A Blast From the Past:
From the Bloom Picayune in 1988:
"Dan Rather Quits CBS
"Yesterday, a beleagured Dan Rather
announced his resignation, explaining
that he will now dedicate his life to
poetry. Sample:
The deserts, so flat
The earth, spheroidal,
I just hope that
Koppel gets hemorrhoidal"

Adios, Dan Rather.

Back in a bit with more Bolton bile.

John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America:
The Bush administration loves motherfuckers. Man, the President and his shit-stained minions can't get enough of motherfuckers. If there is a place for a motherfucker in the administration, Bush or another cabinet member will be out there makin' announcements about which motherfucker they're gonna appoint. Alberto Gonzales? Motherfucker. Michael Chertoff? Motherfucker. John "Motherfucker" Negroponte? As Tony Soprano might mutter, a mother-motherfucker. One might think that the job of a motherfucker would be to fuck one's own or another's mother; however, like "asshole" doesn't just mean a place of tight, ecstatic access for Jeff Gannon, a "motherfucker" is someone who is such an asshole that he/she would fuck your mother if it meant more power, glory, money, whatever.

And in John R. Bolton, we have one more motherfucker running some aspect of America that actually, really touches all of our lives. And the lives of our mothers. When Condi Rice, no stranger to the fucking of mothers herself, announced Bolton's nomination to be the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., she praised Bolton's ability to drop his pants and take a giant shit in front of the General Assembly. She spun his statements like, "If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference" into a kind of tough love for saving the U.N. from all other nations but the United States and Israel. Spaketh Condi, "John Bolton is personally committed to the future success of the United Nations and he will be a strong voice for reform at a time when the United Nations has begun to reform itself to help meet the challenging agenda before the international community."

You can read elsewhere about Bolton's recent time bashing the U.N., Europe, and world leaders. But let us go further back, to the blossoming of the motherfucker during the Reagan/Bush years.

Bolton was an assistant Attorney General under Edwin Meese and Richard Thornburgh back in the Reagan era. In that role, among other accomplishments in motherfuckery, Bolton attempted to fire Joan Bernott, a female attorney at the Justice Department, in 1988 because she listened to her doctor and stayed home after the birth of her child in January of that year. We can thank Bolton's brazen cruelty because it spurred parental leave legislation further into the public consciousness.

And because, like rutting spiders, vicious public "servants" are attracted to each other, Bolton was a major supporter of Robert Bork for a Supreme Court appointment. Indeed, after insisting that Bork was given no "litmus test" for the position, Bolton later explained about Bork, "If he wouldn't change the court, why the hell are we nominating him?"

Best of all was Bolton's attempts to run interference for the Reagan/Bush administration during the Iran-Contra hearings. He attacked the very idea of the special prosecutor, and under his guidance, Justice put out an opinion that Reagan could fire the special prosecutor if he wanted to. Indeed, Bolton went to bat for his boss, Ed Meese: according to the December 24, 1986 Washington Post, Bolton refused to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee and turn over documents related to Meese's role in Iran-Contra. Bolton called the documents "highly classified" and said that no member of the committee had clearance to see them.

More interestingly, Bolton defended Reagan and Bush I from subpoenas on Iran-Contra. From the January 14, 1989 Washington Post: "Acting in coordination with the White House, Assistant Attorney General John R. Bolton said the subpoenas were historically unprecedented and should be quashed, at least until [Oliver 'Motherfucker'] North makes a showing of his need for the Reagan and Bush testimony, the subjects he wants to ask them about, the evidence he expects to uncover and why he cannot obtain that evidence elsewhere.

"'[P]rotections against needless appearances are powerfully justified both by the place of the presidency in our government and by intensely practical considerations,' Bolton said. He said oral testimony was particularly rife with hazards and could make it impossible for either a former or sitting president to make responsible decisions about when to assert the privileges protecting state secrets and presidential communications . . .

"'To our knowledge, there is no historical precedent for an appearance in court of a sitting or former president to testify, under compulsion, about the manner in which he conducted his office,' Bolton said. He said President Thomas Jefferson was subpoenaed to produce documents in a case involving Aaron Burr, but that Jefferson insisted he was supplying them voluntarily and censored portions of one document. President James Monroe was subpoenaed to testify at a criminal trial, but declined to appear and wound up answering written interrogatories submitted by the court." Would that Republicans had had the courage of their previous convictions during the Clinton years, no?

Bolton's the perfect motherfucker for this government of the motherfuckers, by the motherfuckers, and for the motherfuckers. He'll go to the ends of the earth for his masters, which is the kind of blind loyalty prized above all else in these times.

More fun with Bolton tomorrow, including which Mexican revolutionary he was once compared to.

Buh-Bye, Political Capital:
Here's a blast from the past: remember President Bush's news conference/shit-eatin' grin fest right after the election? Surely you remember this line that was replayed endlessly: "[I]t's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror."

And then Bush yanked John Kerry's head out of a bag, smeared himself with the dripping blood, hoisted it aloft before hurling it at Helen Thomas's lap, and danced a grotesque little jig while Jeff Gannon secretly jacked off at the thought of this happy warrior and former cheerleader being his bottom for just one night.

So Bush decided to spend that political capital, man, like it was a budget surplus, like a pimp tossin' the benjamins out in piles at a Vegas bling shop, on one big ass item: Social Security "reform." And it's just been a goddamned waste of perfectly vile capital, hasn't it?

Except for his brief sojourn abroad to pretend he gave a shit about Europe, Bush has been on a political capital spending spree across the country, holding forth with hand-picked audience members, mimicking the well-worn "town hall" style of conversation. In these simulacra of democracy, Bush spouts his "facts" and "figures," with huge fuckin' graphics on big damn screens, so many figures that it puts the "numb" back in "numbers."

Then he gets "questions" from the audience (if by "question," you mean bullshit propaganda force-fed through robotic agents of evil disguised as "ordinary" citizens in order to lend legitimacy to the orgy of lies being shoved down the throats of the gathered like so many throbbing cocks into so many eager Linda Lovelaces). Bush uncomfortably makes stabs at genuinely caring about the people-props surrounding him before diving into his pre-programmed messages: When one 20 year-old business owner in Indiana said he thought that he'd never see any Social Security money when he retired, Bush charmed him with "I thought you were an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs need to be optimistic. How can you start you own business unless you see a better future?" Oh, ho, ho, how sweet, how caring, how . . . fuckin' evil and seething with barely hidden contempt. And then, thank god, Bush got back on message: "Benefits will not be changed for seniors. But beyond that, from 1950 and before, people who have been born from 1950 on, there is a serious problem."

Oh, by the way, when ordinary citizen Jon Surma was finished making "his" points, Bush looked at him and said, "Good job," as if complimenting Surma's performance.

One of the main thrusts of Bush's deep desire to gut Social Security like it's a pig at a boucherie is to provoke generational disharmony: you young 'uns are just proppin' up the greedy old people: "I'm also saying to younger workers, you better listen carefully to this debate because you're the ones who are going to have to pay for it." And he's really hittin' it hard on 18-21 year-olds, who on the whole, let's face it, are too fuckin' stupid about finances to understand anything Bush says other than "more money."

These are the same people who believe that tables set up on college campuses offering low-rate Visas are doing them a favor. If you're young and reading this, you know of what the Rude Pundit speaks - for you, the "future" is a mythical place of fantasy and wealth and, what the hell, unicorns. If you're older, you remember how fuckin' stupid you were with money in your teens and twenties, how you wish you knew to save more and not spend it all on dumb shit, like all that cash dropped on that piece of ass who wouldn't even blow you in thanks. Part of the privilege of being young is being able to fuck up. So why not fuck up retirement early, huh?

The awesome part of this massive effort to do away with Social Security through the enormous expenditure of Bush's "political capital" is that he's squandered it, tossed it in the garbage heap. How awful does your not-even-proposed plan have to be if, with a Republican Congress and a conservative media that spouts White House press releases unquestioningly, you are losing support every day for the biggest goal, privatization, or the less-threatening "personal accounts"? That the citizenry you control with nearly unchecked power is turning its backs on you when it comes to your dearest goal, even as you push harder and harder for it? That the opposition, so seemingly whipped, has found its soul again in your new weakness? That members of your own party and ideology are running like whipped mongrels from your lash? Goddamn, it's just something to see.

When the Hindenburg, full of gas and Nazi hubris, burst into flames, killing 35 people, no one knew why. But some present at the explosion agreed that, in a horrible way, the burning ship was really quite beautiful.

Cruelest Legislation Ever:
Has there ever been legislation as blatantly cruel in its intent as the bankruptcy bill that is on the verge of passing the Senate? Congress may as well pass a law allowing collections agents from Visa to walk into your house and smack you in the head. No, actually, this bill is so vicious in its specifics, it may as well say that goons from the Discover card can come into your home, beat your spouse to death with a lead pipe, cut off your cat's head and fuck its neckhole, and slice open your gut and fill your stomach with starving rats. All while your children are forced to watch.

Here's the short version of the five-hundred page bill, given the oh-so-sweet name "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005," that's a corporate ball-lickin' lawyer's wet dream: if you, as an individual, incur too much debt, whether that's from credit card spending sprees or your husband's brain cancer, filing for bankruptcy will no longer be a kind of protection from homelessness. In fact, the bill specifically applies a "means test" to income without regard to why bankruptcy may be necessary, like the aforementioned brain cancer. So individuals whose income and assets fall above some arbitrary line would have to file under Chapter 13, which allows for creditors to sodomize you and leave you naked in the hole where your house once stood with more debt to be paid. The kinder, gentler Chapter 7 fucks your credit, but gets rid of all the debt, but for most people, that'll be off the table.

The Senate had a chance last week to soften the bill with Democratic amendments that would have capped interest at a slightly less-than loan sharking 30%, would have given an exemption to all military members on the means test (instead passing a more restrictive Republican amendment), would have shielded those who have to file for medical-related reasons, and more. All, all were defeated because they would have, in the end, made this fierce wrecking of the lives of the average citizen less toothsome. Now Ted Kennedy is trying to add a minimum wage-raising amendment that'll fail, as will Rick Santorum's, which has the added bonus of eliminating the 40-hour work week and exempting some "small businesses" from the minimum wage and labor laws.

There is no justification for this bill beyond some vague idea of "abuse" of personal bankruptcy, which occurs in such a low percentage of filers that it'd be like banning cars because some people drive drunk. The bill is worse than the Patriot Act - fuck, it's worse than the Espionage and Sedition Acts because at least one could wrap one's brain around the idea that someone, somewhere was so insane that they believed these were good for national security. With the bankruptcy bill, there's none of that.

And the Republicans (and their enabling Democrats) aren't even trying to justify this. There's no moral, biblical reasoning, like if a gay marriage amendment passed. It's punishment, pure and simple, for daring to not be rich when you incur enough debt to need bankruptcy. It's an ideological throwback to the Reagan era when Reagan's administration embraced the cruel and immoral ideas of George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty, in which the poor are pathetic fuckers with lives of "resignation and rage, escapism and violence, short horizons and promiscuous sexuality." (Kevin Phillips' work bitch slaps Gilder out of relevance, but neocons cling to it, like some Catholics cling to the Latin mass.) This blame-the-victim approach is one of the main thrusts of conservatism, from the prosecution of drug users to their desire to outlaw abortion.

Finally, of course, this is a pay-off to the credit card companies, those motherfuckers, whose executives oughta be treated like Pablo Escobar and hunted down. For what is the credit card but a temptation, a crack-pipe-like delivery device that promises you satisfaction with little risk for those who can handle it. Why not make credit card addiction a forgivable offense like, say, slot machine or oxcontin addiction? MBNA, Capitol One, Citibank, all of those wads of fuck, are depraved assholes who prey on the innocent and desperate. They are filled with criminals who should be the first rich ones to be eaten when the time comes.

The bankruptcy bill is class warfare in its purest form: it states that the poor and middle class are bad and that the rich are good. And maybe it's time to start considering how we respond to such blatant, intentionally barbarous acts by those in power.

Fuck-Ups In Bloggery:
Due to a combination of fuck-ups between the Rude Pundit and Blogger, yesterday's post, Churchy Wanna Get Paid, was taken down. It is back up in all its pantsless glory.

Churchy Wanna Get Paid:
Man, fuck all this fiscal dependency on the flock. To hell with bake sales and rummage sales and other such shit. Fuck Santa on the corner, fuck the collection platter, fuck the tithing. Fuck all that bullshit 'cause Churchy knows where the real cash money's at: the federal government. And since Churchy thinks Churchy's been doin' the work of shepherdin' the stinky, drug-befouled, beaten-down poor that maybe the government oughta be doin', it's time: Churchy wanna get paid.

So the Rude Pundit's gonna start himself a church, gonna model it on the Peoples Temple except without the whole cult/doomsday/nutjob thing. Remember the Peoples Temple and Jim Jones? Goddamn, that was a fine, fine church back in the 1950s, 1960s, in Indianapolis, when it was so racially diverse, so giving, man; what government wouldn't wanna throw money at such an open, equal congregation that ministered to the homeless, the downtrodden. If Jim Jones was around now, that evil, depraved son of a bitch would be dinin' at the White House and makin' the case on Hannity that Churchy gotta get paid 'cause Churchy does such a nice, fine job.

See, the Rude Pundit's church'll be all about helpin' the homeless, educatin' the poor. And the only requirement for membership in the Rude Pundit's church - no one can wear pants. Jesus didn't wear pants. Neither did Moses, Abraham, or any prophets. Allah? Pants-free. And Buddha's diaper doesn't count. Yer Wiccan gods barely wear clothes. In the name of the commonality of all faith, spirit, and religion, no pants allowed. Or skirts. Or long robes. Indoors, 'cause it gets cold outside. It'll be the great equalizer, all that cock and pussy free-floating in the chapel.

While we'll have special good works for the pants-attached homeless, we'll host pantsless dinners for the hungry, pantsless adult education courses ('cause we're not fuckin' pedos - no kids allowed - we grown-ups know how much religion fucks up the kids), and, oh, the services in the chapel, all that singin' and swayin' with no pants. If you work at the church, you cannot wear pants at the office. You need pants? Get a job elsewhere 'cause you obviously don't believe in the mission of the church. You may not have pants, but you'll have one hell of a dental plan. Man, the Pantless Church of Rude Punditry for Jesus, Allah, Et Al will be the givingest fuckin' church the world has ever seen. And, 'cause Churchy wanna get paid, we'll apply for that government money, that Faith-Based and Community Initiative cash, and you know what? If George Bush gets his way, our pants-free worship won't matter one little bit.

In his speech this past Tuesday on FBCI, Bush once again pushed for legislation on "Charitable Choice." Said Bush, "The legislation guarantees in law that faith-based organizations are treated equally when they compete for federal dollars, and it also protects their religious independence in hiring workers." Back in 2002, the Senate failed to pass such legislation, which allows for religious groups to discriminate and still receive federal dollars, so Bush issued one of his Executive Orders making such discrimination acceptable.

Bush wants to ensure the right of the Pantless Church to adhere to its dogma of no pants and still get federal money: "Faith-based organizations also need a guarantee they will not be forced to give up their right to hire people of their own faith as the price of competing for federal money. There are some in our society in the faith community that say, why would I want to interface with government. And we've got to rid people of that fear. In other words, if we want this program to be effective and to save lives, people have got to say, interfacing with government will not cause me to lose my mission." Because, you know, if the government says that our parishioners and workers must wear pants, why bother helping the poor at all?

The President knows that commitment to a faith is what makes a religious organization strong: "Effectiveness happens because people who share a faith show up to help a particular organization based on that faith to succeed. And that's important, now, for people in Washington to understand." All those fatcats and blowhards need to know: our pants-free worship is a means to our ends.

The great thing about gettin' that FBCI money is that we'll use it to help all those welfare moms and alcoholic dads and homeless crippled Iraq War vets, and that'll free up tons of money for us to be able to spread our mission: saving souls by showing how dropping one's pants leaves one open to the possibility of heavenly glory and ecstasy here on earth.

Yep, thanks to President George Bush and all the conservatives who wanna make sure that Churchy gets paid, we'll be able to open Pantsless Churches in towns across America where everyone can come in, yank off their drawers, bow down, and get ready to pray.

More Faith-Based Flim-Flam:
The first time any of us heard of Jim Towey, the Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, it involved an unholy fight between Mother Theresa and a cinnamon bun that appeared to bear her likeness. In 1997, the fine, fine Nashville coffee house Bongo Java had a miracle in that the visage of Mother Theresa appeared in the crusty goodness of one of their sticky sweet rolls. However, Mother Theresa, when not busy condemning women who had abortions and denying birth control to the truly desperately poor of Calcutta and taking money from Haiti's Duvalier and, believing that suffering brought one closer to God, ministering to the dying without giving them anything to help their fucking pain, was mightily pissed that anyone would use her image on a fucked-up cinnmon bun to make money. So Towey, as Mother Theresa's counsel, sent a letter to Bongo Java to cease and desist associating Mother Theresa's name with the bun. The pastry is now called "the NunBun." If you're ever in Nashville, bow down and offer thanks for such succulent miracles.

In his speech this week on his faith-based initiative, President Bush went out of his way to praise Towey and mention that Towey was Mother Theresa's lawyer for a dozen years. Bush said, "Think about that. Maybe we're a little too litigious in America," apparently believing that the only reason Mother Theresa would need a lawyer would be to defend her from lawsuits, not to threaten them.

Hunched over, spittle flying from his mouth, Bush told the gathered invited audience at the White House Leadership Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives of his aggravation with those motherfuckers in the Republican-run Congress and those cocksuckers in all the Republican-run Departments that prevent tax dollars from being sent to religious organizations. He gave examples of the outrageous, egregious, heinous acts of the government: "When I came in office, I found out the federal government was threatening to cut off funds for an Iowa homeless shelter. The shelter was receiving money from the federal government, and the shelter was doing good work. The shelter was helping to meet an objective, which was to provide housing for the homeless, but they were threatening to cut off money because the governing board was not sufficiently secular. Think about that. It kind of defeats the purpose of a faith-based organization, doesn't it, when the government says, we will design the board of directors for you." One might argue that it kind of defeats the purpose of a faith-based organization to take money from the government, but then, you know, you'd make sense.

He's talking here about the Victory Center Rescue Mission in Clinton, Iowa, which received a grant for over $300,000 from the Clinton administration, and the Mission did not abide by the guidelines for the grant, which demanded that the board of the mission be opened to, say, non-Christians. It's like if you're a guy who goes to an orgy and the one demand is that you use a condom. But not only did you not bring your own, you refuse to wear one when it's given to you. Fuck that, you say. You want your cock free and fleshy. Now, perhaps you shouldn't have come to the orgy. But by Bush's logic, not only should you be allowed in the orgy, you should be able to fuck freely. After all, what kind of orgy is it that gives a shit about safe sex when there's jizz to be sprayed? Should we not measure the success of the orgy by how sticky the floor is after everyone's gone?

The Mission was threatened with losing its grant and returning $100,000 which it had already spent. Run by the evangelical Rev. Ray Gimenez, the Mission was told to set up a separate, secular board to run the building project the grant was for. Instead of complying, it told HUD to fuck off and continue to hold chapel services and Bible studies. HUD cancelled the grant, the Mission was sold to another organization that didn't seem to have a problem with complying, and now the Mission continues to help the homeless. You could argue that Gimenez put on his application that he was building transitional housing for homeless women that would include "spiritual" counseling. But, you know, you gotta dance with the Devil you choose.

Once again, who gives a rat's ass about the whole truth when this makes a really great story, one that Bush has been using for nearly three years now.

So what does Bush want? And who does he want it from? And, hey, what the fuck's the problem with givin' cash money to religious organizations?

More on those questions tomorrow, but for now, let's leave with the words of Jim Towey at the end of his "Ask the White House" online Q&A: "And God willing, I'll be back soon to answer more questions. . . Mother Teresa used to say, 'It isn't how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing.' So good luck, and if you get a chance, pray for the President, Mrs. Bush, his family, and all of us here." And ask yourself if it creeps you out to have a government official saying this to you.

Faith-Based Flimflam - Part of the Christ Weary Series:
So let's say, and why not, that you're giving a "major speech" on how faith-based organizations should be given federal funds to do their "good work." Would you deliberately, on a factual matter, mislead, not tell the whole story, and/or lie? 'Cause, see, that's what President Bush did yesterday in his great big ol' talk yesterday in D.C. on his "faith-based initiatives."

Oh, so passionately Bush was imploring the audience at the Omni Hotel. He said, "Unfortunately, there are some roadblocks -- such as the culture inside government at the federal, state and local level that is unfriendly to faith-based organizations. One of the keys to solving a problem and achieving a goal is to recognize roadblocks and then have the will to remove those roadblocks." And George Bush has the fuckin' will of the Incredible Hulk when it comes to removin' roadblocks, right? Right?

Then he offered an example of the unfriendly culture: "You know, it's manifested itself, for example, when the federal government denied a Jewish school in Seattle emergency disaster relief because the school was religious. That's an indication that there's a roadblock. We have a cultural problem when FEMA money -- we're going out to help lessen the effects of a disaster that hurt -- hit, and all of a sudden, the school was denied federal money because of the nature of the school." Boo-hoo, the poor grunge Jewish kids, with their flannel yarmulkas, out in the cold after an earthquake in 2001, right? Tugs the heartstrings, you know.

Except that it ain't the whole story: see, the Academy appealed, and it was later given the funds, over $1 million, to repair its building. And, indeed, the appeal led Bush to change the rules at FEMA so that religious institutions could more readily get emergency loans. (Indeed, the heartrending story of the pitiful Jewish children of Seattle made it into one of Jeff Gannon's Talon "News" articles, without mentioning the happy ending, because, you know, it ruins a good anecdote of misery.)

You know, if the satanic government could close its heart and pocketbook to the Chosen People, what the fuck chance did the born-of-sin Christians have? Until, of course, God saw fit to re-elect George Bush. Alleluia.

'Cause, see, while Bush wants to cruelly and massively cut programs that give some relief to the poor, he's upping the funding for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative by $150 million. Much of the $1.5 billion is distributed in grants to the states, which are supposed to help spread the wealth to the collection plates - sorry, social programs - of the churches, synagogues, and mosques of their localities.

That bureaucracy is fine, as is the creation of FBCI offices in seven cabinet departments so as to make sure that the faithy lucre gets spread around. But federal bureaucracies actually administering programs so that charities and churches don't have to? Fuck that shit.

Of course, everything in the Bush administration, even funding of church groups, is framed in terms of good capitalistic enterprising. Bush calls the FBCI "social entrepeneurship." Said the President, "That's one of my favorite words, think about it: social entrepreneurship. Oftentimes, you think about entrepreneurship, you think about starting a business or balance sheets or income statements. There's a different kind of income statement in life, and that's the income statement of the heart, the balance sheet of the heart. And so I like to talk about social entrepreneurship, those courageous souls who are willing to take a stand in some of the toughest neighborhoods in America to save lives." So, like, the income statement of the heart, does it need to be balanced every month? Is it like the checkbook of karma, which the Rude Pundit can never get to match his dharma statement that he receives via Visnhu mail every month?

But look at the Peacemakers, a Miami-based group in what Bush called "a dark neighborhood." Jim Towey, the head of the FBCI, told Bush about the group's Family Center in a "desperate" area of Miami - while riding to the event "in the limousine." Peacemakers "helps low-income and unemployed families," said Bush, so they were given sixty thousand tax dollars as "seed money" to do more good.

Whether or not they "do good" is not really the issue here, is it? Check out their website: its first "vision statement" says the center is, "A Christ-centered model of ministry that assist in the transformation of individuals and families in our community." It does "Ministry Outreach" with its mystical, magical "Ministry Materials." Like the books sold through Spreadtheword.com, books like the non-fiction The Nephilim, "the first book to show that the dark forces which roamed the Earth in those primeval times will once again be at large during the coming Apocalypse with the purpose of visiting mass destruction on an unsuspecting world." Apparently, the Pyramids are involved. Fuckin' Egyptians.

And lookie here: a speaker there last year was Bush secret taper Doug Wead. In addition to talking to his friends about their past drug use, he's apparently a "minister."

There's not a fucking thing on this site that indicates that Christ worship is not involved in every fucking thing Peacemakers does. Your tax dollars at work, man, your busy, busy workin' dollars.
More on this tomorrow, including fun with Jim Towey, former attorney to Mother Theresa.

Moments of Justice:
Aw, shit, get ready to hear all the gruesome details of the cases of juvenile murderers who were on death row whose sentences have now been thrown out by the Supreme Court. By a 5-4 decision, the Court said that it's unconstitutional to off prisoners who committed their crimes before they were eighteen, thus finally allowing the U.S. to become a slightly more legitimate member of the "civilized world," thus making us slightly less evil than Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan on that account. Yeah, thank Christ that we Americans can hold our heads high in the world and say, "Hey, we don't kill the 'tards or the kids." Wanna take bets as to who's gonna call for a constitutional amendment that says,"We believe the children are the future. Let us kill them"?

You can also bet that tonight on your O'Reilly, your Scarborough, and your oh-so-flatulent Hannity, you're gonna hear all about the case of Christopher Simmons. What Simmons did was awful, disgusting, and disturbing, in hog-tying his neighbor, who happened to wake up while the 17 year-old Simmons was robbing her house, and then tossing her over a bridge into a river in Missouri where she drowned. You're gonna hear from her family and/or people who knew Shirley Crook and how outraged they are. And you're gonna hear liberals mocked for daring to suggest that juvenile brains aren't developed and that Simmons had been abused as a child and was a drug addict. Anyone who dares suggest that society is degraded by a juvenile death penalty will be mocked and derided for being a part of the "loony left."

It's gonna be a party of hatred, a chance for us to do our little jigs of death and doom and horror. It's gonna be all about Lee Boyd Malvo, the juvenile D.C. area sniper, sent to jail for life, but we wanted his blood, motherfuckers, we wanted that juvenile bastard executed on the fuckin' mall, with a big American flag behind him, and fuckin' Toby Keith singin' songs of how great the U.S. of A. is because we're killin' that kid. But, now, aww, fuck, it's like gettin' a hard-on and havin' nowhere to shove it.

Be ready, though, 'cause we're gonna be inundated. There's a lot of grieving people who wanted blood. There's a lot of goodly, godly citizens who wanted blood by proxy. And now because of what will no doubt be labeled an "activist court" that "makes laws," that blood will not be spilled by the state, by the nation. In fact, in that oh-so-quaint way of his, Antonin Scalia made this into a states' rights matter: " Judges are ill-equipped to make the type of legislative judgments the court insists on making here . . . The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty . . . The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards." Ahh, morality, the refuge of all the hatred that permeates American society. It's "morality" that says gays should not marry, and it's morality that says it's okay to execute kids.

All in all, it's been quite a day for justice, real, actual justice and not law of the jungle justice, in America. There's the Roper v. Simmons decision at the Supreme Court, and then there's the U.S. District Court decision saying that Jose Padilla, the supposed, maybe, but we can never know "dirty bomber," must be charged with something, anything, or released. After two and a half years in some hell hole, more than likely being tortured, the poor fucker, whose only crime seems to be being a not-white gangbanger and having read some shit about dirty bombs, is at least one step closer to seeing the light of day for more than an hour a day.

Of course, this one's headin' to the Supreme Court, too, because the Bush administration would rather use the Constitution as liner in the cages of its parrot cabinet members than actually release Padilla.

We live now in this world of Bush where every day we are confronted with the myriad ways in which this administration and its hellish minions attempt to strip rights, dignity, and humanity in favor of a world of unchecked corporate greed-seeking and governmental repression in the guise of parental protectiveness. So it's always blindsiding to hear news that affirms something akin to human dignity. Let us mark the day, because there are precious few.

Let's Hear It For the Rainbow Tour:
The Rude Pundit's been reading over the transcript of the discussion of "U.S.-Russian Partnership" between Presidents Bush and Putin last week, and he's decided that Bush is a master of elliptical bullshit. Check this out, and you see if you can discern anything that remotely resembles a concrete idea or fully-developed thought that relates to a question on concerns over Putin's "commitment to democracy" (which, let's face it, is about the same as a pants-down, cock up high school quarterback's commitment to the skirt up, panties down cheerleader straddling him in the back of his parents' Saturn):

"There was no doubt in my mind what his position was on Iraq. He didn't kind of hedge, he didn't try to cloud up the issue. He made it abundantly clear to me that he didn't agree with my decision. And that's an important part of having a trustworthy relationship, a relationship where, when a person tells you something, you know he means what he says, and, 'yes' means yes, and 'no' means no. Sometimes in politics yes means 'maybe,' and no means 'if.' This is the kind of fellow who, when he says, yes, he means, yes, and when he says, no, he means, no."

Just to be clear here, 'cause, you know, we who exist outside of the Beltway, which would be most of us, may not be up on the lingo of realpolitick and some such crap, but for the record, when Putin says, "Yes," he means, "Yes." Damn, it's a good thing Putin's not a flip-flopper, you know. The solipsistic way Bush talks bespeaks a man who simply doesn't care if he says anything as long as he knows what he's saying, which, really, isn't anything in particular.

Of course, throughout Bush's amazing adventure of demonstrating that oceans can't stop him from traveling to Europe, he spoke in definite terms that defined nothing definite except how indefinite his definition of "definite" definitely is. For instance, in his "roundtable" with a pre-screened audience of German "Young Professionals," Bush said, in answer to an approved question about Russia and dependency on oil resources, "For years, there was this sense that we could tolerate tyranny for the sake of energy. And yet, beneath the surface of that policy lurked this hatred and feeling of oppression and frustration and hopelessness, which lent itself to an ideology of hatred that ended up manifesting their hatred on America." Now, without getting into the oh-really-now-who-do-you-think-helped-tolerate-that-policy bullshit of Cheney and all the loverly Bushes, what the fuck do those two sentences mean? No, seriously, and, c'mon, what they fuck does that mean? Who is hating who? And, once again, is Bush saying it is our "job" to rout out tyranny wherever it may hide? Where the fuck is the Justice League of America when you need it?

Bush then brought it on home by saying that everything the U.S. does in its foreign policy is related to 9/11: "Let me say something about September the 11th. I think this will help frame the conversation as we go forward. For some, September the 11th was a passing moment in history. In other words, it was a terrible moment, but it passes. For me, and my government, and many in the United States, it permanently changed our outlook on the world. Those two attitudes caused us, sometimes, to talk past each other, and I plead guilty at times. But as this conversation goes on, I want you to remember that point of view." One assumes that the "two attitudes" are the United States's position that "We don't give a fuck what Europe or anyone else has to say in opposition to us; we're gonna do whatever the fuck we want; we shit on our treaties" and those who have the position of "Why the fuck should we roll over and allow you to make the world into your image?"

Oh, and then Bush said, again, that we're gonna build more nuclear power plants "because I think it is a way for the United States to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy, which is good for our economy, and, frankly, helps us with foreign policy."

Which, strangely enough, is what Russia is helping Iran do by selling Iran nuclear fuel. And, goddamnit for the Bush case for "all options" on Iran, Iran has agreed to let the IAEA monitor the nuclear power plant it's building. Oh, and the EU said it had "no problem" with the sale. Imagine that: Bush must be right about Putin that, even with the budding tyrant Putin is, "yes" means "yes."

Meanwhile, Putin has used the threat of terrorism to firm-up one-party rule in his nation, to wreck the barely free press, to take control in ways that, despite Bush's, Condi's, and, previously, Colin's protestations, Karl Rove could only dream about while whipping a velvet-cuffed Jeff Gannon in the White House basement.

Christ Weary Over Gannon/Guckert:
What is this world coming to when you can't even rely on the most hate-filled, self-righteous, arrogant fucks this side of John Negroponte to come through for you? The Gannon/Guckert story is a low hanging curve ball right to the inside for the Christian right, yet they refuse to swing. Gay prostitute in the middle of the Christian President's White House? C'mon, this is like a black man in the South in the 1920s fucking a white woman in the middle of a Klan meeting because the flames of the burning cross are so romantic. It's like a mohel walking into the middle of Hitler rally and saying, "Who wants a circumcision? I'll give you a good price." It's like an Iraqi walking into Abu Ghraib, dropping his pants, and saying, "I know where the weapons are, and I bet you can't beat it out of me."

Where are all the playa haters? All the motherfuckers who are so anti-gay marriage and anti-homosexuality in general? James Dobson, a man so uptight he has to crowbar his ass cheeks open so he can get rid of some of the shit he's full of, and his Focus on the Family offer fuckin' pamphlets on whether or not "marriage is in trouble," and books on how to "deal" with a gay relative. Concerned Women For America, a group of beaten-down fuck dolls and breeding toys of the fundamentalist patriarchy, can't get enough of the gay-hatin'. Here's an entire fuckin' list of shit that's got their granny panties in a wad, including adoption by gays, transgender golfers, and gay tourism.

And, you know, c'mon, the fuckin' Agape Press, the AP wannabe of fundamentalism, has written not a single word about Gannon or Guckert. Yet they still have plenty of time to rip on The Simpsons and its outing of Marge's sister as emblematic of Hollywood liberalism. 'Cause, see, cartoon dykestry is far, far more important than a real, live, lying assfucker in the White House.

What issue related to homosexuals has gotten the Christian right all hot and bothered? If you guessed gays in the British Navy, you're on the ball - not in a gay way, unless you wanna be. The Family Policy Network and others can't get enough of Agape's coverage of this issue that matters to the hearts of every American Navy veteran who thinks, "Huh, when I fucked that guy in the berth above me while we were on patrol in the Pacific, I wasn't gay. Now when he sucked my dick, yeah, he was a fag."

You gotta think that the hateful, gaybashing, repressed men who weep while they masturbate to images of a buff George Bush in Uncle Sam garb gotta be shaking with rage at not being able to lash out at Gannon/Guckert. You know their cogs and wheels are steamin' up and breakin' down, Looney Tunes-style, trying to come up with ways to justify their silence on the matter. ("Well, the boy does say he's a Christian now, and anyone can forget to take down a nudie picture of themselves from the Internet.") You know that they're gonna be projecting that bile and unquenchable need to condemn onto so, so many other things. You know that, like anyone who ever has had a sweet taste of genuine power, they are going to throw aside their morality and beliefs to cling to it, like a rat surfing home on the debris of a sunken ship.

Why Ann Coulter Is a Cunt, Part 385 (With a Side Note on the Right Wing Disarray Over Gannon/Guckert):
In her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean "the crayon-scratched doodles and scrawls of a conservative meat puppet"), Ann Coulter goes after the bad, bad liberals who demand answers over why the fuck an assfucker for hire with an assumed name was given a neverending series of day press passes to the White House despite having, first, no press background, no job with a press organization, and no discernible experience other than fucking men in the ass for money, and, later, shillling for a right wing news site fronting for GOPUSA.

Ann's in a tizzy, barely able to vomit out the first retch of hate before the second is choking her. Let's do away with this quickly before they become talking points for Scarborough, O'Reilly, and, later, the so-called "mainstream" media. Coulter defends Gannyguck by saying that "Gannon didn't write about gays." Well, no, actually, Gannyguck "wrote" quite a bit about gays, including an article saying that John Kerry might be considered "the first gay president" because of Kerry's support of gay rights. Not to mention the anti-gay marriage articles he compiled from press releases and such.

Coulter says that "liberals expressed shock and dismay that Gannon's real name is 'James Guckert.'" And, since Coulter never met a hyperbole that she wouldn't hump like it was Joe McCarthy's Commie-slammin' microphone and never met a fact that she couldn't manipulate, she compares Gannon getting into the White House under a fake name with this: "How did Gary Hartpence, Billy Blythe and John Kohn (Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and John Kerry) run for president under invented names?" Christ, this is so tedious, like trying to give an unlubricated Coulter head for hours without stabbing yourself on her hip bones.

Here we go: Gary Hart and Bill Clinton legally changed their names, Clinton doing it for his mother's sake after she re-married while he was still very young. John Kerry's grandfather changed his name from Kohn to Kerry to avoid anti-semitism in turn-of-the-century Austria. (The Rude Pundit uses Encarta's website here to demonstrate that even a fucking idiot could get the story straight.) So if Hart, Clinton, and Kerry had to show their driver's licenses, they would show their legal names. Please, don't let the right attempt to conflate this with having a fake name and access to power that so few others are allowed.

The right-wing media, though, doesn't know what the fuck to do with Gannyguck. They're stuck trying to downplay the prostitution angle by saying that it's Gannyguck's "private life." Fox "News" runs an editorial that calls Gannyguck's whoring "sexual peculiarities" and saying that it proves the left's intolerance. That's a fuckin' bizarro way to spin this: that liberals hate gay prostitutes. But over at the generally insane conservative World Net Daily, Joseph Farah is pissed about the White House's degradation of the press through the free admittance of a fake reporter to the press pool. (All this and more is available through your source for all things Gannyguck, AMERICAblog.)

Speaking of batshit insanity, the kind that stretches its spine trying to lick its own taint, rude Australian reader Wal C. wrote to that eminent right wing blog, Powerline, about Gannyguck. After quoting a Rude Pundit post on why Gannyguck matters, Wal C. wrote, "They've turned the White House into a whorehouse, and your incomprehensible defense of Guckert and the sleazy administration who utilized him is almost as despicable as the pathetic, moral-less morons you're defending."

The Powerline people are notoriously thin-skinned, especially considering that they proudly gave themselves the gayest pseudonyms in all of political blogdom: the Hindrocket and the Big Trunk, with handy phallic pictures of a thrusting rocket and an elephant holding his trunk erect. This is not to mention the demonic owl with its legs spread wide (the symbol of the writer known as the "Deacon"), as if saying, "Suck my wise owlish cock, fuckers. Please?"

The Hindrocket (which the Rude Pundit cannot type without giggling) wrote back to Wal C.: "Wal, you are so fucking stupid you don't even qualify as spam. Never try to communicate with us again. You are too dumb to participate in a rational conversation. You are a stupid fucking lefty; that's your problem, not ours. Get lost." It was signed "John H." (Frankly, this seems like Powerline's form letter to liberals, which is a charming notion.)

Yep, combativeness, defensiveness, and lashing out are sure signs that the adherents to an ideology are filled with doubt, self-loathing, and Nixonian paranoia, afraid of a time when their brand of hate doesn't rule the land.

Limbaugh in Afghanistan – A Fantasia (with Apologies to Paul Bowles):
(Note: The Rude Pundit knows that Paul Bowles wrote about North Africa, not Afghanistan.)
Rush Limbaugh knew he shouldn’t have trusted Ahmed, the local jirga member who told him to follow him outside the compound in Kandahar to see the endless poppy fields. Limbaugh wanted to confront his temptations, demonstrate he was a stronger man. Now he’s lost in the ruins of an ancient mosque, alone, hungry, pissed off because he’s due to be live on the radio in a couple of hours, bringing his faithful listeners tales of the good news of the Afghani people. How they admired him, how the soldiers even asked him if he was going to run for office. God, he felt somehow right and at home here, praising the good works of America.

He hears the clatter of distant hoofsteps, across the rocky terrain. Finally, he thinks, some local to help him. They ride up to him, three men with scraggly beards and Chitrali hats. “Can you help me? I’m an American. American. I need to get back to Kandahar Air Base,” he declares as the men on horses circle him slowly, speaking in a dialect that Limbaugh not only can’t understand, but he hasn’t heard yet. They are surveying him. “I’m on the radio. You know the radio?” He makes some futile hand gesture of a microphone in front of his mouth, of holding a mike with his mouth open, pointing at it with his other hand, nodding and winking.

The horse-borne men look at each other and nod. Limbaugh smiles. The power of Excellence in Broadcasting, no doubt. Americans have saved them from the Taliban and now he will receive their thanks. One of them say something to Limbaugh, and as the radio host turns towards that horse, another man clubs Limbaugh in the back of his head. Limbaugh hits the ground with all the grace of an oversized turd being shat out of a constipated elephant.

The Pashtun men pick up the porcine pundit and stuff him into a large bag, carrying him between two horses back into the mountains. When they get back to their village, a small compound really, of men only and a few younger boys, they spill Limbaugh out and leave him to regain consciousness, one of the boys watching over him.

Limbaugh comes out of his haze and bellows, "I’ll call the fuckin’ embassy." The boys run off as Limbaugh continues to yell, "There’s gonna be hell to pay when the Americans hear of this." A couple of the men enter the shack and walk over to him. He thrashes and screams, "We’re gonna bomb you back beyond the stone age, you raghead-" But one of the men has grabbed Limbaugh’s tongue and, with one swift cut of a dagger, cuts off the radio personality’s tongue. Stunned and tasting his own metallic blood, Limbaugh falls back on his thin mattress of rugs and another man tears his sleeve and shoots him up with the purest heroin anyone can get. Limbaugh fades to black.

He comes in and out, occasionally gargling a word or two, occasionally feeling the fever of infection that’s come over him, occasionally feeling the warm sting of the needle. Once he feels an incredible pain between his legs, seeing men above him, but he passes out again. Finally, a ragged, shit-stained Limbaugh staggers out of the shack one day as the sun shines around him. He unzips his pants to take a piss. He reaches in and notices an absence below his tiny penis. He’s been castrated. He screams in outrage.

Quickly, several men rush up to him and wrap tin bands around his arms, his legs, his waist. Limbaugh is confused until he realizes that each band contains several bells and as he moves around he makes a clattering, ringing sound that seems to please the Pashtun men watching him. He forgets about his lost balls for a second and finds this curious. He takes a couple of steps, ringing the bells as he moves, and the men clap and ululate in approval. Limbaugh smiles and nods. Even Pashtun nutcutters recognize talent when they see it.

Limbaugh becomes popular in the villages around Zaranj, a favorite of the women and children, who watch in separate audience, as Limbaugh dances, horribly, for them, ringing his bells. He learns to do handstands and high kicks and twirls. Oh, what a happy clown, the children think. Limbaugh learns how to scare the women by growling and barking. And then, when he performs for the men, they drum and play instruments, and he becomes just another member of the band. If you’re going to be the plaything of the tribe of some warlord, at least the food’s regular (if tasteless) and the audiences appreciative.

Limbaugh doesn’t even mind the fact that every night he’s locked up in a room with no window. He doesn’t even mind the regular sodomizings by the Pashtun men, the ones who hadn’t earned a boy yet. Limbaugh misses his voice, though, and some nights he cries in remembrance of his silver-tipped tongue, his quick wit now inward only. He thinks he’s even forgotten how to write. But then he gets his nightly dose of smack and he’s in bliss until the sun rises again.

One day his keepers bring him to a village on the edge of a poppy field, and there it is: that sea of red flowers, the pin prick bloodlets growing from the earth. Against the setting sun, it looks like a fire that would finally consume him. The last anyone sees of Rush Limbaugh is a silhouetted figure, bells ringing, running into the field of flames, grunting happily, leaping madly.

All the Gay, Gay Grannies:
Now the Rude Pundit knows: Grandma must be in hell. Because, apparently, when Grandma was in her retirement years and a card-carrying member of the AARP, her quilting circles were actually excuses for hot lesbian action. Whenever she went on cruises with the widow next door, AARP discounted cruises, it meant that Grandma and the widow would carefully open their tired hips, slowly, lest a nasty break occur, and reveal their withered flowers of orgasmic paradise to hungry tongues and mouths. Oh, how the sweet rocking of the oceans around Bermuda must have enhanced their moans, their pleasures, to and fro, to and fro, ah, Grandma. And let's not even think about Grandpa and whatever went on at the American Legion Hall on Friday nights. But let's just say perhaps AARP stands for the "Association of Anally-Rogering People."

According to a just fuckin' bizarre ad on the website of conservative mag The American Spectator (motto: We think you're so goddamn stupid that we'll charge 39 bucks for 10 issues), the AARP hates them some soldiers but loves them some queers. No, c'mon, seriously, the ad flatly states, "The Real AARP Agenda," and shows a picture of a soldier with a red "x" over him and a picture of two, presumably marrying, men kissing, with a green check on it. The Rude Pundit looked closely, and he may be wrong, but the kissing man on the right looks pretty much exactly like the soldier on the left. Is the ad saying that AARP advocates "Make Love, Not War"?

But, no, no, you click on the ad and you're brought to the nigh-on magnificent site of USA Next, which has declared war on the AARP for its wacky liberal ways, like, say, supporting President Bush's Medicare prescription drug "reform." Using the re-animated corpse of Art Linklater as its sometimes spokesperson (especially on Fox "News" where Linklater does segments titled "Zombies Say the Darndest Things"), USA Next positions itself as a "conservative" alternative to the AARP.

When its chair, Charles W. Jarvis, appeared on Bill O'Reilly's Fox "News" show, he called the AARP "the world's largest left, liberal lobbying organization." O'Reilly, who's been on the attack on AARP, had opened the segment by stating that the "AARP has taken a sharp turn to the left." In the strange world conservatives currently occupy, according to Jarvis and the USA Next website, one of the markers of the "left turn" of the AARP happened back in 1980s, when the AARP agreed to support a tax on Social Security benefits. Oh, the motherfucking outrage. Says USA Next, "They actually made it possible, first in 1984 and again in 1993, for seniors to be punished for saving during their working years or working in their retirement years." Except, of course, this left turn was supported by Ronald Reagan and a bipartisan commission (chaired by Alan Greenspan) attempting to shore up Social Security and mostly hit the wealthiest earners. Oh, and it was in 1983.

See, USA Next is about to go all Swift Boat on the AARP, using the same advisers as the Swifties. But, you know, and, c'mon, USA Next, which has no age restriction on joining, is really just a front for corporations. According to Public Citizen, the pharmaceutical and energy industries "donated" millions of dollars to USA Next in order for the group to run ads supporting industry positions, conveniently filtered through non-corporate sounding organizations. USA Next is just another perfect synthesis of media, corporations, government, and their filthy money using deception to undermine the honest debate on an issue.

Some other fun stuff on the USA Next website: their list of "Online Resources" contains links to all network news sites, except CBS. But the Drudge Report is there. They link directly to Pfizer. One of their "issues" is to tell the Academy to give the Oscar to The Passion of the Christ. And their senior-related news includes three articles on how the film Super Size Me is a "con" job (seniors, don't be scared out of eating at the one restaurant you all can afford).

Finally, in our look at this weird amalgam of maniacal morality, anti-government ranting, and corporate crotch-sniffing, let's ask this question: what's the connection to the Legal Services Corporation during the 1980s? (The LSC is the governmental agency that provides a modicum of funding for legal assistance for those who can't afford such luxuries. Most of their work is done through grants to states and organizations.) 'Cause USA Next Board Member Jim Wootton was the director of policy, communications and legislative affairs of the LSC in 1986.

Around that time a "Charles W. Jarvis" was its Vice-President, and, according to the November 18, 1985 New York Times, was in that position when the LSC was accused of using harassing audits on LSC grantees who served the poor as a means to enact the Reagan administration's desire to end federal financing of legal services to the poor. And around this time, according to old friend Howard Kurtz in the October 22, 1985 Wasthington Post, the LSC was accused of funneling money to a conservative activist, James McClellan. Is this relevant? Who knows. Fun with Lexis-Nexis, you know. But it points to a lifetime spent trying to dismantle any government support of those in need. And now it's time for Granny to pony up.

Yep, all this and more in the weird world of giving legitimacy to another fringe organization. But strangely on the website, nothing about how the AARP hates soldiers and loves gays. One might accuse USA Next of pulling a bait-and-switch. Or of being, shall we say, fucking liars.

(Update: The ad was taken down from American Sphincter, but it's up here.)

Hunter S. Thompson Is Dead and We're Not Feeling So Good Ourselves:
Some time ago, back in the darkest days of the Reagan era, when the Gipper's drooling dementia was increasingly, embarrassingly apparent, the Rude Pundit had his one and only encounter with Hunter S. Thompson. It was during college, and the Rude Pundit was part of the speakers' committee, inviting people to come to campus to give talks. Each contract with a speaker contained one or two quirky requests, much like the backstage riders of musicians at concerts. Some were pretty cool: Martin Sheen requested a dinner with members of the committee. Hunter S. Thompson requested a case of Wild Turkey waiting for him in his hotel room.

Needless to say, when the Rude Pundit and another student fetched Thompson to fulfill his speakerly duties, Thompson was fucked up and stinking of whiskey. The Rude Pundit asked Thompson about Iran-Contra, and Thompson mumbled, "Worse than Watergate and the fuckers are gonna get away with it." He was right, of course. Soon after, H.W. Bush saw to that with his pardonpalooza. When he hit the stage, Thompson leaned on the lectern and said, "I don't have anything prepared. Just ask me questions." There was a moment of laughter, like this couldn't be true, and then silence while Thompson scanned the crowd. Finally a hand went up and a student stood and asked, "Who's worse, Reagan or Nixon?" And the evening was off and running.

Hunter S. Thompson called out evil and insanity by getting down in the gutter with it and daring it to fuck with him. Sure, sure, all the wannabe hipsters carry Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in their backpacks (right alongside the one used Bukowoski they could afford and that copy of something by Chomsky that they never read past the first ten pages), but they only read the Thompson book because Johnny Depp made a movie. For Thompson in his purest form, check out Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, his account of the 1972 presidential campaign that rips the guts out of high-handed political rhetoric and drags it down to the sewer where it belongs. America is a civilization on the brink of doom in that book, and it is frightening and exhilirating to read.

For sheer crazed anger and vindictive hatred, read his 1994 "obituary" of Richard Nixon, a hurricane-force blast of anguish that defined, for the Rude Pundit, just how personal the political actually is. Thompson concludes, "He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream." For his destruction of the Reagan-Bush years in a single magazine article, read 1992's "Fear and Loathing in Elko," about a drug-fueled, alcohol-hazed drive through the desert with Clarence Thomas (known as "the Judge" in the piece). No one could call the enemy by its name like Thompson.

We can speculate, and the Rude Pundit's sure that all of Blogsylvania will be ablaze with theories, as to why Thompson took his own life by eating lead from one of his beloved guns. Chances are it's the same old story - depression, disease, drugs, or some combination thereof. But the Rude Pundit would like to find something Greek and noble and tragic here. In an interview before the election, Thompson said of the Bush II administration, "This is the darkest hour that I have seen in my long experience as an American. This is evil." His Rolling Stone article on Bush and Kerry said, directly, that Bush was worse than Nixon, which, for anyone who read Thompson for a long time, was quite a startling belief. So the romantic, fall-upon-one's-sword version of Thompson's suicide is this: all Thompson saw in America was that we were on a never-ending spiral towards madness that even he couldn't envision, that the worst things he could imagine about this country were coming true and more, that the only possible things to do when the monsters are knocking are to stand and fight or cut and run. And he had fought far, far too long already.

As the Rude Pundit said, this is the romantic version, a sucker's dream of honor in dishonorable times. But the harsh inverse of this notion is: if Thompson couldn't take it anymore, what hope is there for the rest of us?

After Thompson finished speaking back in the college days, the Rude Pundit accompanied Thompson back to the hotel, ordered to "make sure he gets inside the door, then run." Hoping desperately that Thompson would want to go out for the night, handing out pills like candy corn, instead the Rude Pundit accompanied the Doctor on a calm walk to the hotel. Thompson had stayed on that stage for a couple of hours answering questions. He asked the Rude Pundit how he thought the "talk" had gone. The Rude Pundit said he thought it was hilarious, maybe even using the word "profound." Thompson smirked, "Yeah, it's amazing what a tired, drunk dopehead can do, huh?"

Or words to that effect.

Briefly Noted: Unleash the Rumsfeld:
Donald Rumsfeld was tired of being chastened, whipped, and beaten. He was used to bitch slappin' the faces of uppity reporters and members of Congress in the halls of the Capitol, screeching, "I am Rumsfeld, and you are shit." He was kept on a short leash for a while, after the whole nightmare over whether or not it was ethically correct to have a machine sign letters telling parents, spouses, and children that their loved one in the armed forces was coming home in a nice, flag-draped casket.

But Rumsfeld had had enough, and this week he appeared before the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee to "discuss" the upcoming Pentagon budget(s). In his prepared remarks, Rumsfeld offered these stunning conclusions: "These are historic times. The Cold War has passed into history. The world and key institutions continue to require change.. .Terrorists have brains and use them. . . Our enemies are nimble and media savvy."

Then, when questioned, Rumsfeld, in essence, sneered at the members of the committees, Republicans and Democrats, and spat, "Fuck you, you fuckin' elected fuckwads, I only have to respond to one person, Bush, and he fuckin' begged me to stay on. I ain't tellin' you shit. Now, try to fuck with me." And then, over at the Senate side, he picked up Robert Byrd and started using him as a club to pound the crap out of Patrick Leahy while Ted Stevens screamed and wept and cowered in the corner. Rumsfeld turned to the Alaskan and said, "Don't worry your pussy - I ain't gonna touch ya. But if you head over to the House side, you'll find a pyramid of stacked corpses, all missin' their jugulars."

Ah, how sweet is unmitigated power.

Fanning the Flames of Gannon/Guckert:
The weekend is approaching, and, with it, the potential end of the news life of the Gannon/Guckert debacle. Yes, Left Blogsylvania is trying to keep it alive and demanding answers, but if the story stays confined to LB (with some dribblings to the rest of the media and DC), it's lost. Yesterday, the Rude Pundit proposed a strategy to get the story hotter: co-opt the moralists of the right, primarily the Christian fundamentalist community, through their blogs and websites. Write letters and comments where we disguise ourselves as goodly, godly Republicans who are just oh-so-disgusted to bursting.

Today, the Rude Pundit gives a list of potential recipients of your "moral outrage" over the noted top-for-hire with the cut penis, James Guckert, finding his way into the White House. By the way, if you're uncomfortable pretending over the gay angle, why, then use the prostitute angle for your anger - it's twice the sin for half the price. Rather than just target Fox "News," send e-mails and/or post comments to some of these sites and blogs, where the rumbles of the rabble can reach a maximum density quickly. The idea here is that you, as a mole, a fly in the ointment, a ghost in the machine, will infiltrate and cause others, the real fundies and wingnuts, to respond in kind. These are not links - you'll have to copy-and-paste the addresses so it's not traceable back to, like, this post telling you where to go. And, you know, this is just a starting point:

http://www.hughhewitt.com (requires a strong stomach)
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/kmc/ (Kevin McCullough's blog)
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/ (Captain's Quarters)
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/ (Evangelical Outpost)
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/145/story_14545_1.html (Loose Cannon at Beliefnet - requires free registration, but lots of comments here)
http://christdot.org/ (Really kind of self-explanatory)
http://www.blogs4god.com/linker/index.php (a listing of lots of other Christian blogs)

And like any good whore knows, while giving a blow job, don't neglect the balls: Letters to the editors of your local papers are intensely encouraged, as well as posts to their websites. Plus, don't neglect your Focus on the Family and your Moral Majority and others.

Remember: this ain't about Gannyguck. Who the fuck cares about some sell out, self-hating homosexual who shilled for the Bush administration? This is about Negroponte, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush. This is about torture and the dismantling of the New Deal. And, let's face it and embrace it - it's about payback, bitch, and fucking with people who have fucked us over so egregiously.

And remember the other potential payoff: if the Christian Right fails to get up in arms about this, it demonstrates a failure of their leadership and the sweet decaying smell of hypocrisy in their morality.

Thanks to all of you who have written so far. Send your reports and any responses you receive (especially if a letter of yours shows up on O'Reilly or somewhere) to: rudepundit@yahoo.com.

Back later this afternoon with rudeness on Rumsfeld.

Who Do You Have To Blow To Get a White House Press Pass?:
Out here in Left Blogsylvania, you can practically hear the frustrated screams of "Oh, come on" emanating from our basement lairs of justice. As evidence and inference pile up suggesting, implying, and/or demonstrating some kind of link between Jeff Gannon/James Guckert and the White House (at least the White House press office), we're waving our arms at the mainstream media and yelling, "Look, goddamnit, look over here, to the left, to the left." There's been some shaking out in the form of a couple of articles in the Washington Post and New York Times, a sympathetic hearing from Catherine Crier on Court TV, some sarcastic mocking of Gannon from Keith Olbermann (and The Daily Show, which bitch slapped the media's denegration of blogging muckrakers), and editorials from the usual suspects:Sidney Blumenthal, Frank Rich, and Maureen Dowd.

The latter is especially interesting since Dowd reveals that she couldn't originally get a press pass from the Bush White House, despite her previous access: "I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the 'Barberini Faun' is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?" And now we also know that Gannyguck had his press pass and was called on to ask questions of Ari Fleischer a full month before Talon "News" ever existed.

So, come on, where's the uproar? Let's summarize this as succinctly as possible (as many others have). Warning-do not try to diagram this sentence: a cocksucker for hire with a fake name and no news organization affiliation, whose only journalistic "experience" is a two-day right-wing "Institute," is given a daily press pass to the White House, which denies such passes to established and legitimate journalists, and is called on to ask blatantly pro-Bush questions, who eventually is placed into a fake news front for a conservative website (that apparently hires a high school student as one of its main reporters) and becomes a regular at DC press events, as well as the daily briefing, quizzing Scott McClellan, the President's press secretary who's been seen going to gay bars in Texas but who recently married, receiving a congratulations card from said cocksucker for hire, who eventually gets to ask the anti-gay President a question at one of the anti-gay President's rare news conferences, where reporters from major news organizations go begging, at the same time that the White House the cocksucker so gracelessly praises is paying off other conservative commentators to push its proposals to the public.

Now, does someone wanna tell the Rude Pundit why the fuck John Aravosis and Kos (and his Kossacks) shouldn't be pursuing this story to the ends of the earth? Even if it turns out it's just a giant fuck-up (which, really, and c'mon, we're talking monumental in the realm of fuck-ups), why wouldn't the mainstream press be going at this story - full of gay sex, power, and access - with all the viciousness of Matt Drudge and Michael Isikoff sniffing Monica's panty shields?

So where to go now? Go after Bobby Eberle, GOPUSA, and Talon "News," of course, and look into each of its "reporters" (or "transcribers"). And what's the deal with the name "Talon"? Especially since at virtually the same time Talon "News" was being created, the Pentagon was working on "Talon," a database of "raw" information about "anomalous activities" by U.S. citizens. Or that the Canadian company Talon Books is known for its publication of gay and lesbian writers. This kind of bullshit conspiracy theorizing is ludicrous, but with the outrage factor being limited right now, what's left?

Ahh, excellent question. See, what the left used to be good at in America is subterfuge and subversion. Let's get back to those Abbie Hoffman roots. The Rude Pundit has a plan. It's your weekend homework. Now, we know that Bush is stabbing his Christian constituency in the back in his lack of funding of his faith-based initiatives. The Christian right is sore, with the sweet, soft belly of a hog on a spit. It's time to poke that fucker with a stick. Get the Christian wackjobs upset, and the Gannyguck story flies. You know it. The Rude Pundit knows it.

Here's what we do: we start invading the Christian conservative websites (and right-wingers who hate gays). Try to stay as "mainstream" as possible. Hit the chat rooms and message boards. E-mail like crazy. And pretend to be Christian, conservative, and mad as hell that the President would allow someone like Gannyguck into the sanctified pure whiteness of America's house. Go on Fox's website and do the same. Never, never make it that you hate Bush - make it that you're betrayed. Fuck, if a few cranks from Focus on the Family can get the FCC to criminally raise fines on indecency, then we can use those cranks to our advantage. (The Rude Pundit is not going to list sites to contact because, in case anyone does this, he doesn't want such complaints to be seen as "illegitimate" because of the Rude Pundit's involvement.)

Here's an example (please do not copy exactly - let's make it seem as little like astroturf as possible- and don't seem too smart): "As a Republican and Christian, I'm appalled that the President allowed a known male prostitute into the press room. When I voted for George Bush, I thought I was voting for the family values candidate. Now I find out the President not only allowed Jeff Gannon/ James D. Guckert to join the media in the White House, but he called on him at a press conference. I think George Bush owes us an apology and an explanation."

Oh, what fun it could be if we get away with it. E-mail the Rude Pundit with your postings or e-mails that you sent to your "favorite" conservative writer or organization: rudepundit@yahoo.com.

And remember: our cause is just as we face evil people.

Mainstreaming Torture, Part 1-- Why Bill O'Reilly Ought To Be Sodomized With a Broken Light Bulb:
There is a bizarre sexual fetish that has its own storytelling adherents on the Internet and in print. These people get off on the idea of people swallowing other people. No, no, not Dahmer-esque cannibalism, eating away bit by bit from the body in the fridge. Here, a man, say a patient at a dentist's office, is able to unhinge his jaws, snake-style, to engorge whole the poor female dental assistant whose only crime was to care about tooth decay. Goddamn, how these people spank it or rub it to the tales of people-swallowing. Whenever the Rude Pundit watches Fox "News," he thinks that Rupert Murdoch must have the entire on-air staff masturbate to this kind of porn.

Last night, on his Fox "News" show (if by "show," you mean, "a horrid hour of hell-like suffering at the hands of an attention whore whose ego would make him suck out the eyes of old lady Alzheimer's patients if he thought it would get him another ratings point"), Bill O'Reilly devoted the first segment to criticizing those who write and talk about the allegations and confirmed reports of torture at the hands or desires of the United States. Apparently, see, the media must be liberal if it dares to say that torture is bad because, you know, reporting on torture hurts our soldiers and helps the enemy (most of whom would be, well, Iraqi citizens). No, no, if you think that the real problem is the act of torture, you'd be a "pinhead" in O'Reilly's world.

Spat O'Reilly, "Just the allegations alone hurt this country and shift emphasis from the real villains, terrorists, who routinely murder civilians. Day after day, the left-wing media pound stories about America's mistreating prisoners in Guantanamo, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Those reports are picked up worldwide and are used to incite anti-American feeling and even to recruit more terrorists." Oh, yeah, O'Reilly offers the caveat that prisoners have been tortured and people have been prosecuted, but, "Any reasonable person knows that, in a vicious struggle, some rules will be broken." O'Reilly continues, "The trouble is the continuing reportage of the torture allegations is putting lives in danger. Hyping the situation to undermine the Bush administration is disgraceful and should be condemned." Then O'Reilly used the opportunity to slam Ted Kennedy before squinting his eyes as if he had just tasted bile.

Then O'Reilly had on two military guys to agree with him. For instance, Col. David Hunt said, "Torture is one tool" in interrogation. Later, he opined, "This is about political will. The fighting - - the war on terror is about political will and commitment, and torture is one small part of how this has to be approached. You can't hide about it." O'Reilly was almost giddy, like a Bangkok pimp at some village girl's school. He derided Kennedy and that undefinable "left wing media" throughout as his guests propped up his big damn head like the house slaves at the plantation home of a drunk master.

Oh, how O'Reilly, who danced, danced, danced with glee as he fed on the corpse of Eason Jordan, the CNN exec who said that U.S. troops kill journalists, did a little boogie after the interview. So happy he was, deploring the effort to find out how much and how regularly America tortures people, and O'Reilly (and millions of his viewers) brings it down to this: we need to define more clearly the rules of torture because, you know, we're gonna capture people and detain them until we've used them up and said fuck due process and during all those months and years we are gonna sexually humiliate them and beat them, so, hey, let's make the rules clear so everyone knows what they can and cannot do. O'Reilly then took a huge shit on his desk and wiped his ass with the Geneva Conventions, screaming, "Fuck your 'international rules.' Your treaties aren't even good toilet paper." And across the nation, O'Reilly's fans cheered at seeing O'Reilly degrade ideas and documents that they do not even want to understand beyond what is filtered through the seething, grunting, spittle-spewing mouth of O'Reilly.

O'Reilly and the right are part of the effort to mainstream torture, to make it seem rational and right to bloodthirsty America, the America that believes that if the "terrorists" are going to behead innocent people, then America has the perfect right to torture and "detain" anyone it sees fit, even if a "few innocent people" get caught in the fishing net (and isn't "detain" just the most polite fucking word? It's like you've been asked to stay a little longer at the cotillion in order to ensure the debutantes are escorted out properly, so you tell your party, "Sorry, I've been detained." Yeah, it's like that, but with more nuts-in-vises and fake menstrual blood smeared on your face- well, except for that one cotillion in Georgia, but that's another story).

If torture becomes just another "tool" in the interrogation box, a regular, regulated thing rather than an horrific abomination, then maybe the Christian right is correct: why bother believing that evolution exists?

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