leave it up to parents if a student should repeat a grade or class). In Florida, a parents group (funded by national organizations) is trying to get books like Beloved and The Kite Runner banned from high school libraries for being "pornographic." In Virginia, Governor Glenn "Surprise! I'm a Crazy Motherfucker, Too" Youngkin is taking seemingly masturbatory pleasure in asking people to narc out teachers who dare talk about racism as a bad thing, setting up a "tip line" for offended parents and students (and the email and phone numbers were spammed beyond belief by people treating an asshole like the asshole he is). And, of course, in McMinn County, Tennessee, the school board removed Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus as a text 8th grade teachers can use to talk about the Holocaust. Was it too violent? Too heart-wrenching? Nope. It showed the breasts of a dead woman and some mouse peen, and it had a couple of cuss words. 

By the way, in an opposite way from Loudoun County, Virginia, the test scores of McMinn County, which is a mostly rural place dead in the middle between Knoxville and Chattanooga on I-75, are just fucking pathetic. 31-30% read at or above their grade level, meaning that over two-thirds can't read at their grade level. 40% can do math at or above grade level. Maybe the school board needs to spend a little more time worrying about that shit than worrying about mouse tits. Maybe parents need to get their kids those books that Dolly Parton provides.

I went to public school in south Louisiana in the 1980s. My schools all had a solid mix of races, income levels, and backgrounds (although it was pretty monolithically Catholic because, well, Louisiana in the 1980s). For the most part, my high school teachers were awesome because they were free to teach almost anything that fit into their subject (except sex education because, well, Louisiana in the 1980s). I've mentioned before that my caffeinated, chain-smoking Vietnam vet U.S. history teacher took out a dollar bill on the first day of class and said, "This is what American history is all about," and proceeded to blow our minds by tying everything, the Revolutionary War, slavery, and more, into how the almighty dollar mattered more than human lives. In my English classes, we read Catcher in the Rye and Native Son and other books that were perfect for our age. In my computer science class, I was allowed to create a game where you played as a Native American trying to protect your land from the white people. In the science fair, I had a project on evolution versus creation that had nude dolls in the Garden of Eden display because how the fuck else are you gonna do it. 

Importantly, our parents respected the teachers. Those oil field workers and store clerks and shrimp boat workers didn't try to fuck with the schools just because of their beliefs (and, besides, the Supreme Court had recently slapped down Louisiana on a creationism law). Parents who gave a damn were at-home partners with the schools, helping their kids get their homework done and supporting the efforts of the teachers. And, to be honest, a good many parents just didn't care.

It wasn't perfect. There were conversations and conflicts. There were shitty parents and shitty teachers. But, mostly, teachers got to do their fucking jobs without a bunch of assholes telling them they know better. 

Democrats Need to Do What They Will Never Do: Burn the GOP Down

If nothing else, we should thank disgraced former House Speaker and a fatberg clogging up the sewers of the body politic Newt Gingrich for saying what the Republican Party really stands for now. On some fucking Fox "news" show with Maria Bartiromo, who is really just a slightly more sober Jeanine Pirro, Gingrich explained how a Republican-controlled Congress would subpoena everything from the members of the January 6 special committee and concluded, "I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down and the wolves will find out that they are now sheep and they are the ones who are...in fact, I think, face a risk of jail for the kind of laws they are breaking." 

That's a warning. That's a shot across the motherfucking bow right there. We know that Republicans are squirting in orgasmic delight over having a years-long investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop or election "fraud" or the "crimes" of Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as a Standing Committee to Keep Investigating Hillary Clinton Because We're Fucking Maniacs. Jesus, Marjorie Taylor Greene is secretly humping AOC's office doorknob every night in anticipation of dragging her before some committee to answer questions about...fuck, socialism or something. Who the fuck knows. 

The more important point here is that Democrats better fucking understand that Republicans don't talk in hyperbole anymore. They do the shit that sounds absolutely insane. Try to steal an election? Sure. Ban books and words from schools? Fuck, yeah. Let their voters die than promote vaccines? Of course. Jail Democrats? Well, why the fuck not. If someone who has already shit on your porch, wrecked your car, and shot your dog tells you that they're gonna murder your ass next, you believe them.

Democrats should be doing everything possible to burn the fucking GOP to the ground and then vacuuming up the ashes before shooting them into the sun. That means to go on the attack savagely. Scare the shit out of those fickle fucks in places like Virginia where the vote swung from Biden to the Trumpy nutball Youngkin. Portray Republicans as racists and sexists, that they're going to take away abortion rights and ban books and take away same sex marriage and do other shit that makes those suburban assholes feel squeamish. Put Greene and Gaetz and Gosar front and center as the face of the congressional GOP like some kind of three-headed gargoyle of hate and treason. You wanna be on the side of these objectively shitty humans?

Sure, sure, Democrats, you believe in havin an Uplifting Message. You want to Inspire people and get them to love your Big Ideas. But Democrats fucked all that up by overpromising during the 2020 election. You don't go up to some guy in a bar and tell him that you can suck a dick so good that he'll see Jesus and Satan while he's cumming. That sets the expectations too high and if he only sees an archangel, well, you've failed. You should promise a good time, but don't fucking promise the best time. Let him say that after you've done the deed. 

If you'll remember, for a good bit of 2020, we were told (and believed) that the election was going to be a Blue Wave, where Democrats overwhelmed Republicans. And, not without reason, candidates, including Joe Biden, started making big promises that were based on a larger majority in the House and a comfortable majority of three or four seats in the Senate. As the wave seemed more likely, the promises got bigger, including eliminating student loan debt, trillions in expanded domestic programs, and more. Had the wave materialized, much of that would have been a no-brainer. The problem, though, was not anticipating that it might not happen and lowering the promise heat. I know hindsight and all that, but Build Back Better, student loan forgiveness (which still could happen), ending the filibuster, and even more infrastructure spending all failed because they were doomed from the start. Despite the hope and optimism of idiots like me, it wasn't going to happen with a margin so thin in each house of Congress that if you farted through it, only dogs would be able to hear it.

And while we can and should blame Democrats (especially a liar like Joe Manchin), the focus should be on blaming the fucking Republicans. Enough with the worthless "I'm bipartisan and I can work across the aisle" horseshit. Motherfuckers tried it and, except for a brief moment in the Senate on infrastructure, that hand was stabbed every time it reached out. So fuck 'em.

As the midterm elections approach, Democrats need to do, as a party, what they never do. They need to call Republicans the fucking enemy. Not the loyal opposition with whom they can compromise. The fucking enemy. They're trying to destroy democracy. They are the reason the goddamn pandemic is still going as hard as it is. They are why you don't have paid family leave or a higher minimum wage. The message should be simple. Not "We can work together," but "They refuse to do shit you want. They're fucking crazy. If you're not crazy, don't vote for those cockmites." 

It probably won't happen, but if Biden's being real about finally giving up on finding the bipartisan unicorn, then maybe it's a strategy with a chance. Milquetoast appeals to goodness and hope won't work. Fear and rage? That's just the world we live in, and the only way to change it is to use it.

By the way, perhaps the real tell with Gingrich happened before he started talking about jailing Democrats and (to his deranged mind) RINOs. He compared contemporary Democrats to other groups in history. Sure, he went with the expected, the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 because communism, of course. But he also said they are "people who are as fanatic[al] as the revolutionaries in the French Revolution." Now, you can say what you want about the Reign of Terror or the rise of Napoleon. In the long view of history, though, the French Revolution eventually brought about the end of monarchy, reduced the power of the Catholic Church, and expanded rights to ordinary citizens. So if Gingrich is saying the French Revolution was wrong, well, fuck, I guess that explains a lot.

Martin Luther King Would Still Fuck Our Shit Up (2022 Edition)

It's more frustrating than ever to hear conservatives who are opposed to legislation that would expand voter participation, supportive of gerrymandering that specifically reduces the power of non-whites, and losing they goddamned minds over teaching the hard truths about the United States's racial history quote Martin Luther King, Jr. like they actually give a single segregated fuck about what King really was about. They sure can trot out the whole "judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" without bothering with the radical context. They can directly tie MLK to whatever racist bullshit they want. But they can't be bothered to fucking learn about King.

Let's put this as plainly as possible: If you are against voting rights or against getting rid of the filibuster so you can vote for the voting rights you claim you're for, you may as well just piss on King's monument in DC. And we will all judge you by the shitty content of your shitty character.

But the truth of the matter is that King has always been talking about the political things that hold back Blacks from achieving full equality in this country. He had called out whites who paid lip service to the Civil Rights Movement but ultimately did nothing. He called bullshit on the filibuster. And he had no fucking patience with the way that some states decided to defy the Supreme Court after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. 

In his speech "The Summer of Our Discontent," delivered at the New School in New York City on February 6, 1964, King clearly connected rising racial protests around the country directly to the lack of progress post-Brown: "The Negro had been deeply disappointed over the slow pace of school desegregation. He knew that in 1954 the highest court in the land had handed down a decree calling for desegregation of schools 'with all deliberate speed.' He knew that this edict from the Supreme Court had been heeded with all deliberate delay. At the beginning of 1963, nine years after this historic decision, approximately nine percent of southern Negro students were attending integrated schools. If this pace were maintained, it would be the year 2054 before integration in southern schools would be a reality...the statistics make it abundantly clear that the segregationists of the South remained undefeated by this decision. In every section of Dixie, the announcement of the high court had been met with declarations of defiance. Once recovered from their initial outrage, these defenders of the status quo had seized the offensive to impose their own schedule of change."

King wasn't just blaming the racist dickholes of the South. See, MLK would still fuck our shit up because he saw both political parties as the problem: "A second reason for the outburst in 1963 was rooted in the failure of both political parties to live up to their campaign promises. From the city of Los Angeles in 1960, the Democratic Party had written an historic and sweeping civil rights pronouncement into its platform. From Chicago, the Republican Party had been generous in its convention vows on civil rights, although its candidate had made no great effort in his campaign to convince a nation that he would redeem his party’s promises. Then 1961 and ‘62 arrived, with both parties marking time in the cause of justice. In the Congress, reactionary Republicans were still doing business with the Dixiecrats, and the feeling was growing among Negroes that the administration had oversimplified and underestimated the civil rights issue."

And he took it directly to the Oval Office (which, as we know, had recently changed hands): "Negroes had manifested their faith by giving a substantial majority of their votes for President Kennedy. They had expected more of him than of the previous administration. In no sense had President Kennedy betrayed his promises, yet his administration appeared to believe it was doing as much as was politically possible and had, by its positive deeds, earned enough credit to coast on civil rights." You got that? King is saying that Kennedy was taking the votes of Black Americans for granted while not following through. "Politically, perhaps, this was not a surprising conclusion," King continued. "How many people understood, during the first two years of the Kennedy administration, that the Negroes’ 'now' was becoming as militant as the segregationists’ 'never'? Eventually the president would set aside political considerations and rise to the level of his own unswerving moral commitment." This is a full-throated endorsement of hardball tactics, including mass protest, to bring about change. 

Today, this would get him nasty tweets from people not thinking he was sufficiently deferential to the leaders who would give him crumbs they think he should be grateful for.

The entire speech is a pretty damn stunning indictment of the way that the nation failed to live up to its promises. It directly connects racist laws to racist economic conditions and the racist history of the nation to the propagation of those conditions. Quite plainly, despite what morons and assholes, like House Minority Leader and Man So White He Drains Color Out of Others Kevin McCarthy, say, King would not only support critical race theory, he'd think you were a liar or ignorant if you didn't. 

Every year since 2004, I've written an MLK Day post based on something King wrote or said. Every fucking year it's a scream of defiance against everyone who wants to do what lynch mobs did and neuter the Black man who stood up to them. Martin Luther King was a radical motherfucker and we have not yet fully grappled with his insights into the nature of race in this backsliding nation. 

(One final thing: In the Q&A part of the evening, King was asked what he thought about the more violent tactics of the Nation of Islam. While King said he opposed their approach and their belief in racial separation, he offered, "It did not come into being out of thin air; it is symptomatic of the deeper unrest, discontent, and frustration of the Negro. And I think it is an indictment on the laxity of Christianity and the laxity of democracy that a movement like this came into being. And I think that the challenge of this movement is not so much to condemn its philosophy, as I will continue to do, but go out and work harder to get rid of the conditions that brought it into being." That's some badass compassion right there.)

Covid Tests, Sick Leave, and More: This Country Has Lost Its Ability to Give a Shit About You

It's sadly fucking hilarious and hilariously fucking sad how the Biden administration is rolling out its at-home COVID-19 tests. Sure, 500 million will be available for free, but, for most of us, we've learned that our health insurance will be forced to cover the price of any we buy at the local Walgreen's. Which means, likely, we'll have to fill out forms, upload receipts, deal with fuckups, deal with denied claims, and handle the usual fuckery that is part and parcel of the insanity of our health care "system," all in the name of some kind of perverse version of "freedom." Just give the fucking tests away. Just make them available to everyone. Why the hell should everyone have to go through this just to see if they have Covid before they visit their parents? Why the hell should anyone who can't afford them have to rely on going to wait in line at a clinic or testing site? Easily-available testing helps everyone. This isn't vaguely up for discussion.

President Biden could have flooded the country with tests by now, and that no one has thought to do this bespeaks a reality about living in this United States. The country doesn't act like it gives a shit about you when it comes to health care (and many other things, but let's just stick to health care right now). Oh, it talks a good game (and there are amazing people working in health care), but the official actions of our state and federal governments are bound up in ideologies that can't help but hurt people. 

Jesus, it's like being in a relationship with an intense sadist when you're not into BDSM: "Wait, we can't just fuck for once? We gotta break out the whips and nipple clamps and ball crushers and spiked spanking gloves? Can't we just fuck and enjoy it? Why does everything have to be complicated and painful? My sphincter just healed from last time." But, no, your partner wants to cuff you and beat you before you're allowed to get off, and, well, shit, fuck, sometimes it's just easier to take it than to fight about it. Otherwise, you have to break-up, move out, and who's got the time. "Fine. Fist me."

That's not the way it should be. Mutually-consensual BDSM is a beautiful thing, filled with love and pleasure. (No kink-shaming here.) But if it's not mutual, it's just abuse. And the United States has gotten really good at caning our asses whether we like it or not, with Covid making the blows sharper and more frequent.

What this pandemic has starkly revealed just how failed so many of the policies we've been forced to live under have been. 

We were warned early in the pandemic that the lack of paid sick leave for workers was going to fuck us over. While there was an actual effort to provide for this during the lockdown period of the pandemic, now, as Omicron has its viral way with us, the fact that most workers get little or no paid sick leave has led to, well, sick people going to work (if they aren't forced to by their employers), which leads to more sick people, including people who are too sick to work, which depletes the work force and makes it so no one can work. Or is that math too fucking hard? As in so many things, the US is an outlier as one of only 11 countries where there is no national paid sick leave law. In other words, our selfish capitalism is freedoming us to death.

Even worse, there's the lack of any or of decent health insurance in this country. I personally know people who refuse to get help for their obviously symptomatic Covid because they are afraid of how much it will cost if they end up in the hospital. This has been one of the brute realities for Americans, and even with Obamacare and expanded Medicaid (not to mention Medicare for the many elderly who are sick), the out-of-pocket cost can go into the thousands and thousands of dollars and, fuck it, that's not worth it unless you might die. How much undiagnosed Covid is out there? How much untreated? 

Fuck, I'm not even getting into the lack of support for parents whose children have to stay home from schools.

Think of the stress all this causes, stress that's added to the stress of the pandemic. Our country is doing that to us. Our leaders, especially Republicans, are doing it. But, honestly, Biden has broad powers that he could draw on right now in a crisis that we're two goddamned years into. Could he say that government is going to cover all Covid-related medical expenditures, creating a de facto Medicare for all? (Maybe, but then the savage dickbeasts on the Supreme Court would tell everyone to fuck off and die.) I remember when President Obama decided to make health care his major first-term goal, and many wondered why that in particular, why not go for a greater economic and infrastructure package to build on the Recovery and Reinvestment Act? But Obama knew that health care insecurity was overwhelming for many Americans. Of course, what we got was severely compromised and has been undermined by Republicans at every turn, at every level, so that, while an improvement, the Affordable Care Act is still a fucking sieve of a program.

Fuck, I'm not even getting into the PTSD everyone is going to have to deal with for the next few decades. I'm not even getting into the absolutely unforgivable burden we've put on health care workers repeatedly, breaking many of them. 

It's not working, this way of existing without caring about each other on a national basis. Yet what can you say about a nation that allows this to happen and a people that don't rise up and demand something better other than that we have lost our ability to care about each other (not you, of course, not you personally, unless it is you, in which case, go fuck yourself). Instead of doing the things that would make us better, our leaders keep things the same, even in the face of a genuine catastrophe, even when one easy thing, free at-home Covid testing, would ease some of the burden of this sadistic time we're damned to live through and allow us to at least pretend we care.

(Note: This isn't about anti-vaxxers or anti-maskers because fuck them always.)

Notes on the Anniversary of a Failed Coup

The riot/insurrection/coup on January 6, 2021 was violent. We know that various members of law enforcement were beaten, gassed, cut, crushed, and more. We know that a great deal of property was damaged. If you had been on the receiving end of it, it would have fucked you up. And if you had been a Democratic member of Congress or Mike Pence, you would have shit yourself when you heard the violent herd of morons yipping in gleeful rage as they tried to get to you so they could...what? I'm pretty sure that once someone's beaten a cop with a pole that has an American flag on it, they're not there to have a calm discussion about election law.

But that violence and threat of violence isn't enough for too many Americans, including members of Congress, who crawled on their bellies and invited Donald Trump to jack off on their backs as they begged for forgiveness for ever saying a truthful word or two about his complicity. No, we're told by right-wing media figures and by insane and/or opportunistic politicians, this wasn't violent, this was just people expressing their anger over an election loss, calm down, nobody died. And all I can think when I hear that shit is that they're saying that they need corpses to even consider the seriousness of what happened. They're saying they need to have had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mike Pence hanging in the rotunda in order for it to have been more than a bit of overzealousness. And even then, those motherfuckers would still be yelling, "False flag" or "Lies" or whatever because to admit that the actions of the insurrectionists were wrong would be to have to grapple with their role in the insurrection.

There are things I get and things I will never understand about January 6.

For instance, I understand why law enforcement didn't just open fire on those who were trying to breach the Capitol (with the exception of the barking mad Ashli Babbit). I get the fear that they would then be overwhelmed by a tide of racist yahoos, many of whom had weapons of their own or were improvising with things like the shields they took from riot cops. While I fully believe that 90% of the rioters would have scampered away like surprised squirrels, it would have been a bloodbath. And, with the exceptions of those who may have helped the yahoos, law enforcement ended up preventing the absolute worst from happening, at the cost of their bodies and minds. 

On the other hand, I will never understand why Donald Trump and his staff and advisors weren't immediately arrested. Don't fucking tell me that he was the president. The idea of a goddamn president was always that no person is above the law. And Trump had already taken the presidency and pissed on its face before telling it to sign an NDA about his water sports fetish. Arresting him would have been saving the presidency.

I'm not saying that Trump shouldn't have had a trial or been denied any due process. But he should have immediately been jailed without bail until his trial, along with Giuliani and Bannon and Kerik and anyone else who was trying to figure out a way to steal the 2020 presidential election. But fuck them because fuck them. None of this happens without Trump refusing to accept the court-approved, state-approved election results. He's the goddamned ringleader. You put him the fuck away and tell the others, "We're not afraid to lock any of you up." Treat people who try to overthrow the government like they fucking tried to overthrow the government. And if Trump's people wouldn't do it, then it should have happened right after Biden was inaugurated. Frankly, Trump should have been handcuffed and frogmarched after the phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State where he begged Raffensperger to conjure up enough votes to just get past the margin of Biden's victory became known.

But there's one thing I am perfectly clear on: The assholes and mental invalids and Confederacy humpers who ragegasmed at the Capitol before smearing the walls with shit were doing it based on fucking lies about the election. Anyone who defends or excuses them is saying that the fucking lies are truth. The fucking liars themselves need to be punished, not just the fucknuts who decided they could finally live out their pornographically violent racist Christian nationalist militia fantasies in DC because the chief fucking liar told them it was go time. The lie part of this needs to be taken as seriously as possible because not squelching the fucking lies like they're goddamn mosquitoes is going to drain the blood of this weakening democracy. 

The problem, of course, is that the fucking lies have metastasized because, as ever, Democrats acted as if they just let passions calm down that everyone could Come Together and Be Reasonable. That did not happen. We accommodated our abusers so they wouldn't abuse us more. There are so many woulda-coulda situations from January 6. What if the House and Senate had not adjourned after the Electoral College vote? What if they had decided right then and there to stay in the wrecked Capitol and impeach and remove Trump from office, convicting him of high crimes and misdemeanors? (And, yes, there was a chance then that the Senate might convict.) 

But, no, no, every decision has been made slowly and with great consideration so as not to upset the violent dickholes and their rhetorical enablers any more than they are.  The time called for action and everyone just went home. Thus Republicans had a chance to get all the  attacks from Trump and his idiot hordes and any spine they might have had softened into jelly and collapsed. With no prosecutions so far of the leaders of the coup attempt, including Trump, President Biden risks making another of President Obama's mistakes: letting the evil fucks get away with it and letting them set the narrative.

President Joe Biden's speech today was a good start. He was clear and forceful, stating plainly that the coup attempt was Trump's fault and that the idea that the election was fraudulent or rigged or stolen is just a fucking lie. He gave as good a talking point as any to demonstrate how stupid those spouting the fucking lies are: "The former president and his supporters have never been able to explain how they accept as accurate the other election results that took place on November 3rd — the elections for governor, United States Senate, the House of Representatives — elections in which they closed the gap in the House. They challenge none of that." Biden still holds the irrational belief that there are decent Republicans left. The motherfuckers were indecent before January 6. They are indecent to their filthy, rotting core. Stop trying to pretend there's goodness there, like you can find some cure for evil. But his definitive statements about that day are a solid, even inspiring foundation upon which we can fight back. 

And we should all be as angry all the time about what was done to us on January 6. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, in the midst of despairing about the economy, we held the fairest, best-run election anyone has seen. That should have inspired confidence in us that we could survive all this shit and get back to something like normalcy.It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but, fuck, it went so much better than anyone expected. That feeling was taken away from us by Donald Trump. Our security about the stability of our nation was undermined further. Goddamnit, every fucking day should be an expression of our anger about that until we are made whole with his ass in prison. Or else just toss the fucking country out into the trash heap of history.

Still, yeah, we're a little antsy about what Attorney General Merrick Garland and the January 6 committee are finding and what they're gonna do. It's not just because the clock is running out should the GOP win back at least one chamber of Congress. It's because everything that the GOP is doing, at the local, state, and national level, everything that their media accomplices are doing in nutzoid online videos and on Fox "news" and elsewhere points to them just fucking doing it again in 2024 if not to re-install Trump, then to put in some other deranged monument to incompetence and madness like Josh Hawley. As we learn time and time and time and time again, if you let the powerful go unpunished, they take that as permission to get more powerful and do it again. Appeasement is not an option. Even today, the right is screeching with outrage that people would dare be angry at Trump. Fuck all of them with wooden scroll holding the Constitution.

If I'm being completely honest, the only thing we should be arguing over at this point is if Trump should die in prison or be executed. (I'm for life in prison only because I oppose the death penalty.) 

On this one-year anniversary of the Yahoo Coup, we can say with quite a bit of evidence that the morons lost the battle but have a real chance of winning the war.