God's Clearing the Deck:
Man, God must finally be pissed. Jesse Helms and Tony Snow in just over a week? With William F. Buckley bringing up the rear? It's as if God's saying, "You know what? You fuckin' Democrats will never do it, so I'll just take care of it myself. Fuck elections. It's smiting time. Let's get warmed up with the easy ones."
Friday, July 11, 2008
Home of the Brave?:
Look at Cheney there yesterday as President Bush signed into law the free spying and free ride bill. He's got the stroke victim smirk in full-bore glow. Jesus, he couldn't look more evil if he was tapping his fingers together and saying, "Yes, yes," as he watched kidnapped Afghani children decide which limb he could cut off in order to make the potion that keeps Lynne from crumbling into a boneless blob.
And Jay Rockefeller leaning over, making sure that the bill is signed, enabling the administration, covering his own frighteningly large ass.
All dressed in black and gray, the colors of mourning.
Look at Cheney there yesterday as President Bush signed into law the free spying and free ride bill. He's got the stroke victim smirk in full-bore glow. Jesus, he couldn't look more evil if he was tapping his fingers together and saying, "Yes, yes," as he watched kidnapped Afghani children decide which limb he could cut off in order to make the potion that keeps Lynne from crumbling into a boneless blob.
And Jay Rockefeller leaning over, making sure that the bill is signed, enabling the administration, covering his own frighteningly large ass.
All dressed in black and gray, the colors of mourning.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
A Condemnation of Barack Obama Preceded by a Defense:
The wet kiss before the cold slap: Every day, the Rude Pundit receives an assload of spam about what a loser/traitor/general fuckwad Barack Obama allegedly is. In the few he's actually read (they are pretty subject-line explanatory), it goes something like this: "Boy, you were so fuckin' stupid, you fuckin' idiot, thinking that Obama was gonna be all liberal and shit and, hey, look at this issue, 'cause it shows how he ain't liberal at all." Since Obama is the Democratic nominee, and that isn't gonna change barring the emergence of a video showing the Illinois Senator in a three-way with Pat Robertson and Terri Schiavo, the Rude Pundit takes these to be pro-McCain voter suppression screeds. Whether or not that's the authors' intents, they are doing the work of the Republicans.
And most of it is bullshit for people who weren't paying attention during the primaries. Anyone who actually listened to Obama and read about his positions knew that he was, at best, slightly to the left of moderate (in today's right-warped political belief continuum). Those who believed he was a liberal savior were actually just reacting to the right wing's portrayal of him as "the mostest liberalest Senator" or some such shit, as in "Well, hell, if Bill O'Reilly says he's the mostest liberalest, then he's the candidate for me." We on the left often make this mistake: to see ourselves only as reflected in the conservative nutzoid mirror.
(It's the same reason so many on the left romanticize the Clinton presidency. Jesus, back in 1996, when Clinton had triangulated himself to near-Reagan levels of corporate lackey-ism, the only reason the Rude Pundit voted at all was because of Supreme Court appointees.)
So if you paid attention, you knew that Barack Obama loved the death penalty. You knew that he was pro-gun. You knew that he loved him some faith-based programs (and, if it's any comfort, the Family Research Council and other conservative and evangelical groups are pissed that Obama won't let churches discriminate in hiring for the programs). Most of this is no-brainer shit in the political realm. Did you really want Obama to have to defend no death penalty for child rapists? Pick your battles, motherfuckers, and pick 'em well.
Like this one: Barack Obama's reversal of his position on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was a craven, cowardly bullshit move that ought to haunt him with the left (and libertarian right) for the rest of the campaign. By voting for the bill yesterday (including voting for cloture), Obama made a mistake that is the political equivalent of Hillary Clinton's Iraq war vote. (They are not morally equivalent, since the dead would probably rather be alive and spied on.) And while there's no telling how Clinton would have voted had she been the nominee, just as there's no way to know how Obama would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate in 2002, the New York Senator was unencumbered and able to take the moral high ground and voted against the bill.
It wouldn't be so bad if Obama hadn't made an absolutely definitive statement about opposing any bill that contained immunity from civil lawsuits for telecommunications companies. But the bill did contain it. And he still voted for it. So he joined with other enabling Democrats to be like beaten dogs to their President-owner, hoping that Bush would praise them and pet them, even briefly. A proud, proud moment.
So now we know: Barack Obama believes that corporations that agree to break the law at the President's urging are not complicit, which means that if the President breaks the law, the law should be changed so that, retroactively, the President can't be prosecuted for the crime. He believes that anyone can be subject to surveillance at the whim of the President at any time with the only oversight being over the techniques of the surveillance ("No, guys, c'mon, you can't just put cameras all over the country. Oh, wait, sure, go ahead, you crazy terror fighters"). He believes that, even if the FISA court actually has the 'nads to say no, the government can continue its surveillance while it appeals the ruling. And on and on.
This thing is, Obama campaign, that we on the left need some red meat, too. It's easier to forgive the ludicrous merging of church and state that is funding the faith-based initiative if, say, you stand up for another part of the Constitution. So, yeah, Obama deserves all the heat he's getting in Left Blogsylvania and elsewhere. Does he think that Republicans won't call him a pussy on terrorism now?
Ultimately, many of us who support Obama do so even if we know his flaws, even if our stomachs churn when he acts like another politician desperate to get elected. That's because, like Michael Moore pointed out, his movement is more important than he is. If he's bringing legions of new voters to the party, then that means big ass gains in Congress. It's a way of transitioning away from the enormous damage done to our America this century. It's gonna take time, probably a few presidents, to heal ourselves. This ain't about forgiving Obama or giving him a pass. If a President Obama does nothing else but get us out of Iraq, even if it takes more than 16 months, then that's a running start.
Maybe the only way to achieve some ideals is to give up our idealism.
The wet kiss before the cold slap: Every day, the Rude Pundit receives an assload of spam about what a loser/traitor/general fuckwad Barack Obama allegedly is. In the few he's actually read (they are pretty subject-line explanatory), it goes something like this: "Boy, you were so fuckin' stupid, you fuckin' idiot, thinking that Obama was gonna be all liberal and shit and, hey, look at this issue, 'cause it shows how he ain't liberal at all." Since Obama is the Democratic nominee, and that isn't gonna change barring the emergence of a video showing the Illinois Senator in a three-way with Pat Robertson and Terri Schiavo, the Rude Pundit takes these to be pro-McCain voter suppression screeds. Whether or not that's the authors' intents, they are doing the work of the Republicans.
And most of it is bullshit for people who weren't paying attention during the primaries. Anyone who actually listened to Obama and read about his positions knew that he was, at best, slightly to the left of moderate (in today's right-warped political belief continuum). Those who believed he was a liberal savior were actually just reacting to the right wing's portrayal of him as "the mostest liberalest Senator" or some such shit, as in "Well, hell, if Bill O'Reilly says he's the mostest liberalest, then he's the candidate for me." We on the left often make this mistake: to see ourselves only as reflected in the conservative nutzoid mirror.
(It's the same reason so many on the left romanticize the Clinton presidency. Jesus, back in 1996, when Clinton had triangulated himself to near-Reagan levels of corporate lackey-ism, the only reason the Rude Pundit voted at all was because of Supreme Court appointees.)
So if you paid attention, you knew that Barack Obama loved the death penalty. You knew that he was pro-gun. You knew that he loved him some faith-based programs (and, if it's any comfort, the Family Research Council and other conservative and evangelical groups are pissed that Obama won't let churches discriminate in hiring for the programs). Most of this is no-brainer shit in the political realm. Did you really want Obama to have to defend no death penalty for child rapists? Pick your battles, motherfuckers, and pick 'em well.
Like this one: Barack Obama's reversal of his position on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was a craven, cowardly bullshit move that ought to haunt him with the left (and libertarian right) for the rest of the campaign. By voting for the bill yesterday (including voting for cloture), Obama made a mistake that is the political equivalent of Hillary Clinton's Iraq war vote. (They are not morally equivalent, since the dead would probably rather be alive and spied on.) And while there's no telling how Clinton would have voted had she been the nominee, just as there's no way to know how Obama would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate in 2002, the New York Senator was unencumbered and able to take the moral high ground and voted against the bill.
It wouldn't be so bad if Obama hadn't made an absolutely definitive statement about opposing any bill that contained immunity from civil lawsuits for telecommunications companies. But the bill did contain it. And he still voted for it. So he joined with other enabling Democrats to be like beaten dogs to their President-owner, hoping that Bush would praise them and pet them, even briefly. A proud, proud moment.
So now we know: Barack Obama believes that corporations that agree to break the law at the President's urging are not complicit, which means that if the President breaks the law, the law should be changed so that, retroactively, the President can't be prosecuted for the crime. He believes that anyone can be subject to surveillance at the whim of the President at any time with the only oversight being over the techniques of the surveillance ("No, guys, c'mon, you can't just put cameras all over the country. Oh, wait, sure, go ahead, you crazy terror fighters"). He believes that, even if the FISA court actually has the 'nads to say no, the government can continue its surveillance while it appeals the ruling. And on and on.
This thing is, Obama campaign, that we on the left need some red meat, too. It's easier to forgive the ludicrous merging of church and state that is funding the faith-based initiative if, say, you stand up for another part of the Constitution. So, yeah, Obama deserves all the heat he's getting in Left Blogsylvania and elsewhere. Does he think that Republicans won't call him a pussy on terrorism now?
Ultimately, many of us who support Obama do so even if we know his flaws, even if our stomachs churn when he acts like another politician desperate to get elected. That's because, like Michael Moore pointed out, his movement is more important than he is. If he's bringing legions of new voters to the party, then that means big ass gains in Congress. It's a way of transitioning away from the enormous damage done to our America this century. It's gonna take time, probably a few presidents, to heal ourselves. This ain't about forgiving Obama or giving him a pass. If a President Obama does nothing else but get us out of Iraq, even if it takes more than 16 months, then that's a running start.
Maybe the only way to achieve some ideals is to give up our idealism.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Dirty Fuckin' Hippies...For Real:
Hippies? Really, John McCain, is that the best you can do? Hippies? Is this the 1976 election? The McCain campaign's latest ad, titled, seriously, "Love," opens with scenes of crazy kids gettin' their freak on, maybe even on McCain's lawn, and a deeply-voiced dude saying, "It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change, the summer of love." Aw, cool. Free fucking for all. Then, total buzzkill, we switch to 'Nam and "Half a world away, another kind of love, of country: John McCain, shot down, bayoneted, tortured," punctuated by the used-so-much-we-don't-care-anymore photos of injured McCain, where, one assumes, we're supposed to say, "Hey, that old dude was young once."
This is the reduction of the late 60s and early 70s to the same fuckin' chronological diptych that has long suited conservatives: brave, forgotten soldiers fighting in the shit versus the self-indulgent children back home fucking in the mud. We could create all kinds of nonsensical parallels along this line: vicious, raping, infant-burning American soldiers versus righteous protesters trying to end a failed war and bring about rights for blacks and women. And, as ever, we need to remember that John McCain not only joined the military of his own accord, he requested combat duty. And while it doesn't justify McCain's treatment by his captors, well, if you ask to carry an open bucket of acid and you end up getting burned, how much pity do you deserve? And how many of those being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton were forced to fight the war in the first place?
The other thing that the McCain campaign keeps trying to do is to re-cast the Vietnam War as some valiant endeavor that was done in by those very hippies and their wacky tie-dyed t-shirts and marijuana. Well, shit, if you had been stabbed and beaten and forced to make propagandistic statements, if you fought a war that there was no way short of genocide to win, you'd want someone to blame, too. And it's just fuckin' easier to blame Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix.
That part of the ad is then followed by more vague, half sentences of blah-blah bullshit about how splendiferous a man this McCain is, even using the word "maverick." Then we get to the meat of this American stew: "John McCain doesn’t always tell us what we hope to hear. Beautiful words will not make our lives better...Don’t hope for a better life, vote for one." Yeah, motherfuckers, hippies were just blind optimists, not the stark-eyed realist of a man who asked to fight the Vietnam War. That man, he was dead-on right.
What's the point of the ad? To remind us again, to the point of stupor, that McCain got fucked up by the North Vietnamese? McCain's use of his imprisonment is making John Kerry's 2004 campaign look subtle. Maybe McCain's jealous that he was a POW when he could have been banging chicks who were getting ready to read The Joy of Sex. Maybe it's why McCain made up for lost time when he got back and dumped the damaged-goods Mrs.
This is just another of those "Fuck hope, you tools" ads that worked so well for Hillary Clinton. See, those big ass rallies you see for Obama are like Woodstock or protest marches (would that they were) or some such nonsense. It's an ad for shut-ins and idiots. As the New York Times points out, "Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, at whom this spot takes veiled swipes, was turning 6 years old during the 'summer of love,' and cannot be counted as among those who protested or indulged while Mr. McCain suffered (unless playing with building blocks counts)." Maybe Obama was spelling out "Better red than dead" with those blocks.
And while the ad is called "Love," the title is, like the man himself, just a cover for a simmering, unrequited rage at all those who have moved on from Vietnam.
Hippies? Really, John McCain, is that the best you can do? Hippies? Is this the 1976 election? The McCain campaign's latest ad, titled, seriously, "Love," opens with scenes of crazy kids gettin' their freak on, maybe even on McCain's lawn, and a deeply-voiced dude saying, "It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change, the summer of love." Aw, cool. Free fucking for all. Then, total buzzkill, we switch to 'Nam and "Half a world away, another kind of love, of country: John McCain, shot down, bayoneted, tortured," punctuated by the used-so-much-we-don't-care-anymore photos of injured McCain, where, one assumes, we're supposed to say, "Hey, that old dude was young once."
This is the reduction of the late 60s and early 70s to the same fuckin' chronological diptych that has long suited conservatives: brave, forgotten soldiers fighting in the shit versus the self-indulgent children back home fucking in the mud. We could create all kinds of nonsensical parallels along this line: vicious, raping, infant-burning American soldiers versus righteous protesters trying to end a failed war and bring about rights for blacks and women. And, as ever, we need to remember that John McCain not only joined the military of his own accord, he requested combat duty. And while it doesn't justify McCain's treatment by his captors, well, if you ask to carry an open bucket of acid and you end up getting burned, how much pity do you deserve? And how many of those being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton were forced to fight the war in the first place?
The other thing that the McCain campaign keeps trying to do is to re-cast the Vietnam War as some valiant endeavor that was done in by those very hippies and their wacky tie-dyed t-shirts and marijuana. Well, shit, if you had been stabbed and beaten and forced to make propagandistic statements, if you fought a war that there was no way short of genocide to win, you'd want someone to blame, too. And it's just fuckin' easier to blame Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix.
That part of the ad is then followed by more vague, half sentences of blah-blah bullshit about how splendiferous a man this McCain is, even using the word "maverick." Then we get to the meat of this American stew: "John McCain doesn’t always tell us what we hope to hear. Beautiful words will not make our lives better...Don’t hope for a better life, vote for one." Yeah, motherfuckers, hippies were just blind optimists, not the stark-eyed realist of a man who asked to fight the Vietnam War. That man, he was dead-on right.
What's the point of the ad? To remind us again, to the point of stupor, that McCain got fucked up by the North Vietnamese? McCain's use of his imprisonment is making John Kerry's 2004 campaign look subtle. Maybe McCain's jealous that he was a POW when he could have been banging chicks who were getting ready to read The Joy of Sex. Maybe it's why McCain made up for lost time when he got back and dumped the damaged-goods Mrs.
This is just another of those "Fuck hope, you tools" ads that worked so well for Hillary Clinton. See, those big ass rallies you see for Obama are like Woodstock or protest marches (would that they were) or some such nonsense. It's an ad for shut-ins and idiots. As the New York Times points out, "Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, at whom this spot takes veiled swipes, was turning 6 years old during the 'summer of love,' and cannot be counted as among those who protested or indulged while Mr. McCain suffered (unless playing with building blocks counts)." Maybe Obama was spelling out "Better red than dead" with those blocks.
And while the ad is called "Love," the title is, like the man himself, just a cover for a simmering, unrequited rage at all those who have moved on from Vietnam.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Down a Handful of Lunesta with a Bottle of Cheap Sake:
Here is our President with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-8 Summit in Japan. On every occasion, he just looks like a semi-drunk Rotarian on a goodwill junket, wondering at his dumb luck and thinking about that prostitute he was promised.
Here is our President with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-8 Summit in Japan. On every occasion, he just looks like a semi-drunk Rotarian on a goodwill junket, wondering at his dumb luck and thinking about that prostitute he was promised.
In Brief: John McCain Hates/Hearts Economists:
Okay, follow this. It's got a fun little pay off:
So John McCain proposes a gas tax holiday and economists almost universally say it's a stupid idea. In June, McCain, being a reasonable man, chooses to mock the economists: "If you want to call it a gimmick, fine. You know the economists? They’re the same ones that didn’t predict this housing crisis we’re now in." Ha-ha. Stupid economists. What do they know?
Now McCain has put forth a great and mighty economic plan. Did it yesterday, less than a month after dissing the poindexters. And his campaign has released a letter from, well, who else? Economists who support it. Oodles of them. Guess they know a lot about economics, eh?
Here's the final step: the Rude Pundit chose one of the names at relatively random. University of Chicago's Gary Becker, who does a blog on, you know, economics, with Richard Posner. And here's that promised pay off: back in December 2007, Becker says, "The vast majority of economists, including me, were surprised by the extent of the subprime mortgage crisis."
So, to conclude: for John McCain, economists who didn't predict the mortgage crisis don't know what they're talking about when it comes to a gas tax holiday, but when it comes to his entire economic plan, they're a-ok. What fun.
Does that qualify as straight talk?
Okay, follow this. It's got a fun little pay off:
So John McCain proposes a gas tax holiday and economists almost universally say it's a stupid idea. In June, McCain, being a reasonable man, chooses to mock the economists: "If you want to call it a gimmick, fine. You know the economists? They’re the same ones that didn’t predict this housing crisis we’re now in." Ha-ha. Stupid economists. What do they know?
Now McCain has put forth a great and mighty economic plan. Did it yesterday, less than a month after dissing the poindexters. And his campaign has released a letter from, well, who else? Economists who support it. Oodles of them. Guess they know a lot about economics, eh?
Here's the final step: the Rude Pundit chose one of the names at relatively random. University of Chicago's Gary Becker, who does a blog on, you know, economics, with Richard Posner. And here's that promised pay off: back in December 2007, Becker says, "The vast majority of economists, including me, were surprised by the extent of the subprime mortgage crisis."
So, to conclude: for John McCain, economists who didn't predict the mortgage crisis don't know what they're talking about when it comes to a gas tax holiday, but when it comes to his entire economic plan, they're a-ok. What fun.
Does that qualify as straight talk?
Monday, July 07, 2008
Housekeeping: The Rude Pundit at Netroots Nation and in a Book:
The Rude Pundit will be appearing on a panel at the Netroots Nation convention in Austin. The conference formerly known as "Yearly Kos" runs from July 17-20, and the Rude Pundit's panel is at 9 a.m. on Friday, July 18. It's titled "Different Tones and Wider Nets," all about profanity and tone in blogs, and the dais will be shared by a luscious array of left-wing practitioners of blogger: Atrios, Digby, Kevin Drum, Jesse Taylor, and Amanda Marcotte, who, as revealed here back in February 2007, is the Rude Pundit's hopeless school boy crush.
Also, the Rude Pundit appears in a new book from Polipoint Press called Why I'm a Democrat, edited by Susan Mulcahy. It's got pieces by Frank McCourt, Nora Ephron, Jonathan Franzen, Min Jin Lee, and Uma Thurman (really), among others, as well as an original piece by this blogger. No, it ain't a profound book, but it's like chicken soup for our poor, damaged Democratic souls, enough to get us on our feet again for the coming election.
The Rude Pundit will be appearing on a panel at the Netroots Nation convention in Austin. The conference formerly known as "Yearly Kos" runs from July 17-20, and the Rude Pundit's panel is at 9 a.m. on Friday, July 18. It's titled "Different Tones and Wider Nets," all about profanity and tone in blogs, and the dais will be shared by a luscious array of left-wing practitioners of blogger: Atrios, Digby, Kevin Drum, Jesse Taylor, and Amanda Marcotte, who, as revealed here back in February 2007, is the Rude Pundit's hopeless school boy crush.
Also, the Rude Pundit appears in a new book from Polipoint Press called Why I'm a Democrat, edited by Susan Mulcahy. It's got pieces by Frank McCourt, Nora Ephron, Jonathan Franzen, Min Jin Lee, and Uma Thurman (really), among others, as well as an original piece by this blogger. No, it ain't a profound book, but it's like chicken soup for our poor, damaged Democratic souls, enough to get us on our feet again for the coming election.
Jesse Helms in Heaven (A Fantasia):
Frankly, he was as surprised as anyone that he ended up in heaven. Jesse Helms had been sure that all the Christ-loving in the world wouldn't undo the harm that he knew he had done: his support for El Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson, about whom he had said, "All I know is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious;" his support for the apartheid government of South Africa and antipathy to the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela; his support of Augusto Pinochet during and after the revelation of the horrific abuses of the dictator's regime. Yes, any of those actions, let alone his bigotry and hatred, should have meant that when his demented, crippled body finally gave out, his corrupt soul would have plunged immediately into the flames of hell for an eternity of being forced to give blow jobs to insatiable barbed-dick demons who'd plunge their spur-topped cocks so deeply into his mouth that they'd rip through the back of his head.
A man may say on earth that he is godly and wants to be embraced by Jesus, but in his heart, oh, in his heart, he knows what kind of man he really is. So, indeed, he thinks as he looks around at clouds and blue skies and halos and angels and peace, yes, yes, peace, what the fuck?
A darkie walks up to Helms, a polite-looking fellow, obedient even. "I'm sure you have questions," says the darkie. Yeah, Helms says, where's Jesus? When the darkie tells Helms that he is the son of God, Helms laughs. Niggers have such a charming sense of humor, always wanting to trick the white folk. "No, really. Look," says Jesus, and he holds up his hands to reveal the wounds. "Want me to make some water into wine or some such shit?"
Helms recoils. Surely, this must be his dementia at work. But then things start to come into focus more and more. He sees white folk walking around with darkies of all sort: porch monkeys, towelheads, wetbacks, all of 'em acting as if it's the most natural thing in the world. And then he notices how they're not just friends, but also lovers. People of different colors kissing and holding hands, happy about it. Still, even worse, are the homosexuals, smiling and waving at the heterosexuals, the straights waving back, seeming, in a word, blissful.
He turns to Jesus. "If you like this, wait for a minute," says the brown Savior. And, as if on cue, everyone is suddenly nude, bereft of robe and wings, and then one of the black and white couples starts miscegenating like there's no tomorrow, just mad balling with cherubs pushing up clouds to give them proper support for their position, a seemingly impossible entwining of legs and arms. Others join in: the gay male couples taking turns bending each other over, the lesbians strapping on dildos named "Saint Peter" and going to town, the straights discovering that they are more flexible in paradise than they ever were on earth. Eventually, the fucking couples, as far as the eye can see, begin to reach out to each other, weaving together into a huge crazy patchwork quilt of an orgy, all races and sexualities merging together, sucking and plunging and coming and going back for more, never tiring, never losing erections or wetness, never getting sore, never needing to stop unless they want to, for, after all, it is heaven. Over on the side, Michelangelo is painting a mural of it all.
An aghast Helms is not so sure anymore about where he is. "Is this hell?" he asks Jesus.
Jesus stares at Helms as if the dead Senator is the most pathetic creature ever created. "No," Jesus says, "In hell, none of this happens. Do you want to see?"
Helms starts to nod, and, before he even finishes his head motion, he finds himself on a stool in a stark white room. In front of him is a glass of water that refills whenever he drinks it. After a while, what might be days, what might be centuries, he realizes that this is it: complete and utter isolation, bathed in whiteness, for all eternity, no one to touch but himself, no one to see but his own reflection in the glass.
Christ appears to Helms, asks him if he wants to come back to heaven. Helms considers for a moment, his mind seared with the memory of the divine fuckfest, and tells his Lord, "No, this will do just fine."
Frankly, he was as surprised as anyone that he ended up in heaven. Jesse Helms had been sure that all the Christ-loving in the world wouldn't undo the harm that he knew he had done: his support for El Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson, about whom he had said, "All I know is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious;" his support for the apartheid government of South Africa and antipathy to the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela; his support of Augusto Pinochet during and after the revelation of the horrific abuses of the dictator's regime. Yes, any of those actions, let alone his bigotry and hatred, should have meant that when his demented, crippled body finally gave out, his corrupt soul would have plunged immediately into the flames of hell for an eternity of being forced to give blow jobs to insatiable barbed-dick demons who'd plunge their spur-topped cocks so deeply into his mouth that they'd rip through the back of his head.
A man may say on earth that he is godly and wants to be embraced by Jesus, but in his heart, oh, in his heart, he knows what kind of man he really is. So, indeed, he thinks as he looks around at clouds and blue skies and halos and angels and peace, yes, yes, peace, what the fuck?
A darkie walks up to Helms, a polite-looking fellow, obedient even. "I'm sure you have questions," says the darkie. Yeah, Helms says, where's Jesus? When the darkie tells Helms that he is the son of God, Helms laughs. Niggers have such a charming sense of humor, always wanting to trick the white folk. "No, really. Look," says Jesus, and he holds up his hands to reveal the wounds. "Want me to make some water into wine or some such shit?"
Helms recoils. Surely, this must be his dementia at work. But then things start to come into focus more and more. He sees white folk walking around with darkies of all sort: porch monkeys, towelheads, wetbacks, all of 'em acting as if it's the most natural thing in the world. And then he notices how they're not just friends, but also lovers. People of different colors kissing and holding hands, happy about it. Still, even worse, are the homosexuals, smiling and waving at the heterosexuals, the straights waving back, seeming, in a word, blissful.
He turns to Jesus. "If you like this, wait for a minute," says the brown Savior. And, as if on cue, everyone is suddenly nude, bereft of robe and wings, and then one of the black and white couples starts miscegenating like there's no tomorrow, just mad balling with cherubs pushing up clouds to give them proper support for their position, a seemingly impossible entwining of legs and arms. Others join in: the gay male couples taking turns bending each other over, the lesbians strapping on dildos named "Saint Peter" and going to town, the straights discovering that they are more flexible in paradise than they ever were on earth. Eventually, the fucking couples, as far as the eye can see, begin to reach out to each other, weaving together into a huge crazy patchwork quilt of an orgy, all races and sexualities merging together, sucking and plunging and coming and going back for more, never tiring, never losing erections or wetness, never getting sore, never needing to stop unless they want to, for, after all, it is heaven. Over on the side, Michelangelo is painting a mural of it all.
An aghast Helms is not so sure anymore about where he is. "Is this hell?" he asks Jesus.
Jesus stares at Helms as if the dead Senator is the most pathetic creature ever created. "No," Jesus says, "In hell, none of this happens. Do you want to see?"
Helms starts to nod, and, before he even finishes his head motion, he finds himself on a stool in a stark white room. In front of him is a glass of water that refills whenever he drinks it. After a while, what might be days, what might be centuries, he realizes that this is it: complete and utter isolation, bathed in whiteness, for all eternity, no one to touch but himself, no one to see but his own reflection in the glass.
Christ appears to Helms, asks him if he wants to come back to heaven. Helms considers for a moment, his mind seared with the memory of the divine fuckfest, and tells his Lord, "No, this will do just fine."
Friday, July 04, 2008
Mercy Otis Warren Would Fuck Bush's Shit Up:
For this Independence Day, let us remember Mercy Otis Warren, the playwright, poet, and propagandist of near-Painean proportions. Born in 1728, she was friends with Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams (except for a period after she kicked John's ass in print). She wrote plays that called the British a bunch of pussies, as well as anti-Tory pamphlets that did the same. She was an advocate for freedom of the press and freedom of speech in her "Observations on the new constitution." And, like all of the founders, she was profoundly opposed to having a president that was like a king.
This is from the end of her three volume History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, published in 1805, about the war her husband and sons had just finished fighting in (spelling and punctuation are hers), where she not only warns about potential tyranny, but implores a separation between church and state to be maintained for the sake of religion:
"Perfection in government is not to be expected from so imperfect a creature as man; experience has taught, that he falls infinitely short of this point; that however industrious in pursuit of improvements in human wisdom, or however bold the inquiry that employs the human intellect, either on government, ethics, or any other science, man yet discovers a deficiency of capacity to satisfy his researches, or to announce that he has already found an unerring standard on which he may rest.
"Perhaps genius has never devised a system more congenial to their wishes, or better adapted to the condition of man, than the American constitution. At the same time, it is left open to amendments whenever its imperfections are discovered by the wisdom of future generations, or when new contingencies may arise either at home or abroad, to make alterations necessary. On the principles of republicanism was this constitution founded; on these it must stand. Many corrections and amendments have already taken place, and it is at the present period as wise, as efficient, as respectable, as free, and we hope as permanent, as any constitution existing on earth. It is a system admired by statesmen abroad, envied by distant nations, and revered by Americans. They pride themselves on this palladium of safety, fabricated at a dangerous crisis, and established on the broad basis of the elective voice of the people. It now depends on their own virtue, to continue the United States of America an example of the respectability and dignity of this mode of government.
"Notwithstanding the advantages that may be derived, and the safety that may be felt, under so happy a constitution, yet it is necessary to guard at every point, against the intrigues of artful or ambitious men, who may subvert the system which the inhabitants of the United States judged to be most conducive to the general happiness of society.
"It is now indeed at the option of the sons of America to delegate such men for the administration of government, as will consider the designation of this trust as a sacred deposite, which binds them to the indispensable duty of aiming solely at the promotion of the civil, the economical, the religious, and political welfare of the whole community. They therefore cannot be too scrutinous on the character of their executive officers. No man should be lifted by the voice of his country to presidential rank, who may probably forget the republican designation, and sigh to wield a sceptre, instead of guarding sacredly the charter from the people. It is to be hoped, that no American citizen will hereafter pant for nobility. The senators of the United States should be wise, her representatives uncorrupt, the judiciary firm, equitable, and humane, and the bench of justice ever adorned by men uninfluenced by little passions, and adhering only to the principles of law and equity! The people should be economical and sober; and the clergy should keep within their own line, which directs them to enforce the moral obligations of society, and to inculcate the doctrines of peace, brotherly kindness, and the forgiveness of injuries, taught by the example of their Divine Master, nor should they leave the appropriate duties of their profession, to descant on political principles or characters...
"All who have just ideas of the equal claims of mankind to share the benefits of a free and benign government, and virtue sufficient to aid its promotion, will fervently pray, that the narrow passions of the selfish, or the ambitious views of more elevated minds, may never render fruitless the labors of the wise and vigilant patriot, who sacrificed much to this noble purpose, nor defeat the severe efforts of the soldier, who fell in the field, or stain the laurels of such as have survived the conflict."
For this Independence Day, let us remember Mercy Otis Warren, the playwright, poet, and propagandist of near-Painean proportions. Born in 1728, she was friends with Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams (except for a period after she kicked John's ass in print). She wrote plays that called the British a bunch of pussies, as well as anti-Tory pamphlets that did the same. She was an advocate for freedom of the press and freedom of speech in her "Observations on the new constitution." And, like all of the founders, she was profoundly opposed to having a president that was like a king.
This is from the end of her three volume History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, published in 1805, about the war her husband and sons had just finished fighting in (spelling and punctuation are hers), where she not only warns about potential tyranny, but implores a separation between church and state to be maintained for the sake of religion:
"Perfection in government is not to be expected from so imperfect a creature as man; experience has taught, that he falls infinitely short of this point; that however industrious in pursuit of improvements in human wisdom, or however bold the inquiry that employs the human intellect, either on government, ethics, or any other science, man yet discovers a deficiency of capacity to satisfy his researches, or to announce that he has already found an unerring standard on which he may rest.
"Perhaps genius has never devised a system more congenial to their wishes, or better adapted to the condition of man, than the American constitution. At the same time, it is left open to amendments whenever its imperfections are discovered by the wisdom of future generations, or when new contingencies may arise either at home or abroad, to make alterations necessary. On the principles of republicanism was this constitution founded; on these it must stand. Many corrections and amendments have already taken place, and it is at the present period as wise, as efficient, as respectable, as free, and we hope as permanent, as any constitution existing on earth. It is a system admired by statesmen abroad, envied by distant nations, and revered by Americans. They pride themselves on this palladium of safety, fabricated at a dangerous crisis, and established on the broad basis of the elective voice of the people. It now depends on their own virtue, to continue the United States of America an example of the respectability and dignity of this mode of government.
"Notwithstanding the advantages that may be derived, and the safety that may be felt, under so happy a constitution, yet it is necessary to guard at every point, against the intrigues of artful or ambitious men, who may subvert the system which the inhabitants of the United States judged to be most conducive to the general happiness of society.
"It is now indeed at the option of the sons of America to delegate such men for the administration of government, as will consider the designation of this trust as a sacred deposite, which binds them to the indispensable duty of aiming solely at the promotion of the civil, the economical, the religious, and political welfare of the whole community. They therefore cannot be too scrutinous on the character of their executive officers. No man should be lifted by the voice of his country to presidential rank, who may probably forget the republican designation, and sigh to wield a sceptre, instead of guarding sacredly the charter from the people. It is to be hoped, that no American citizen will hereafter pant for nobility. The senators of the United States should be wise, her representatives uncorrupt, the judiciary firm, equitable, and humane, and the bench of justice ever adorned by men uninfluenced by little passions, and adhering only to the principles of law and equity! The people should be economical and sober; and the clergy should keep within their own line, which directs them to enforce the moral obligations of society, and to inculcate the doctrines of peace, brotherly kindness, and the forgiveness of injuries, taught by the example of their Divine Master, nor should they leave the appropriate duties of their profession, to descant on political principles or characters...
"All who have just ideas of the equal claims of mankind to share the benefits of a free and benign government, and virtue sufficient to aid its promotion, will fervently pray, that the narrow passions of the selfish, or the ambitious views of more elevated minds, may never render fruitless the labors of the wise and vigilant patriot, who sacrificed much to this noble purpose, nor defeat the severe efforts of the soldier, who fell in the field, or stain the laurels of such as have survived the conflict."
Correction:
The previous post identified Roberto Clemente, Jr. as merely "Roberto Clemente." This apparently confused baseball fans (or at least Pittsburgh Pirate fans) who wondered how Sr., who died tragically in 1972, could appear at the White House on Monday. Thus, the post has been corrected to clarify that it is actually the living Roberto who was present and that zombies do not yet roam the land.
The previous post identified Roberto Clemente, Jr. as merely "Roberto Clemente." This apparently confused baseball fans (or at least Pittsburgh Pirate fans) who wondered how Sr., who died tragically in 1972, could appear at the White House on Monday. Thus, the post has been corrected to clarify that it is actually the living Roberto who was present and that zombies do not yet roam the land.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Freebase Hot Dogs While Huffing Apple Pie:
Hey, there's the President of the United States. And that's Roberto Clemente, Jr. And some kid. And Dugout, the Little League mascot and horrible genetic mutation belched forth by the polluted environment. It must be tee ball time at the White House.
The White House tee ball game is an annual event beloved by all. This year, the teams were from Camden, New Jersey and Rockville, Maryland. Look at our President. He's joshin' around with people. What could spoil this perfect American day?
Now, the point here is not to mock a bleeding child. Andy Fortuna must have been hurt and scared after being hit in the face with a ball at the President's final South Lawn tee ball game. This picture is merely offered as a poignant metaphor for the end of the Bush presidency. Oh, Andy, we know how ya feel.
Hey, there's the President of the United States. And that's Roberto Clemente, Jr. And some kid. And Dugout, the Little League mascot and horrible genetic mutation belched forth by the polluted environment. It must be tee ball time at the White House.
The White House tee ball game is an annual event beloved by all. This year, the teams were from Camden, New Jersey and Rockville, Maryland. Look at our President. He's joshin' around with people. What could spoil this perfect American day?
Now, the point here is not to mock a bleeding child. Andy Fortuna must have been hurt and scared after being hit in the face with a ball at the President's final South Lawn tee ball game. This picture is merely offered as a poignant metaphor for the end of the Bush presidency. Oh, Andy, we know how ya feel.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Christopher Hitchens Has Himself Waterboarded:
And it's not nearly as amusing as you'd like it to be.
And it's not nearly as amusing as you'd like it to be.
Fuck Military Experience: Five Other Experiences That Don't Make You Qualified to Be President:
The mock outrage over Wesley Clark's statement of the obvious, that taking a nosedive in a plane doesn't qualify you for the presidency, is hilarious because some of the lamest presidents in our history have been effulgent with military service (Ulysses S. Grant, for obvious example). So, actually, Clark's own time leading NATO troops doesn't say shit about his ability to run an economy and make Supreme Court appointments. In fact, there's actually no predictor for what makes one turn into a good president. Every stupid goddamn argument on the left and right about what in one's background will make a candidate a solid president, trotted out in endless biographical ads to make the candidate seem authentic or connected or some such shit, can be shown to be worthless. Here's a birth o' America week history lesson:
1. Being from a working class background doesn't make you qualified to be president. Herbert Hoover's father was a blacksmith, and he was a mining engineer. How'd that go?
2. Being vice president doesn't make you qualified to be president. Richard Nixon liked him some Ike. That was a resume' builder, eh?
3. Being a party loyalist doesn't make you qualified to be president. Warren Harding was freakin' beloved by early 20th century Republicans. Want his zombie running things?
4. Having vast elected experience doesn't make you qualified to be president. Andrew Johnson was a mayor, a state legislator, a representative, a governor, a senator, and vice president. Yes, he was never elected president, but one of the qualifications of being vice president ought to be the ability to be president, which, as we are seeing, is based on rather intangible things, no?
5. Being president doesn't make you qualified to be president. George W. Bush, you know. Hell, he's practically a fuckin' catalog of supposed "qualities" that'd make you a good president, like business leader, governor, Ivy Leaguer, and more, except for the fact that he failed at all of them. Which ought to have disqualified him in the first place, but we know how that all worked out, our memories not that damaged by the chemicals in our food and water and air yet.
So what's it take? If McCain getting beaten by the Vietnamese and Obama being a self-made person from a less privileged background aren't solid indicators of anything, are we not bereft of factors to consider? The frightening thing is how much of it is gut and luck. To condemn Wesley Clark for stating the obvious is to believe that you have insights the rest of us, throughout our history, do not.
The mock outrage over Wesley Clark's statement of the obvious, that taking a nosedive in a plane doesn't qualify you for the presidency, is hilarious because some of the lamest presidents in our history have been effulgent with military service (Ulysses S. Grant, for obvious example). So, actually, Clark's own time leading NATO troops doesn't say shit about his ability to run an economy and make Supreme Court appointments. In fact, there's actually no predictor for what makes one turn into a good president. Every stupid goddamn argument on the left and right about what in one's background will make a candidate a solid president, trotted out in endless biographical ads to make the candidate seem authentic or connected or some such shit, can be shown to be worthless. Here's a birth o' America week history lesson:
1. Being from a working class background doesn't make you qualified to be president. Herbert Hoover's father was a blacksmith, and he was a mining engineer. How'd that go?
2. Being vice president doesn't make you qualified to be president. Richard Nixon liked him some Ike. That was a resume' builder, eh?
3. Being a party loyalist doesn't make you qualified to be president. Warren Harding was freakin' beloved by early 20th century Republicans. Want his zombie running things?
4. Having vast elected experience doesn't make you qualified to be president. Andrew Johnson was a mayor, a state legislator, a representative, a governor, a senator, and vice president. Yes, he was never elected president, but one of the qualifications of being vice president ought to be the ability to be president, which, as we are seeing, is based on rather intangible things, no?
5. Being president doesn't make you qualified to be president. George W. Bush, you know. Hell, he's practically a fuckin' catalog of supposed "qualities" that'd make you a good president, like business leader, governor, Ivy Leaguer, and more, except for the fact that he failed at all of them. Which ought to have disqualified him in the first place, but we know how that all worked out, our memories not that damaged by the chemicals in our food and water and air yet.
So what's it take? If McCain getting beaten by the Vietnamese and Obama being a self-made person from a less privileged background aren't solid indicators of anything, are we not bereft of factors to consider? The frightening thing is how much of it is gut and luck. To condemn Wesley Clark for stating the obvious is to believe that you have insights the rest of us, throughout our history, do not.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The Parhat Decision: The Courts Can Handle the Truth:
Think of our government in terms of some horrible torture device from the Middle Ages, where three prisoners are placed on three platforms, one prisoner per, and the platforms are connected by ropes to a central point and balance each other. In the middle, held in place by the other platforms and a large rope connected somewhere above, a larger platform holds the children of the prisoners, unaware of what's going on. It's all like a chandelier of despair, if you will. Below them are, oh, hell, let's say alligators and sharp wooden spikes, so that if you fall and get impaled, you can't run as the gators tear you apart and engorge your delicious innards. That seems properly medieval.
Now, here's the deal: if one of the prisoners tries to escape or falls off, everyone plunges into the pit of spikes and gators. So, in the best scenario that can be hoped for, the prisoners would have more or less silently assented to stay there, keeping everything nice and balanced. However, if one of those prisoners was the Bush administration, that bastard'd be leaping for the large platform, making sure the other two were ripped to pieces. Here's the problem, one last little twist in this endless metaphor: the middle platform wasn't meant to hold the weight of another person, and the rope that's holding it suspended above the pit is fraying fast. And two emaciated prisoners have only made the gators hungrier.
In its decision on enemy combatant status for Gitmo detainee Huzaifa Parhat, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said, in essence, the executive branch needs to learn its place. One of the key passages is this from page 30 of the unanimous (and quite redacted) decision: "In this opinion, we neither prescribe nor proscribe possible ways in which the government may demonstrate the reliability of its evidence. We merely reject the government’s contention that it can prevail by submitting documents that read as if they were indictments or civil complaints, and that simply assert as facts the elements required to prove that a detainee falls within the definition of enemy combatant. To do otherwise would require the courts to rubber-stamp the government’s charges, in contravention of our understanding that Congress intended the court 'to engage in meaningful review of the record.'"
As we head towards Independence Day weekend, ya gotta love that a federal court just proclaimed to the White House, "Hey, fuckers, there's a reason we're all here, us and the Congress."
The court even cited the recent Supreme Court decision allowing for habeas corpus to apply to the detainees: "Boumediene made it quite clear that, at least for a detainee like Parhat who has been imprisoned for a lengthy period and has already had a CSRT [Combatant Status Review Tribunal], a habeas corpus proceeding in the district court is also available....He may pursue such a proceeding immediately, without waiting to learn whether the government will convene another CSRT...The habeas proceeding will have procedures that are more protective of Parhat’s rights than those available under the DTA [Detainee Treatment Act]...In that
proceeding, he will be able to make use of the determinations we have made today regarding the decision of his CSRT, and he will be able to raise issues that we did not reach. Most important, in that proceeding there is no question but that the court will have the power to order him released."
Yes, the three-judge panel, which includes two Republican appointees, cock-punched the Bush administration, even offering a quote from Lewis Carroll to point out how absurd the administration's contentions are: "I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true." (Take that sarcasm, Antonin Scalia.) In other words, they can't keep someone in jail forever, torturing them for information they don't have, just because the President (any president, by the way, Republicans) says so. Check out that Declaration we shoot fireworks for. It's pretty goddamn clear on that point.
Of course, of course, right wingers are upset. Said Coast Guard Academy professor Glenn Sulmasy, "This case displays the inadequacies of having civilian courts inject themselves into military decision-making." In an editorial on the habeas decision, Sulmasy came up with the idea of creating another court system, neither military tribunal nor civilian court, but an unholy meshing of them, in order to try terrorists. One presumes that that shadow court would get a shadow Constitution, too.
But with the Boumediene case and now the Parhat case, the courts of this nation are telling us, "Stop being such little bitches about terrorism." Cowards, criminals, and liars are those who so mistrust proof and evidence and, well, fuck, truth. Of course, we are being led by...oh, you know.
Think of our government in terms of some horrible torture device from the Middle Ages, where three prisoners are placed on three platforms, one prisoner per, and the platforms are connected by ropes to a central point and balance each other. In the middle, held in place by the other platforms and a large rope connected somewhere above, a larger platform holds the children of the prisoners, unaware of what's going on. It's all like a chandelier of despair, if you will. Below them are, oh, hell, let's say alligators and sharp wooden spikes, so that if you fall and get impaled, you can't run as the gators tear you apart and engorge your delicious innards. That seems properly medieval.
Now, here's the deal: if one of the prisoners tries to escape or falls off, everyone plunges into the pit of spikes and gators. So, in the best scenario that can be hoped for, the prisoners would have more or less silently assented to stay there, keeping everything nice and balanced. However, if one of those prisoners was the Bush administration, that bastard'd be leaping for the large platform, making sure the other two were ripped to pieces. Here's the problem, one last little twist in this endless metaphor: the middle platform wasn't meant to hold the weight of another person, and the rope that's holding it suspended above the pit is fraying fast. And two emaciated prisoners have only made the gators hungrier.
In its decision on enemy combatant status for Gitmo detainee Huzaifa Parhat, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said, in essence, the executive branch needs to learn its place. One of the key passages is this from page 30 of the unanimous (and quite redacted) decision: "In this opinion, we neither prescribe nor proscribe possible ways in which the government may demonstrate the reliability of its evidence. We merely reject the government’s contention that it can prevail by submitting documents that read as if they were indictments or civil complaints, and that simply assert as facts the elements required to prove that a detainee falls within the definition of enemy combatant. To do otherwise would require the courts to rubber-stamp the government’s charges, in contravention of our understanding that Congress intended the court 'to engage in meaningful review of the record.'"
As we head towards Independence Day weekend, ya gotta love that a federal court just proclaimed to the White House, "Hey, fuckers, there's a reason we're all here, us and the Congress."
The court even cited the recent Supreme Court decision allowing for habeas corpus to apply to the detainees: "Boumediene made it quite clear that, at least for a detainee like Parhat who has been imprisoned for a lengthy period and has already had a CSRT [Combatant Status Review Tribunal], a habeas corpus proceeding in the district court is also available....He may pursue such a proceeding immediately, without waiting to learn whether the government will convene another CSRT...The habeas proceeding will have procedures that are more protective of Parhat’s rights than those available under the DTA [Detainee Treatment Act]...In that
proceeding, he will be able to make use of the determinations we have made today regarding the decision of his CSRT, and he will be able to raise issues that we did not reach. Most important, in that proceeding there is no question but that the court will have the power to order him released."
Yes, the three-judge panel, which includes two Republican appointees, cock-punched the Bush administration, even offering a quote from Lewis Carroll to point out how absurd the administration's contentions are: "I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true." (Take that sarcasm, Antonin Scalia.) In other words, they can't keep someone in jail forever, torturing them for information they don't have, just because the President (any president, by the way, Republicans) says so. Check out that Declaration we shoot fireworks for. It's pretty goddamn clear on that point.
Of course, of course, right wingers are upset. Said Coast Guard Academy professor Glenn Sulmasy, "This case displays the inadequacies of having civilian courts inject themselves into military decision-making." In an editorial on the habeas decision, Sulmasy came up with the idea of creating another court system, neither military tribunal nor civilian court, but an unholy meshing of them, in order to try terrorists. One presumes that that shadow court would get a shadow Constitution, too.
But with the Boumediene case and now the Parhat case, the courts of this nation are telling us, "Stop being such little bitches about terrorism." Cowards, criminals, and liars are those who so mistrust proof and evidence and, well, fuck, truth. Of course, we are being led by...oh, you know.
Monday, June 30, 2008
How Badly Does Conservative Spooge Bucket Kevin McCullough Want to Get Fucked by Barack Obama?:
On a Monday, whenever the weekend has ended and one is feeling like one's tongue is covered in tequila-flavored cashmere and one is washing the tangy perfume of pussy out of one's facial hair, whenever a quick review of the transcripts of the Sunday morning gab-gasms stunningly reveals that Obama's supporters support Obama and McCain's supporters support McCain, whenever one has wearied of another barrage of revelations of just how very fucked over we've been over the last seven years (see today's Times or another Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker), one can always rely on Kevin McCullough over at the right wing clearinghouse of feces-smeared bugfuckery known as Townhall.com to come through with just the right balance of inanity and insanity, wrapped in a tortilla of stupidity, covered in a secret sauce of...well, really, it's just his semen.
In this week's "column" (if by "column," you mean, "an agonizing cry for someone to turn that vibrator in his ass up to 'Rapture'"), McCullough attacks Barack Obama for preaching "the Gospel of Condoms." Now, strangely, that has nothing to do with the Apostle Thomas discovering that the properly-used skin of a lamb allowed him to fuck whores without fear of scabies. No, McCullough says that Obama and others of his ilk (like Henry Waxman) declaim the good of condom usage as if it were given from God. But, and here's McCullough's clever twist, he's being ironic. Why, it's not really a gospel at all.
Oh, yeah, it's fine and dandy to twist facts like McCullough does when he cites recent studies from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control saying that there's not a pandemic of AIDS and that HIV cases are on the rise again among gay males. No, we expect that. We expect that conservative spooge buckets who love the abstinence (because it's the only way to completely sublimate their queer desire) will be total dicks, as McCullough is when he says, "Ironically enough - behavior and control of one's choices are key to the surge as the headline blared out: HIV Resurges in Men who have sex with Men. Wow, what a sad case of, 'Duh!'"
But it's at that point that the real fun begins. Following the ricocheting Spaldeen of logic, McCullough says, "This has been true since we first began seeing AIDS cases develop. Elected officials should have called for quarantine for the public good..." Yep, McCullough hearkens back to the good ol' days in the 80s when the hysterical little drama queens on the right wanted to confine children who had HIV.
Still, the height of McCullough's derangement is a little later in the column when he goes back to the CDC study, which says, "The jump was highest — an increase of 12.4 percent — among boys and men between the ages of 13 and 24 years who had sex with other males, particularly among ethnic minorities." McCullough puts that fact this way: "The sad thing is that in the CDC's analysis they casually mention that the age group of 'man' that is most at risk presently in the HIV surge are black boys 13-24 years of age." (The racist twist is fun, too, since the largest jump was in Asian/Pacific Islanders, not exactly "black boys.")
There's only one way this could happen in McCullough's sad and narrow world view: "Why are HIV infected adult males raping 13 year old boys? Why are they getting away with it? Why aren't even the most compassionate in the radical homosexual activist ranks condemning the actions?" That's a serious paragraph from McCullough, not a joke. Thirteen year-olds must be getting raped in order for them to get infected because, surely, they wouldn't be having consensual sex with other teenagers. McCullough reaffirms his outrage at the plague of the forced sodomizing of adolescent negroes when he says, "children are literally being raped to death."
How do you even make fun of that? The wonderful thing about McCullough is he's an unwitting parody of conservatism. That's sub-O'Reilly hysteria. It's the kind of logical leap that'd make Aristotle say, "Oh, fuck this," before burning his work and diddling a young boy.
Of course, who else is there to blame other than, you know, the Democrats? And that leads us back to Kevin McCullough's visceral desire to feel Barack Obama's cock tip tickle his uvula, to guzzle the Senator's hot chode like a desperate drunk discovering a hidden bottle of Jack Daniels. Here's how the column ends:
"Barack Obama believes in the Gospel of Condoms. But it is a false gospel - one that exchanges death for a few fleeting seconds of impulse. And not very attractive ones at that."
That last line is McCullough imagining gay fucking. It is an unnecessary addition to the previous line, a little jab that is more revealing than all the words that preceded it. He came to the end of the previous sentence, left with the delicious picture of Obama slowly rolling a condom down his long, brown dick, and, to shove that intense desire out of his mind, he had to say, "It's ugly, yes, it's ugly." Through his self-revulsion, McCullough quickly typed the last line and then slammed his laptop closed repeatedly on his own tiny, tumescent peter so it might lose its need.
On a Monday, whenever the weekend has ended and one is feeling like one's tongue is covered in tequila-flavored cashmere and one is washing the tangy perfume of pussy out of one's facial hair, whenever a quick review of the transcripts of the Sunday morning gab-gasms stunningly reveals that Obama's supporters support Obama and McCain's supporters support McCain, whenever one has wearied of another barrage of revelations of just how very fucked over we've been over the last seven years (see today's Times or another Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker), one can always rely on Kevin McCullough over at the right wing clearinghouse of feces-smeared bugfuckery known as Townhall.com to come through with just the right balance of inanity and insanity, wrapped in a tortilla of stupidity, covered in a secret sauce of...well, really, it's just his semen.
In this week's "column" (if by "column," you mean, "an agonizing cry for someone to turn that vibrator in his ass up to 'Rapture'"), McCullough attacks Barack Obama for preaching "the Gospel of Condoms." Now, strangely, that has nothing to do with the Apostle Thomas discovering that the properly-used skin of a lamb allowed him to fuck whores without fear of scabies. No, McCullough says that Obama and others of his ilk (like Henry Waxman) declaim the good of condom usage as if it were given from God. But, and here's McCullough's clever twist, he's being ironic. Why, it's not really a gospel at all.
Oh, yeah, it's fine and dandy to twist facts like McCullough does when he cites recent studies from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control saying that there's not a pandemic of AIDS and that HIV cases are on the rise again among gay males. No, we expect that. We expect that conservative spooge buckets who love the abstinence (because it's the only way to completely sublimate their queer desire) will be total dicks, as McCullough is when he says, "Ironically enough - behavior and control of one's choices are key to the surge as the headline blared out: HIV Resurges in Men who have sex with Men. Wow, what a sad case of, 'Duh!'"
But it's at that point that the real fun begins. Following the ricocheting Spaldeen of logic, McCullough says, "This has been true since we first began seeing AIDS cases develop. Elected officials should have called for quarantine for the public good..." Yep, McCullough hearkens back to the good ol' days in the 80s when the hysterical little drama queens on the right wanted to confine children who had HIV.
Still, the height of McCullough's derangement is a little later in the column when he goes back to the CDC study, which says, "The jump was highest — an increase of 12.4 percent — among boys and men between the ages of 13 and 24 years who had sex with other males, particularly among ethnic minorities." McCullough puts that fact this way: "The sad thing is that in the CDC's analysis they casually mention that the age group of 'man' that is most at risk presently in the HIV surge are black boys 13-24 years of age." (The racist twist is fun, too, since the largest jump was in Asian/Pacific Islanders, not exactly "black boys.")
There's only one way this could happen in McCullough's sad and narrow world view: "Why are HIV infected adult males raping 13 year old boys? Why are they getting away with it? Why aren't even the most compassionate in the radical homosexual activist ranks condemning the actions?" That's a serious paragraph from McCullough, not a joke. Thirteen year-olds must be getting raped in order for them to get infected because, surely, they wouldn't be having consensual sex with other teenagers. McCullough reaffirms his outrage at the plague of the forced sodomizing of adolescent negroes when he says, "children are literally being raped to death."
How do you even make fun of that? The wonderful thing about McCullough is he's an unwitting parody of conservatism. That's sub-O'Reilly hysteria. It's the kind of logical leap that'd make Aristotle say, "Oh, fuck this," before burning his work and diddling a young boy.
Of course, who else is there to blame other than, you know, the Democrats? And that leads us back to Kevin McCullough's visceral desire to feel Barack Obama's cock tip tickle his uvula, to guzzle the Senator's hot chode like a desperate drunk discovering a hidden bottle of Jack Daniels. Here's how the column ends:
"Barack Obama believes in the Gospel of Condoms. But it is a false gospel - one that exchanges death for a few fleeting seconds of impulse. And not very attractive ones at that."
That last line is McCullough imagining gay fucking. It is an unnecessary addition to the previous line, a little jab that is more revealing than all the words that preceded it. He came to the end of the previous sentence, left with the delicious picture of Obama slowly rolling a condom down his long, brown dick, and, to shove that intense desire out of his mind, he had to say, "It's ugly, yes, it's ugly." Through his self-revulsion, McCullough quickly typed the last line and then slammed his laptop closed repeatedly on his own tiny, tumescent peter so it might lose its need.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Guns, Baby, Guns: More Scalia-Scribed Batshittery:
If words could be tortured, Supreme Court Antonin Scalia would be their Torquemada. For, indeed, Scalia can take the most obvious of phrases or words and place those poor bastards on the rack until their intestines are straightened, shove a red-hot poker up their asses until he can brand "Big Tony" on their colons, and give them a particularly nasty titty-twisting, and, by fuckin' God, those words are gonna give up whatever their obvious and relevant definitions are and let Scalia say what they "really" mean. If you see an OED yelping with its hands over its crotch running down Pennsylvania Avenue, chances are that it's being pursued by demonically puffing, sweaty-robed Scalia holding a nut vice.
For in his majority opinion on the District of Columbia v. Heller gun law case, Scalia teaches us that lives are doomed because the rules of grammar and the definitions of words are interpretable and fluid. Enjoy: "Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command. The Second Amendment would be nonsensical if it read, 'A well regulated Militia,being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to petition for redress of grievances shall not be infringed.' That requirement of logical connection may cause a prefatory clause to resolve an ambiguity in the operative clause ('The separation of church and state being an important objective, the teachings of canons shall have no place in our jurisprudence.' The preface makes clear that the operative clause refers not to canons of interpretation but to clergymen.) But apart from that clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause...Therefore, while we will begin our textual analysis with the operative clause, we will return to the prefatory clause to ensure that our reading of the operative clause is consistent with the announced purpose."
For want of a Strunk and White, the people of DC (and Chicago and Detroit and etc.) were lost.
And then, seriously, motherfucker goes through the definitions of the words in the phrase "to keep and bear arms." No, no, seriously. For pages and pages: "The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined 'arms' as 'weapons of offence, or armour of defence.'" Or: "At the time of the founding, as now, to 'bear' meant to 'carry.'" It's the jurisprudence version of "Fuck you," which means it's simply par for the course for Scalia.
By the time he gets to the opening of the Second Amendment, "A well-regulated militia," Scalia's not quite as free with the overexplanations: "Finally, the adjective 'well-regulated' implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training." And, that phrase being anathema to his overarching point, it's all he says about it. Nothing more about what the meaning of "well-regulated" might be from the majority. That's left to the dissenters to say, "Umm, motherfuckers, you left something out."
By the way, other words left out of Scalia's dictionary (and his opinion): "shoot" and "shot" (except in reference to Scalia's favorite substitute for the penis he hasn't seen for decades, his "shot gun") and "kill" (except in reference to game) and "death." Those get in the way of the majority's opinion, which is, "Fuck that inconvenient first clause in the Second Amendment. Go out and buy yourself a Glock, America."
Scalia argues with Breyer's dissent, saying that rights cannot be conditional, as Breyer does when looking at DC's handgun ban, saying that gun violence in a cities might have an effect on regulation. That's quite the contradiction with the Scalia who raped the Fourth Amendment just a week ago or so in his dissent on the Gitmo habeas corpus decision. But, hey, let's give Scalia the point: he's correct that just because shit gets ugly that rights ought not be tossed aside. He's so fuckin' wrong though on what that right actually is.
If words could be tortured, Supreme Court Antonin Scalia would be their Torquemada. For, indeed, Scalia can take the most obvious of phrases or words and place those poor bastards on the rack until their intestines are straightened, shove a red-hot poker up their asses until he can brand "Big Tony" on their colons, and give them a particularly nasty titty-twisting, and, by fuckin' God, those words are gonna give up whatever their obvious and relevant definitions are and let Scalia say what they "really" mean. If you see an OED yelping with its hands over its crotch running down Pennsylvania Avenue, chances are that it's being pursued by demonically puffing, sweaty-robed Scalia holding a nut vice.
For in his majority opinion on the District of Columbia v. Heller gun law case, Scalia teaches us that lives are doomed because the rules of grammar and the definitions of words are interpretable and fluid. Enjoy: "Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command. The Second Amendment would be nonsensical if it read, 'A well regulated Militia,being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to petition for redress of grievances shall not be infringed.' That requirement of logical connection may cause a prefatory clause to resolve an ambiguity in the operative clause ('The separation of church and state being an important objective, the teachings of canons shall have no place in our jurisprudence.' The preface makes clear that the operative clause refers not to canons of interpretation but to clergymen.) But apart from that clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause...Therefore, while we will begin our textual analysis with the operative clause, we will return to the prefatory clause to ensure that our reading of the operative clause is consistent with the announced purpose."
For want of a Strunk and White, the people of DC (and Chicago and Detroit and etc.) were lost.
And then, seriously, motherfucker goes through the definitions of the words in the phrase "to keep and bear arms." No, no, seriously. For pages and pages: "The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined 'arms' as 'weapons of offence, or armour of defence.'" Or: "At the time of the founding, as now, to 'bear' meant to 'carry.'" It's the jurisprudence version of "Fuck you," which means it's simply par for the course for Scalia.
By the time he gets to the opening of the Second Amendment, "A well-regulated militia," Scalia's not quite as free with the overexplanations: "Finally, the adjective 'well-regulated' implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training." And, that phrase being anathema to his overarching point, it's all he says about it. Nothing more about what the meaning of "well-regulated" might be from the majority. That's left to the dissenters to say, "Umm, motherfuckers, you left something out."
By the way, other words left out of Scalia's dictionary (and his opinion): "shoot" and "shot" (except in reference to Scalia's favorite substitute for the penis he hasn't seen for decades, his "shot gun") and "kill" (except in reference to game) and "death." Those get in the way of the majority's opinion, which is, "Fuck that inconvenient first clause in the Second Amendment. Go out and buy yourself a Glock, America."
Scalia argues with Breyer's dissent, saying that rights cannot be conditional, as Breyer does when looking at DC's handgun ban, saying that gun violence in a cities might have an effect on regulation. That's quite the contradiction with the Scalia who raped the Fourth Amendment just a week ago or so in his dissent on the Gitmo habeas corpus decision. But, hey, let's give Scalia the point: he's correct that just because shit gets ugly that rights ought not be tossed aside. He's so fuckin' wrong though on what that right actually is.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
North Korea's and Iraq's Weapons Declarations: One of These Things Is Exactly Like the Other, Except Not:
Wait, wait, wait a minute here. North Korea submits a weapons declaration to China that might tell us what we want to know about their nuclear weapons programs; as Condoleezza Rice said, "I do think it’s important to note that if we can verifiably determine the amount of plutonium that has been made, we then have an upper hand in understanding what may have happened in terms of weaponisation." You got that? And the result is that it's cool by the Bush administration.
In fact, shit's more than cool. It's downright detenterrific. Said the President, "First, I'm issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea. And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days."
Now, if the Rude Pundit remembers his recent history (although, truth be told, these days, shit that happened last year seems about as distant as the tadpole days of a dying frog - such is the result of our American dementia), back in December 2002, there was another member of the Axissss o' Eeeeeevil who made a big ol' weapons declaration, when Iraq "delivered a 12,000-page declaration on banned weapons to the United Nations, meeting a Security Council deadline with more than 24 hours to spare. Officials said the documents confirmed, in rebuttal of American and British claims, that Saddam Hussein's government had no weapons of mass destruction and no current programs to develop them." As the ever dickish Ari Fleischer said at the time, Iraq had issued "what it claims is a declaration of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems."
That huge motherfucker, which turned out to be more right than just about every publicly revealed assessment about Iraq's WMDs, was given this prelude by Bush: "We will judge the declaration's honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time. The declaration must be credible and accurate and complete, or the Iraqi dictator will have demonstrated to the world once again that he has chosen not to change his behavior."
Now, hey, groovy, man, that actual, honest-to-god, "talking to our enemies" diplomacy has produced results. And, yeah, Bush made sure to say he hasn't gone all pussy on North Korea ("We remain deeply concerned about North Korea's human rights abuses"). But the disjunction is jarring, like that moment when you realize that your parents are carnal creatures who were probably 69ing while you were dreaming of GI Joe adventures.
Who knew there were levels of eeeevil in that axisss? Today, more than ever, the throbbing hard-on this White House had for war with Iraq is a visible tent in their pleated trousers.
Wait, wait, wait a minute here. North Korea submits a weapons declaration to China that might tell us what we want to know about their nuclear weapons programs; as Condoleezza Rice said, "I do think it’s important to note that if we can verifiably determine the amount of plutonium that has been made, we then have an upper hand in understanding what may have happened in terms of weaponisation." You got that? And the result is that it's cool by the Bush administration.
In fact, shit's more than cool. It's downright detenterrific. Said the President, "First, I'm issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea. And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days."
Now, if the Rude Pundit remembers his recent history (although, truth be told, these days, shit that happened last year seems about as distant as the tadpole days of a dying frog - such is the result of our American dementia), back in December 2002, there was another member of the Axissss o' Eeeeeevil who made a big ol' weapons declaration, when Iraq "delivered a 12,000-page declaration on banned weapons to the United Nations, meeting a Security Council deadline with more than 24 hours to spare. Officials said the documents confirmed, in rebuttal of American and British claims, that Saddam Hussein's government had no weapons of mass destruction and no current programs to develop them." As the ever dickish Ari Fleischer said at the time, Iraq had issued "what it claims is a declaration of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems."
That huge motherfucker, which turned out to be more right than just about every publicly revealed assessment about Iraq's WMDs, was given this prelude by Bush: "We will judge the declaration's honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time. The declaration must be credible and accurate and complete, or the Iraqi dictator will have demonstrated to the world once again that he has chosen not to change his behavior."
Now, hey, groovy, man, that actual, honest-to-god, "talking to our enemies" diplomacy has produced results. And, yeah, Bush made sure to say he hasn't gone all pussy on North Korea ("We remain deeply concerned about North Korea's human rights abuses"). But the disjunction is jarring, like that moment when you realize that your parents are carnal creatures who were probably 69ing while you were dreaming of GI Joe adventures.
Who knew there were levels of eeeevil in that axisss? Today, more than ever, the throbbing hard-on this White House had for war with Iraq is a visible tent in their pleated trousers.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
All The President's Balls (A Photo Essay):
Yesterday, the President of the United States honored two years worth of NCAA sports champions. From bowling to basketball, mostly he did so by proudly clutching balls and making sure that everyone got a picture.
As was his usual way, George W. Bush praised the team members for their accomplishments off the field, as well as on: "[W]e thank you for your contributions to the communities in which you live. These athletes have volunteered at food banks during holidays; they have visited schools to inspire children with disabilities; they've encouraged literacy and good health; they've raised money to fight cancer. What I'm telling you are -- is they're great athletes and good citizens." That last sentence, with its wistful attempt at English, prioritizes the players there: always citizens last.
Surely, the temptation here is to point out all the awful things going on in the world while Bush was playing with his new balls, like the three dead American soldiers in Mosul, with more injured, who might some day be lucky enough to be visited by college athletes while at Walter Reed or another hospital. But that would be trite. Reductionist. After all, are we not allowed to celebrate the triumphs of youth?
Yet there is something deeply disconcerting in Bush's non-stop grinning throughout. Something disquieting, as if within his heart and soul, he is at peace while so many of us are not.
Maybe that's it. At the end of the day, those of us who despise this man want to see that he suffers. We don't want to hear from him that he cries or prays or any such nonsense. We want to see him doubled over in agony, retching out his guts over what he has done.
But that is not his way. Just like his unimaginably graceless confession about the war in Iraq that his only mistake was in talking tougher than he should have, he simply floats along, blissful, as if he's not only wearing rose-colored glasses, but wearing some kind of goggles that enable him to see unicorns, rainbows, goddamn Care Bears.
For, at the end of the day, a man who is sending people to die should not be allowed to have as much fun as this man has day in, day out, a presidency of non-stop c'est la vie.
Yesterday, the President of the United States honored two years worth of NCAA sports champions. From bowling to basketball, mostly he did so by proudly clutching balls and making sure that everyone got a picture.
As was his usual way, George W. Bush praised the team members for their accomplishments off the field, as well as on: "[W]e thank you for your contributions to the communities in which you live. These athletes have volunteered at food banks during holidays; they have visited schools to inspire children with disabilities; they've encouraged literacy and good health; they've raised money to fight cancer. What I'm telling you are -- is they're great athletes and good citizens." That last sentence, with its wistful attempt at English, prioritizes the players there: always citizens last.
Surely, the temptation here is to point out all the awful things going on in the world while Bush was playing with his new balls, like the three dead American soldiers in Mosul, with more injured, who might some day be lucky enough to be visited by college athletes while at Walter Reed or another hospital. But that would be trite. Reductionist. After all, are we not allowed to celebrate the triumphs of youth?
Yet there is something deeply disconcerting in Bush's non-stop grinning throughout. Something disquieting, as if within his heart and soul, he is at peace while so many of us are not.
Maybe that's it. At the end of the day, those of us who despise this man want to see that he suffers. We don't want to hear from him that he cries or prays or any such nonsense. We want to see him doubled over in agony, retching out his guts over what he has done.
But that is not his way. Just like his unimaginably graceless confession about the war in Iraq that his only mistake was in talking tougher than he should have, he simply floats along, blissful, as if he's not only wearing rose-colored glasses, but wearing some kind of goggles that enable him to see unicorns, rainbows, goddamn Care Bears.
For, at the end of the day, a man who is sending people to die should not be allowed to have as much fun as this man has day in, day out, a presidency of non-stop c'est la vie.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
The FISA Failure and the Sodomy of the Patriots:
Betsy Ross loved anal. She could not get enough ye olde cocke in her sphincter, especially when she could tickle her pudenda while her buttocks were being reamed. And no one gave her a right round rogering better than Paul Revere. The old horse-riding silversmith would gallop by Betsy's place and the candles in the window would tell all: one if by ass, two if by cunt. Needless to say, unless the sores were acting up, every night was a single flame night at the Ross residence. Hell, Betsy Ross was working on the first flag of the nation while getting sodomized by Paul Revere, and she asked between gulps and yelps what she should use to represent the colonies on the field of blue. "Why, stars, dear Mistress Ross," gasped Revere between thrusts, "for they do remind me of your tight asshole." And stars it was, yes, stars it was.
How do we know about the sexual predilections of two of our more apocryphal figures in the tale of the founding of America? Because the British would open their love notes without any cause or warrant. Why? Because the British could. Indeed, in one Federalist paper or another, James Madison blatantly refers to the Ross/Revere letters as a reason for the Fourth Amendment: "The reasoning is plain and clear: if one man wishes to commune with another man regarding his desire for sodomy, he should be allowed to do so without fear that his private correspondences will be espied upon. This is doubly so should one of those men be a woman. Barring legitimate warrant granted by a court, any man writing of his throbbing need to plunge his John Hancock into a secondary, or, perhaps, a tertiary human hole of pleasure should be guaranteed the knowledge that his desires shall remain between him and his fellow."
If Madison or Benjamin Franklin could, they would bitch slap the Democrats in Congress for legalizing the ability of the President to authorize spying on Americans with no oversight, no cause other than whatever whim the President wants to call an emergency. And to the Republicans who pinched each other's nipples in joy at how the Democrats raised their haunches for easy access, the Rude Pundit hopes you trust the hell out of President Obama.
The Rude Pundit's tired of backwards ass conservative wads of fuck telling him and others on the Left that they are pussies for believing in the Constitution. No, no. See, the right has it completely reversed. It's easy to sit there and say, "You know what? Fuck it. Let those in power do whatever they want under the banner of 'Keeping Us Safe.'" Hell, that flag may as well say, "Tread On Me." We may as well sign that when we pay our bills to the telecoms, who are gettin' a free ride in order to, you know, shut the fuck up about who asked them to violate the law.
The truly complex, difficult position is to say, "No, you sons and daughters of bitches, you don't give up the very things that make us Americans." See, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" isn't a conditional phrase. It ain't "Well, Give Me the Liberties You Think I Oughta Have As Long As It's Balanced With Your Tortured Legalistic Definitions and Limitations On the Constitution, But, Hey, As Long As You Tell Me We're Still Free, It's All Cool, Yo."
Of course, the real disappointment here is Barack Obama and his collapse on all but telecom immunity. It's a bullshit political position, a convenient way of deflecting any snarling McCain attacks, the rhetorical equivalent of driving around in a tank. What Obama is supposed to do in this instance is say, "I'm a tougher motherfucker for standing for the Constitution than for allowing terrorists to dictate how many rights we have."
Betsy Ross loved anal. She could not get enough ye olde cocke in her sphincter, especially when she could tickle her pudenda while her buttocks were being reamed. And no one gave her a right round rogering better than Paul Revere. The old horse-riding silversmith would gallop by Betsy's place and the candles in the window would tell all: one if by ass, two if by cunt. Needless to say, unless the sores were acting up, every night was a single flame night at the Ross residence. Hell, Betsy Ross was working on the first flag of the nation while getting sodomized by Paul Revere, and she asked between gulps and yelps what she should use to represent the colonies on the field of blue. "Why, stars, dear Mistress Ross," gasped Revere between thrusts, "for they do remind me of your tight asshole." And stars it was, yes, stars it was.
How do we know about the sexual predilections of two of our more apocryphal figures in the tale of the founding of America? Because the British would open their love notes without any cause or warrant. Why? Because the British could. Indeed, in one Federalist paper or another, James Madison blatantly refers to the Ross/Revere letters as a reason for the Fourth Amendment: "The reasoning is plain and clear: if one man wishes to commune with another man regarding his desire for sodomy, he should be allowed to do so without fear that his private correspondences will be espied upon. This is doubly so should one of those men be a woman. Barring legitimate warrant granted by a court, any man writing of his throbbing need to plunge his John Hancock into a secondary, or, perhaps, a tertiary human hole of pleasure should be guaranteed the knowledge that his desires shall remain between him and his fellow."
If Madison or Benjamin Franklin could, they would bitch slap the Democrats in Congress for legalizing the ability of the President to authorize spying on Americans with no oversight, no cause other than whatever whim the President wants to call an emergency. And to the Republicans who pinched each other's nipples in joy at how the Democrats raised their haunches for easy access, the Rude Pundit hopes you trust the hell out of President Obama.
The Rude Pundit's tired of backwards ass conservative wads of fuck telling him and others on the Left that they are pussies for believing in the Constitution. No, no. See, the right has it completely reversed. It's easy to sit there and say, "You know what? Fuck it. Let those in power do whatever they want under the banner of 'Keeping Us Safe.'" Hell, that flag may as well say, "Tread On Me." We may as well sign that when we pay our bills to the telecoms, who are gettin' a free ride in order to, you know, shut the fuck up about who asked them to violate the law.
The truly complex, difficult position is to say, "No, you sons and daughters of bitches, you don't give up the very things that make us Americans." See, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" isn't a conditional phrase. It ain't "Well, Give Me the Liberties You Think I Oughta Have As Long As It's Balanced With Your Tortured Legalistic Definitions and Limitations On the Constitution, But, Hey, As Long As You Tell Me We're Still Free, It's All Cool, Yo."
Of course, the real disappointment here is Barack Obama and his collapse on all but telecom immunity. It's a bullshit political position, a convenient way of deflecting any snarling McCain attacks, the rhetorical equivalent of driving around in a tank. What Obama is supposed to do in this instance is say, "I'm a tougher motherfucker for standing for the Constitution than for allowing terrorists to dictate how many rights we have."
Monday, June 23, 2008
Alas, Dead Carlin:
You can't imagine how ballsy it was when George Carlin, as a semi-regular guest on the Ed Sullivan Show, decided to go from observational humor guy joking about the coming attractions at movies in 1967 to making genocide jokes in 1968. All the time surrounded by Peggy Lee or Helen Hayes or fuckin' Topo Gigio. By the time we get to 1971 and the dying days of Sullivan's variety show, Carlin was singing to the CBS audience, to the tune of "America the Beautiful":
"O beautiful for smoggy skies
Insecticided grain
For strip-mined mountains majesty
Above the asphalt plain
America! America!
Men sheds his waste on thee
And hides the pines with billboard signs
From sea to oily sea."
(Let us also praise Ed Sullivan, who routinely went to bat against the censors to bring edgier material to America.)
Carlin's transformation from guy-in-suit comic to crazy hippie was the mirror image of the gutting and filleting of the nation in the time of near revolution. Indeed, Carlin's change caused him to lose contracts and, in one bizarro case in Vegas, nearly make an audience riot. They were expecting jokes about how crappy daytime TV was. But if tight-assed early 1960s USA helped kill Lenny Bruce, post-Woodstock America embraced Carlin like a Wall Street trader burning his ties to live on a commune to grow cabbage, smoke good shit, and fuck other fallen squares.
'Cause when he turned, he fuckin' turned, man. Going after Nixon and the Vietnam War with a savage sense of what is truly, morally right and wrong. And despising hypocrisy, whether it was in the idiotic rules of censorship in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine (which spawned the Supreme Court case of the FCC vs. Pacifica Radio, which you'll read about elsewhere today) or, most especially, in religion. Carlin went after religion like a starving wolverine will take down caribou.
On the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, forced to wear a suit by the suits at NBC (which he put over his customary t-shirt), Carlin put into the mainstream these dangerous ideas:
"Now, some religions - which are not to be confused with God - some religions will tell you that it's quite okay not to worry about your own life. Religion has a way of relieving yourself of any responsibility for your acts. It's God's will! 'Oh, I ran over the kid in the driveway, yes, but don't look at me! God's will!' Can't you see a lynch mob going, 'Let's get this guy, God! That's the fourth kid He's killed this week!'
"Religion - religion, at best - at BEST - is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better - fine. But you don't need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled. Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don't ask me to wear your shoes. And let's not go down and nail lifts onto the natives' feet."
Carlin wouldn't appear on the show again until 1984. He had completely pissed off the Archbishop of New York, who called in during the monologue when Carlin said that God is in our image, not the other way around.
No, George Carlin wasn't the funniest of comics (at least not to the Rude Pundit). But he was brave, man, and really smart, sometimes almost too smart. If someone showed him a sacred cow, he'd fuck it. Cocaine abuse, heart attacks, it didn't stop him until yesterday. And he just didn't give a damn because he had a perspective on reality that'd scare the shit out of most people:
"There are two ways to think about this existence we have. One of them is that it's Wednesday and it's three fifteen and we're talking here in my home, and at four o'clock I have to leave for another meeting. Now, that's a reality. But there's another reality. We're in the solar system of a second-rate star, three quarters of the way out on a spiral arm of an average galaxy in a thing called the Local Group. And ours is only one of billions of galaxies, each of which has billions of stars. Some star systems are binary, and there could be a planet that revolves around a center of gravity between two binary stars. So you'd have two sunrises and two sunsets every day. One could be a red giant, the other a white dwarf; two different-sized, -shaped, and -colored suns in the sky. And there might be other planets and comets. In other words, fuck Wednesday, fuck three fifteen, fuck four o'clock, fuck the United States, fuck the earth. It's all temporal bullshit. I like thinking about being out there and not thinking about the corporate structure, not worrying about freedom, and not worrying about guns. I chose a life of ideas. That entertains me. That nourishes me."
You can't imagine how ballsy it was when George Carlin, as a semi-regular guest on the Ed Sullivan Show, decided to go from observational humor guy joking about the coming attractions at movies in 1967 to making genocide jokes in 1968. All the time surrounded by Peggy Lee or Helen Hayes or fuckin' Topo Gigio. By the time we get to 1971 and the dying days of Sullivan's variety show, Carlin was singing to the CBS audience, to the tune of "America the Beautiful":
"O beautiful for smoggy skies
Insecticided grain
For strip-mined mountains majesty
Above the asphalt plain
America! America!
Men sheds his waste on thee
And hides the pines with billboard signs
From sea to oily sea."
(Let us also praise Ed Sullivan, who routinely went to bat against the censors to bring edgier material to America.)
Carlin's transformation from guy-in-suit comic to crazy hippie was the mirror image of the gutting and filleting of the nation in the time of near revolution. Indeed, Carlin's change caused him to lose contracts and, in one bizarro case in Vegas, nearly make an audience riot. They were expecting jokes about how crappy daytime TV was. But if tight-assed early 1960s USA helped kill Lenny Bruce, post-Woodstock America embraced Carlin like a Wall Street trader burning his ties to live on a commune to grow cabbage, smoke good shit, and fuck other fallen squares.
'Cause when he turned, he fuckin' turned, man. Going after Nixon and the Vietnam War with a savage sense of what is truly, morally right and wrong. And despising hypocrisy, whether it was in the idiotic rules of censorship in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine (which spawned the Supreme Court case of the FCC vs. Pacifica Radio, which you'll read about elsewhere today) or, most especially, in religion. Carlin went after religion like a starving wolverine will take down caribou.
On the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, forced to wear a suit by the suits at NBC (which he put over his customary t-shirt), Carlin put into the mainstream these dangerous ideas:
"Now, some religions - which are not to be confused with God - some religions will tell you that it's quite okay not to worry about your own life. Religion has a way of relieving yourself of any responsibility for your acts. It's God's will! 'Oh, I ran over the kid in the driveway, yes, but don't look at me! God's will!' Can't you see a lynch mob going, 'Let's get this guy, God! That's the fourth kid He's killed this week!'
"Religion - religion, at best - at BEST - is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better - fine. But you don't need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled. Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don't ask me to wear your shoes. And let's not go down and nail lifts onto the natives' feet."
Carlin wouldn't appear on the show again until 1984. He had completely pissed off the Archbishop of New York, who called in during the monologue when Carlin said that God is in our image, not the other way around.
No, George Carlin wasn't the funniest of comics (at least not to the Rude Pundit). But he was brave, man, and really smart, sometimes almost too smart. If someone showed him a sacred cow, he'd fuck it. Cocaine abuse, heart attacks, it didn't stop him until yesterday. And he just didn't give a damn because he had a perspective on reality that'd scare the shit out of most people:
"There are two ways to think about this existence we have. One of them is that it's Wednesday and it's three fifteen and we're talking here in my home, and at four o'clock I have to leave for another meeting. Now, that's a reality. But there's another reality. We're in the solar system of a second-rate star, three quarters of the way out on a spiral arm of an average galaxy in a thing called the Local Group. And ours is only one of billions of galaxies, each of which has billions of stars. Some star systems are binary, and there could be a planet that revolves around a center of gravity between two binary stars. So you'd have two sunrises and two sunsets every day. One could be a red giant, the other a white dwarf; two different-sized, -shaped, and -colored suns in the sky. And there might be other planets and comets. In other words, fuck Wednesday, fuck three fifteen, fuck four o'clock, fuck the United States, fuck the earth. It's all temporal bullshit. I like thinking about being out there and not thinking about the corporate structure, not worrying about freedom, and not worrying about guns. I chose a life of ideas. That entertains me. That nourishes me."
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