(Credit for the final image from NASA, taken yesterday.)
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
What Arizona Has to Say About Its Own Law:
While we all have our collective panties in a justifiable wad over Arizona cops being allowed to stop anyone to ask for proof of legal residence (or citizenship), let's see what the newspapers around the state have to say:
"That doesn't mean the legislation necessarily is good but it does mean people think it's the best we can do in the face of the federal government's refusal under presidential administrations of both parties over more than 50 years to do anything because a steadily worsening status quo serves narrow political agendas." - The Prescott Daily Courier, in an editorial that doesn't endorse the law, after citing a poll showing 70% of Arizonans favor the new law.
"Unfortunately, those who support the Arizona immigration law - who have justified it by claiming the federal government has failed in its immigration responsibilities - are likely to see this as continued failure. They seem to want only one approach - enforcement and punishment." - The Yuma Sun, referring to efforts by the Obama administration to push for immigration reform, in an editorial condemning the law.
- From the Arizona Daily Star, the Tucson newspaper, a cartoon titled, "Are Your Papers in Order?"
"Do we pass harsh anti-illegal-immigrant laws and face accusations of racism? Or do we allow a free-flow of foreign immigrants across the Mexican border? Or do we continue to a search for a middle ground, a search that has been fruitless since the 1950s?" - The Camp Verde Bugle, in an editorial praising the new law and Gov. Jan Brewer.
Across the political spectrum, however anyone think of this savage, oppressive law (which will go down so quickly in a court challenge that it'll make Glenn Beck's head spin faster), it's stunningly clear that Washington has been populated by a bunch of pussies about immigration reform and border security for at least couple of decades now. That refusal to act crosses lines, whether it's the blithe cruelty of Republicans or the political wind-testing of Democrats. Sanity and rationality in Washington about the issue has long ago been flushed out in favor of a patchwork of failed measures and half-hearted beliefs.
And while, yes, the actions of Arizona are racist and tyrannical (truly, not fake, Tea Party tyranny), maybe we need to see this in another way: as a cry for help from a lost, fucked-up child to its incompetent parent. Of course the kid's gonna shoot up heroin, steal a car, knock up his girlfriend, and set his room on fire. Christ, what else does he need to do to get the right attention?
While we all have our collective panties in a justifiable wad over Arizona cops being allowed to stop anyone to ask for proof of legal residence (or citizenship), let's see what the newspapers around the state have to say:
"That doesn't mean the legislation necessarily is good but it does mean people think it's the best we can do in the face of the federal government's refusal under presidential administrations of both parties over more than 50 years to do anything because a steadily worsening status quo serves narrow political agendas." - The Prescott Daily Courier, in an editorial that doesn't endorse the law, after citing a poll showing 70% of Arizonans favor the new law.
"Unfortunately, those who support the Arizona immigration law - who have justified it by claiming the federal government has failed in its immigration responsibilities - are likely to see this as continued failure. They seem to want only one approach - enforcement and punishment." - The Yuma Sun, referring to efforts by the Obama administration to push for immigration reform, in an editorial condemning the law.
- From the Arizona Daily Star, the Tucson newspaper, a cartoon titled, "Are Your Papers in Order?"
"Do we pass harsh anti-illegal-immigrant laws and face accusations of racism? Or do we allow a free-flow of foreign immigrants across the Mexican border? Or do we continue to a search for a middle ground, a search that has been fruitless since the 1950s?" - The Camp Verde Bugle, in an editorial praising the new law and Gov. Jan Brewer.
Across the political spectrum, however anyone think of this savage, oppressive law (which will go down so quickly in a court challenge that it'll make Glenn Beck's head spin faster), it's stunningly clear that Washington has been populated by a bunch of pussies about immigration reform and border security for at least couple of decades now. That refusal to act crosses lines, whether it's the blithe cruelty of Republicans or the political wind-testing of Democrats. Sanity and rationality in Washington about the issue has long ago been flushed out in favor of a patchwork of failed measures and half-hearted beliefs.
And while, yes, the actions of Arizona are racist and tyrannical (truly, not fake, Tea Party tyranny), maybe we need to see this in another way: as a cry for help from a lost, fucked-up child to its incompetent parent. Of course the kid's gonna shoot up heroin, steal a car, knock up his girlfriend, and set his room on fire. Christ, what else does he need to do to get the right attention?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show:
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit lamented that right-wing absurdity might be reaching the tipping point into tragedy. But, like a hot cheerleader on a cold game night, Stephanie Miller got him to rally to make jokes about the Arizona's fucktarded new law.
You can keep the Rude Pundit next to your thighs by subscribing to the rude podcast. It's free and in pod form.
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit lamented that right-wing absurdity might be reaching the tipping point into tragedy. But, like a hot cheerleader on a cold game night, Stephanie Miller got him to rally to make jokes about the Arizona's fucktarded new law.
You can keep the Rude Pundit next to your thighs by subscribing to the rude podcast. It's free and in pod form.
In Brief: Quotes That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Shove a Taco Up Someone's Ass:
"Let's get something straight. The failure to protect America's southern border has been a bipartisan effort. Democrats want more illegal immigrants in the country because they are a potential source of votes they hope will contribute to a permanent Democratic majority. Republicans and their donors want more illegal immigrants in America because they are a source of cheap labor. Once you understand this, you can ignore much of the talk about 'human rights.'" - Conservative columnist, and a man who looks like he's watching ripped, cut Latin boys play nude volleyball in Cozumel, Cal Thomas, in support of Arizona's "let me see your papers, Pablo" law.
First off, is there any Democrat of any significance who has ever indicated that they want more illegals in the nation in the hope that they'd one day, in some undefined future, be able to vote? It's an absurd, fear-mongering, bullshit statement that gets the yokels all het up. And, just to be fair, there's probably as many scumsucking fuckbags who exploit illegals who vote Democratic as vote Republican.
But, hey, when you're a man weeping in self-loathing while trying to suppress a raging hard-on as you're secretly spying on brown cocks and balls slapping around in the sun, you can't be expected to get your racism just right.
"Let's get something straight. The failure to protect America's southern border has been a bipartisan effort. Democrats want more illegal immigrants in the country because they are a potential source of votes they hope will contribute to a permanent Democratic majority. Republicans and their donors want more illegal immigrants in America because they are a source of cheap labor. Once you understand this, you can ignore much of the talk about 'human rights.'" - Conservative columnist, and a man who looks like he's watching ripped, cut Latin boys play nude volleyball in Cozumel, Cal Thomas, in support of Arizona's "let me see your papers, Pablo" law.
First off, is there any Democrat of any significance who has ever indicated that they want more illegals in the nation in the hope that they'd one day, in some undefined future, be able to vote? It's an absurd, fear-mongering, bullshit statement that gets the yokels all het up. And, just to be fair, there's probably as many scumsucking fuckbags who exploit illegals who vote Democratic as vote Republican.
But, hey, when you're a man weeping in self-loathing while trying to suppress a raging hard-on as you're secretly spying on brown cocks and balls slapping around in the sun, you can't be expected to get your racism just right.
Notes Regarding the Feasibility of a Minor Revolution, Part 1: Where'd the Bogeymen Go?:
So what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do? While most of the political punditocracy have made Chicken Little look subtle in their declarations that the Democratic sky is falling, it ain't gonna be as bad as they say. Still, there is cause to be worried. It seems that no matter what good the Democrats or the Obama administration do or want to do, no matter how much they succeed and drag the nation out of its Bush-made morass, the established narrative is that Democrats are failing the nation. Republicans see no benefit in doing anything but throwing themselves on the tracks to try to make the train derail, even on shit that would seem a no-brainer, like Wall Street reform. And while on a national level, that can be battled, it is significantly harder to do when it comes to the more localized House races (and some of the Senate ones), where nutzoid more readily wins out.
So this'll be one those crazy ass things that blogs do: offer advice that won't be taken by anyone but can get some of us talking. Think of this as very Luntzian, except not full of pudgy evil and bewildering lies (and with better hair). Follow the bouncing ball, motherfuckers, for the banking reform bill is just the start:
First off, ignore the Tea Party. They are a media creation, a flaccid cock fluffed by Glenn Beck and Fox "news" into semi-tumescence by endless coverage. They are the Kardashians of the body politic - no one really understands why they exist, but without the cameras, they would disappear. The Tea Party's purpose at this point is to divide and destroy the Republican Party. The small percentage of teabaggers who aren't just crazy gun-toting assholes getting off on their negrophobia can be easily led away if they are offered a way to redirect their anger.
Now, there's been some visceral, awful things that have happened lately in America. There's the West Virginia coal mining disaster. There's the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico following the rig explosion. That's gonna fuck up the Redneck Riviera, no doubt. There's the push for banking reform in the wake of the financial meltdown. What do they have in common? It's all shit that was the result of actions by major corporations who have been able to act with impunity in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Now, you're not gonna win an argument in this America by going after capitalism. You're not gonna win by going after the money in politics (although, truly, that is the great ongoing criminal conspiracy of our system of alleged democracy). That's because Americans have been taught, like the dogs of conservatism, to respond viscerally whenever anyone says anything is wrong with their money and how they spend it and what shit they own. It doesn't work.
Now, this is why the easiest bogeymen ("Bogeypeople"? What's the PC bogey term?) are politicians - because the very nature of being an elected official means that you are in a position to determine how people's money is spent. And idiot America has been lied to effectively enough to believe that any purpose beyond defense is somehow bad spending (even though, as Bill Maher said last week and polls have shown, they don't know what shit should be cut). Barack Obama has been placed in a position where the government has to spend that cash money in order to right the well-fucked state that eight years of willful neglect and grandstanding hubris left us in. But he's spending idiot America's money on shit that don't blow up, so he's a bogeyman, too, to those who are looking for someone to blame and, thank Christ, it's a black dude.
So, now we on the left have to offer a bogeyman. We have to give the people a demon. They need someone to hate. Communists, welfare mothers, "Islamic extremists," immigrants, "progressives" - one thing the right has excelled at is demonizing some group, whether they really exist or are some phantom of Father-Senator-Rush-Coughlin-McCarthy-Beck's deranged mind. It's a way of distancing criticism of the very people doing the demonizing. Think about how George W. Bush was derided and dismissed in the public's mind prior to 9/11, when he finally had someone to redirect that energy towards. Think about how Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before him were themselves the objects of that abject, irrational hatred. It's because they offered no one to be the target of tomatoes other than themselves.
Simply put: America's gotta hate someone. It's who we are. It was the founding of the country.
Who is that and how will that work? Well, that's the hook for Part 2.
So what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do? While most of the political punditocracy have made Chicken Little look subtle in their declarations that the Democratic sky is falling, it ain't gonna be as bad as they say. Still, there is cause to be worried. It seems that no matter what good the Democrats or the Obama administration do or want to do, no matter how much they succeed and drag the nation out of its Bush-made morass, the established narrative is that Democrats are failing the nation. Republicans see no benefit in doing anything but throwing themselves on the tracks to try to make the train derail, even on shit that would seem a no-brainer, like Wall Street reform. And while on a national level, that can be battled, it is significantly harder to do when it comes to the more localized House races (and some of the Senate ones), where nutzoid more readily wins out.
So this'll be one those crazy ass things that blogs do: offer advice that won't be taken by anyone but can get some of us talking. Think of this as very Luntzian, except not full of pudgy evil and bewildering lies (and with better hair). Follow the bouncing ball, motherfuckers, for the banking reform bill is just the start:
First off, ignore the Tea Party. They are a media creation, a flaccid cock fluffed by Glenn Beck and Fox "news" into semi-tumescence by endless coverage. They are the Kardashians of the body politic - no one really understands why they exist, but without the cameras, they would disappear. The Tea Party's purpose at this point is to divide and destroy the Republican Party. The small percentage of teabaggers who aren't just crazy gun-toting assholes getting off on their negrophobia can be easily led away if they are offered a way to redirect their anger.
Now, there's been some visceral, awful things that have happened lately in America. There's the West Virginia coal mining disaster. There's the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico following the rig explosion. That's gonna fuck up the Redneck Riviera, no doubt. There's the push for banking reform in the wake of the financial meltdown. What do they have in common? It's all shit that was the result of actions by major corporations who have been able to act with impunity in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Now, you're not gonna win an argument in this America by going after capitalism. You're not gonna win by going after the money in politics (although, truly, that is the great ongoing criminal conspiracy of our system of alleged democracy). That's because Americans have been taught, like the dogs of conservatism, to respond viscerally whenever anyone says anything is wrong with their money and how they spend it and what shit they own. It doesn't work.
Now, this is why the easiest bogeymen ("Bogeypeople"? What's the PC bogey term?) are politicians - because the very nature of being an elected official means that you are in a position to determine how people's money is spent. And idiot America has been lied to effectively enough to believe that any purpose beyond defense is somehow bad spending (even though, as Bill Maher said last week and polls have shown, they don't know what shit should be cut). Barack Obama has been placed in a position where the government has to spend that cash money in order to right the well-fucked state that eight years of willful neglect and grandstanding hubris left us in. But he's spending idiot America's money on shit that don't blow up, so he's a bogeyman, too, to those who are looking for someone to blame and, thank Christ, it's a black dude.
So, now we on the left have to offer a bogeyman. We have to give the people a demon. They need someone to hate. Communists, welfare mothers, "Islamic extremists," immigrants, "progressives" - one thing the right has excelled at is demonizing some group, whether they really exist or are some phantom of Father-Senator-Rush-Coughlin-McCarthy-Beck's deranged mind. It's a way of distancing criticism of the very people doing the demonizing. Think about how George W. Bush was derided and dismissed in the public's mind prior to 9/11, when he finally had someone to redirect that energy towards. Think about how Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before him were themselves the objects of that abject, irrational hatred. It's because they offered no one to be the target of tomatoes other than themselves.
Simply put: America's gotta hate someone. It's who we are. It was the founding of the country.
Who is that and how will that work? Well, that's the hook for Part 2.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Force-Feed Crude-Coated Shrimp to BP Executives:
That's a picture of the sweet crude oil leaking out under the ocean where a floating drilling rig used to be. There's a 1000 barrels a day gushing out. As for stopping it, the New Orleans Times-Picayune says, "Officials said they were trying to stop the flow by using robot submarines to activate valves at the well head, but that would take 24 to 36 hours to complete. If that doesn't work, crews are also planning to drill a relief well to cut off the flow -- which could take several months."
The Rude Pundit's no mathematician, but a month of oil being pissed out at the rate of 42,000 gallons a day equals a fuck of a lot of oil. Hope everyone at Jazz Fest this week is enjoying those shrimp po-boys. Savor 'em, man, 'cause who knows what the fresh taste of sweet crude will be like over the next few years.
The workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon rig blast are not being memorialized and mythologized in the same way that the miners in West Virginia have been. Most of the people the Rude Pundit knows who work the rigs, who do seven on and seven off, who helicopter out to work, do it for the money because everything else was just gonna take too fucking long after high school. It's harsh, awful, dangerous work, and the workers don't get to go home after their daily shift. Like the Big Branch miners, they are doing it at the bidding of a large, uncaring corporation and because this nation is too proudly backwards to wean itself from the crude teat.
So disaster all around. Environmental, economic, emotional. As the President said in West Virginia yesterday, "How can we fail them? How can a nation that relies on its miners [or rig workers] not do everything in its power to protect them? How can we let anyone in this country put their lives at risk by simply showing up to work?" It's naive, though. We demand they they put their lives at risk so we don't have to change anything about our own.
That's a picture of the sweet crude oil leaking out under the ocean where a floating drilling rig used to be. There's a 1000 barrels a day gushing out. As for stopping it, the New Orleans Times-Picayune says, "Officials said they were trying to stop the flow by using robot submarines to activate valves at the well head, but that would take 24 to 36 hours to complete. If that doesn't work, crews are also planning to drill a relief well to cut off the flow -- which could take several months."
The Rude Pundit's no mathematician, but a month of oil being pissed out at the rate of 42,000 gallons a day equals a fuck of a lot of oil. Hope everyone at Jazz Fest this week is enjoying those shrimp po-boys. Savor 'em, man, 'cause who knows what the fresh taste of sweet crude will be like over the next few years.
The workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon rig blast are not being memorialized and mythologized in the same way that the miners in West Virginia have been. Most of the people the Rude Pundit knows who work the rigs, who do seven on and seven off, who helicopter out to work, do it for the money because everything else was just gonna take too fucking long after high school. It's harsh, awful, dangerous work, and the workers don't get to go home after their daily shift. Like the Big Branch miners, they are doing it at the bidding of a large, uncaring corporation and because this nation is too proudly backwards to wean itself from the crude teat.
So disaster all around. Environmental, economic, emotional. As the President said in West Virginia yesterday, "How can we fail them? How can a nation that relies on its miners [or rig workers] not do everything in its power to protect them? How can we let anyone in this country put their lives at risk by simply showing up to work?" It's naive, though. We demand they they put their lives at risk so we don't have to change anything about our own.
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Oklahoma Legislature Will Look Inside Your Daughter's Vagina (Part of the "Your State Sucks, Too" Series):
The brutal assault on women’s rights continues in states where you’d expect there to be a brutal assault on women’s rights. This week’s yahoos are the members of the Oklahoma legislature who voted by a veto-proof majority to require pregnant women who want an abortion to get a vaginal-probe ultrasound in order to show them the fetus. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.
In other words, if you are a woman who wants a perfectly legal medical procedure in Oklahoma, you must submit to the forced insertion of an implement into you, even though that act carries medical risks (you know, perforation, infection, that kind of stuff) and serves no actual medical purpose. It's just to be total dicks about abortion.
In otherer words, the Oklahoma legislature wants to sodomize pregnant women.
At this point, anti-choicers have actually become cartoon villains, twirling their mustaches and licking their lips at the possibility of degrading women more. Don't believe it? Then howzabout some House Bill 2656, which says that if some bag of fuck prevents a woman carrying a fetus with severe disabilities from having an abortion, that woman cannot sue said bag of fuck. The legislature declared this an "emergency" situation. Or howzabout the bill that says clinics must post a sign that says no forced abortions? That doesn't seem unreasonable, if the legislature hadn't just passed that other bill that, you know, forces a medical procedure on women.
We get it. Oklahoma conservatives hate them some abortion. So much so that it wants to publicly shame women by forcing them to provide "their marital status, education level, method of abortion, reason for abortion, means of payment and previous experiences with abortion or miscarriage" to an online database anyone can access. But don't worry. You don't need to give your name.
Is there some kind of contest going on between Nebraska and Oklahoma to see who can fuck up women's lives more? Or are they just filled with assholes cut from the same wretched cloth?
The brutal assault on women’s rights continues in states where you’d expect there to be a brutal assault on women’s rights. This week’s yahoos are the members of the Oklahoma legislature who voted by a veto-proof majority to require pregnant women who want an abortion to get a vaginal-probe ultrasound in order to show them the fetus. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.
In other words, if you are a woman who wants a perfectly legal medical procedure in Oklahoma, you must submit to the forced insertion of an implement into you, even though that act carries medical risks (you know, perforation, infection, that kind of stuff) and serves no actual medical purpose. It's just to be total dicks about abortion.
In otherer words, the Oklahoma legislature wants to sodomize pregnant women.
At this point, anti-choicers have actually become cartoon villains, twirling their mustaches and licking their lips at the possibility of degrading women more. Don't believe it? Then howzabout some House Bill 2656, which says that if some bag of fuck prevents a woman carrying a fetus with severe disabilities from having an abortion, that woman cannot sue said bag of fuck. The legislature declared this an "emergency" situation. Or howzabout the bill that says clinics must post a sign that says no forced abortions? That doesn't seem unreasonable, if the legislature hadn't just passed that other bill that, you know, forces a medical procedure on women.
We get it. Oklahoma conservatives hate them some abortion. So much so that it wants to publicly shame women by forcing them to provide "their marital status, education level, method of abortion, reason for abortion, means of payment and previous experiences with abortion or miscarriage" to an online database anyone can access. But don't worry. You don't need to give your name.
Is there some kind of contest going on between Nebraska and Oklahoma to see who can fuck up women's lives more? Or are they just filled with assholes cut from the same wretched cloth?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
If the Beverly Hillbillies Had Invested in a Fraudulent CDO:
Mr. Drysdale knew he wouldn't make it through the night. Cowering, sweating, and pissing himself in the panic room of his mansion, he watched on the monitors as what seemed like every Clampett under the redneck sun, if not the entire town of Bug Tussle, looted and wrecked his mansion where he had lived, if not quite peacefully, then at least continuously next to the proud hillbillies. Now, he wept as he saw Jethro Bodine stare straight into one of the security cameras and say, "When I find you, Mr. Drysdale, I'm gonna fuck ya like a mule." Drysdale clutched at the packet of cyanide capsules, his last resort should he face fire or fucking. Across the room, the corpse of Miss Hathaway mocked him, its slit throat like a cruel second smile.
Things were so much easier when the Glass-Steagall Act was in effect. The Commerce Bank was a wealthy entity unto itself, with Mr. Drysdale acting not just as President, but as concierge to the whims of the rich, even the piggish nouveau riche like the Clampetts. He got Jed to trust him, so much so that, without a question, if Mr. Drysdale suggested it, Jed would invest in it. But then, in about 2000, Commerce got greedier because, well, shit, because it could, getting into mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and other multi-worded terms that Jed couldn't comprehend. On her deathbed, Granny told Jed, "Don't you listen to that bastard. He's a-gonna steal your money like a backwoods whiskey runner."
But Jed thought that this was the future and, indeed, he trusted Mr. Drysdale. That trust was repaid by the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, after receiving a large bailout from the government, getting involved in putting together a deal whereby it bought an investment firm as a way of providing a front company for the fact that, indirectly, it was getting some of its clients to invest in housing market-based securities as part of a CDO while all the time working with a hedge fund to profit off the built-in failure of the CDO. It was a fixed version of the poker game "Fuck Your Buddy," where the house splits the pot.
The meeting went well where he tried to explain to Jed why he had squandered the entire Clampett fortune betting on the failing housing market. Jed didn't understand any of it. He sighed, put on his hat, and thanked Drysdale for helping them all these years.
It was that goddamn Ellie Mae, Drysdale thought, as he saw Jed use his shotgun to destroy a vase. Ellie Mae and Jane Hathaway fell in love and wanted to get married, but Drysdale had donated money to support Proposition 8, making their dreams fall apart. That was the final straw. They worked together to go to the SEC with everything they knew from their jobs at Commerce. When they told Jed about what really happened, there were only two parts of it that the Clampett patriarch understood: that Drysdale had outright lied to him and that he was making money off people losing their houses. Jed looked at Jethro and said, "Call up the kinfolk and get some buckshot for the guns. Let's show this city shithead how we treat liars and thieves back in the mountains."
Ellie Mae got away, heading to Paris to wait out the carnage, but Miss Hathaway wanted to talk one last time to Drysdale. "Turn yourself in, Milburn," she had said. This was shortly after his wife had left him and he only spoke now to lawyers. "For Christ's sake, you're not going to win." It was impetuous, cutting her throat and dragging her body to the panic room, but he had few options when he saw Jethro and a whole mob of imported backwards ass country fucks heading towards his front door.
The house was burning now. The guards were dead, their corpses stripped to their skivvies. Drysdale didn't know how much longer he could last. He didn't know if the ventilation system in the locked room would filter out the smoke. He didn't know if it would become his oven. He started to get warm, but that could be his imagination. But the cameras were going dead one by one. And the last image he saw on the monitor was a troop of shabby-dressed men in floppy hats heading into the basement, where the room was hidden.
Drysdale contemplated taking the cyanide. "No," he thought, "this is America and we're still a capitalist nation, goddamnit, and Commerce is too big to fail. I'm too big to fail. If I go, so goes the economy." Of course, when the door burst open and he tried to explain that to Jed and Jethro, they didn't care. "What are you gonna do? Are you gonna rape me, Jethro? Go ahead. Are you gonna shoot me, Jed? Then you're a murderer." He dropped the cyanide capsule and sobbed.
They stared at him for a moment, smelling his pissed pants, watching him shake. Then Jethro waved behind him. He brought out one of Ellie Mae's pets, a bear. "Looks like the markets are heading down, Mr. Drysdale," Jed said, before he put the bear into the panic room and shut the door.
Mr. Drysdale knew he wouldn't make it through the night. Cowering, sweating, and pissing himself in the panic room of his mansion, he watched on the monitors as what seemed like every Clampett under the redneck sun, if not the entire town of Bug Tussle, looted and wrecked his mansion where he had lived, if not quite peacefully, then at least continuously next to the proud hillbillies. Now, he wept as he saw Jethro Bodine stare straight into one of the security cameras and say, "When I find you, Mr. Drysdale, I'm gonna fuck ya like a mule." Drysdale clutched at the packet of cyanide capsules, his last resort should he face fire or fucking. Across the room, the corpse of Miss Hathaway mocked him, its slit throat like a cruel second smile.
Things were so much easier when the Glass-Steagall Act was in effect. The Commerce Bank was a wealthy entity unto itself, with Mr. Drysdale acting not just as President, but as concierge to the whims of the rich, even the piggish nouveau riche like the Clampetts. He got Jed to trust him, so much so that, without a question, if Mr. Drysdale suggested it, Jed would invest in it. But then, in about 2000, Commerce got greedier because, well, shit, because it could, getting into mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and other multi-worded terms that Jed couldn't comprehend. On her deathbed, Granny told Jed, "Don't you listen to that bastard. He's a-gonna steal your money like a backwoods whiskey runner."
But Jed thought that this was the future and, indeed, he trusted Mr. Drysdale. That trust was repaid by the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, after receiving a large bailout from the government, getting involved in putting together a deal whereby it bought an investment firm as a way of providing a front company for the fact that, indirectly, it was getting some of its clients to invest in housing market-based securities as part of a CDO while all the time working with a hedge fund to profit off the built-in failure of the CDO. It was a fixed version of the poker game "Fuck Your Buddy," where the house splits the pot.
The meeting went well where he tried to explain to Jed why he had squandered the entire Clampett fortune betting on the failing housing market. Jed didn't understand any of it. He sighed, put on his hat, and thanked Drysdale for helping them all these years.
It was that goddamn Ellie Mae, Drysdale thought, as he saw Jed use his shotgun to destroy a vase. Ellie Mae and Jane Hathaway fell in love and wanted to get married, but Drysdale had donated money to support Proposition 8, making their dreams fall apart. That was the final straw. They worked together to go to the SEC with everything they knew from their jobs at Commerce. When they told Jed about what really happened, there were only two parts of it that the Clampett patriarch understood: that Drysdale had outright lied to him and that he was making money off people losing their houses. Jed looked at Jethro and said, "Call up the kinfolk and get some buckshot for the guns. Let's show this city shithead how we treat liars and thieves back in the mountains."
Ellie Mae got away, heading to Paris to wait out the carnage, but Miss Hathaway wanted to talk one last time to Drysdale. "Turn yourself in, Milburn," she had said. This was shortly after his wife had left him and he only spoke now to lawyers. "For Christ's sake, you're not going to win." It was impetuous, cutting her throat and dragging her body to the panic room, but he had few options when he saw Jethro and a whole mob of imported backwards ass country fucks heading towards his front door.
The house was burning now. The guards were dead, their corpses stripped to their skivvies. Drysdale didn't know how much longer he could last. He didn't know if the ventilation system in the locked room would filter out the smoke. He didn't know if it would become his oven. He started to get warm, but that could be his imagination. But the cameras were going dead one by one. And the last image he saw on the monitor was a troop of shabby-dressed men in floppy hats heading into the basement, where the room was hidden.
Drysdale contemplated taking the cyanide. "No," he thought, "this is America and we're still a capitalist nation, goddamnit, and Commerce is too big to fail. I'm too big to fail. If I go, so goes the economy." Of course, when the door burst open and he tried to explain that to Jed and Jethro, they didn't care. "What are you gonna do? Are you gonna rape me, Jethro? Go ahead. Are you gonna shoot me, Jed? Then you're a murderer." He dropped the cyanide capsule and sobbed.
They stared at him for a moment, smelling his pissed pants, watching him shake. Then Jethro waved behind him. He brought out one of Ellie Mae's pets, a bear. "Looks like the markets are heading down, Mr. Drysdale," Jed said, before he put the bear into the panic room and shut the door.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show:
The Rude Pundit engaged in a political menage-a-trois with Stephanie Miller and John Fugelsang. Wait, he means "roundtable discussion." No, no, let's go back to menage. But it was on the radio.
For your weekly dose of radio rudiosity in convenient pants pocket-size, subscribe to the rude podcast.
The Rude Pundit engaged in a political menage-a-trois with Stephanie Miller and John Fugelsang. Wait, he means "roundtable discussion." No, no, let's go back to menage. But it was on the radio.
For your weekly dose of radio rudiosity in convenient pants pocket-size, subscribe to the rude podcast.
Can We Start Worrying About Right-Wing Extremism Yet?:
Remember this? It's from the Department of Homeland Security's April 2009 report on the potential for domestic terrorism: "DHS/I&A assesses that the combination of environmental factors that echo the 1990s, including heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms restrictions and returning military veterans, as well as several new trends, including an uncertain economy and a perceived rising influence of other countries, may be invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements. To the extent that these factors persist, rightwing extremism is likely to grow in strength."
Remember this? It's from Newt Gingrich, and it was one of many right-wing reactions to the report: "The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired." Added James Dobson, "[T]here are no Timothy McVeighs out there right now. They're making a big deal out of something that hasn't happened and may not happen."
Of course, meanwhile, out in the real America described by the DHS report, not the right-wing psycho fantasy America, this was already happening just in Inland Empire, California: "Local police believe five recent attacks on minorities in the San Jacinto Valley may stem from a backlash to the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in U.S. history." That's from January 2009.
Which was followed in June 2009 by this in Hemet, CA: "Four Hemet skinheads beat a Hispanic man to within an inch of his life to benefit a white supremacist gang, a Hemet police detective testified Friday." The Comrades Of Our Racist Struggle (C.O.O.R.S. Family, charmingly) wanted to instill fear in the community.
Which was followed in April 2010 with this from Hemet regarding the arrest of 23 people in conjunction with actions against cops and the FBI in the area during Marhc: "A law enforcement source familiar with the probe said task force members believe that the attacks -- including booby traps set up at police facilities and the torching of several city vehicles -- appear to be the work of a white supremacist gang."
The right's overreaction to any perceived criticism is childish, petulant, and dangerous. This goes for the DHS report and Republican politicians who dare not say a bad word about the Hitler-sign-bearing crazies in the Tea Party. And, truly, if you are not willing to join in condemnation of the obviously violent extremes in your movement, then you have aligned with them.
Remember this? It's from the Department of Homeland Security's April 2009 report on the potential for domestic terrorism: "DHS/I&A assesses that the combination of environmental factors that echo the 1990s, including heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms restrictions and returning military veterans, as well as several new trends, including an uncertain economy and a perceived rising influence of other countries, may be invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements. To the extent that these factors persist, rightwing extremism is likely to grow in strength."
Remember this? It's from Newt Gingrich, and it was one of many right-wing reactions to the report: "The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired." Added James Dobson, "[T]here are no Timothy McVeighs out there right now. They're making a big deal out of something that hasn't happened and may not happen."
Of course, meanwhile, out in the real America described by the DHS report, not the right-wing psycho fantasy America, this was already happening just in Inland Empire, California: "Local police believe five recent attacks on minorities in the San Jacinto Valley may stem from a backlash to the election of Barack Obama as the first black president in U.S. history." That's from January 2009.
Which was followed in June 2009 by this in Hemet, CA: "Four Hemet skinheads beat a Hispanic man to within an inch of his life to benefit a white supremacist gang, a Hemet police detective testified Friday." The Comrades Of Our Racist Struggle (C.O.O.R.S. Family, charmingly) wanted to instill fear in the community.
Which was followed in April 2010 with this from Hemet regarding the arrest of 23 people in conjunction with actions against cops and the FBI in the area during Marhc: "A law enforcement source familiar with the probe said task force members believe that the attacks -- including booby traps set up at police facilities and the torching of several city vehicles -- appear to be the work of a white supremacist gang."
The right's overreaction to any perceived criticism is childish, petulant, and dangerous. This goes for the DHS report and Republican politicians who dare not say a bad word about the Hitler-sign-bearing crazies in the Tea Party. And, truly, if you are not willing to join in condemnation of the obviously violent extremes in your movement, then you have aligned with them.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
No, Really, We Don't Want the Tea Parties to Stop Yet:
All over the glorious internets, where free expressionistas freely expresses their freedom without fear of being un-free (for now), there's a conservative meme that's developing nicely, like a pig farm cesspool. It's that, now that right wingers are the ones gettin' all marchy and shouty about things, liberals want them to shut up or want them to get shooty.
Cal Thomas, a man who looks for all the world like he's at the local porn shop contemplating whether he wants to buy the foot-long black vibrator with three settings or the one with turbo power added (Cal, babe, it's only a five-buck difference), writes this week in his "column" (if, by "column," you mean, "another trip down the sad highway of desperately staving off irrelevance") that the left believes that: "Now when the right becomes angry about what it sees as the systematic dismantling of the country through higher taxes, misspending (by both parties) and tone deafness, it is supposed to be setting the stage for the next Timothy McVeigh and is somehow illegitimate and outside constitutional boundaries."
Like a particularly ambitious Pomeranian that's trying to drag around an entire cow leg, Thomas scribbles like he's onto something, even going to the well of rape allusion: "If you don't like President Obama's policies, you are a racist who is setting him up for assassination by a neo-Nazi who is waiting in the (right) wings for sufficient inspiration. You should be lying down and taking it, because Obama wants only the best for all Americans."
Slightly less evolved than Thomas, more of a fish to Thomas's lizard, Mona Charen goes further, saying that Democrats actually want violence to occur at Tea Parties: "Democrats are reduced to warning that certain attitudes can lead to violence because there hasn't been any actual violence at the tea party rallies. All have been remarkably orderly and even friendly. You can almost feel the Democrats' frustration at this."
Everyone's jumping in on the act. Jonah Goldberg, a man who must never be able to wash the scent of Glenn Beck's ass from his nose, complains, "[D]issent has gone from being the highest form of patriotism under George W. Bush to the most common form of racism under Barack Obama." And he's the closest to being anywhere near correct about the left's attitude toward the teabaggers.
But the really funny part is that not a one of the writers above offers any real evidence where someone on the left says they want to deny the teabaggers the right to protest or take away their free speech or that they want the gun toters to start firing. Oh, sure, they might quote Bill Clinton saying that "the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike." He said this in a speech marking the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Clinton later said he was disconcerted by threats on the lives of people in government, which is not, you know, generally considered protected speech, although mostly we overlook it in our impolite political discourse. Neither Clinton, nor anyone else, has said teabaggers should stop speaking or marching. Jesus, for most of them, it's the only exercise they get.
And you know why? It's because we wouldn't say that. What we do think is patently absurd is that they are marching and threatening and yelling about shit that's just not factually true. An example? When gay rights activists interrupted President Obama yesterday over his inaction on repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule, that was protest over something real. When town hall screamers last summer were getting red-faced with their members of Congress over "death panels," that was about a lie. Now, was anyone dragged out of a town hall meeting because they insisted on repeating a lie and getting an answer about it? Fuck no. Speak more, good teabaggers, because you sound like dumb fucks.
We don't want violence. Jesus, we might get caught in the crossfire while we counterprotest, which we're allowed to do, sometimes in greater numbers than the actual supposedly massive tea party movement.
So, no, march and dissent away, motherfuckers. It's your right to stand in public and be an idiot who parrots the lies of those who are actually fucking up your lives. It's our job to figure out how to tap into that mass reserve of American stupid power and use it for our objectives. We just haven't figured out how to degrade ourselves enough to do it yet.
All over the glorious internets, where free expressionistas freely expresses their freedom without fear of being un-free (for now), there's a conservative meme that's developing nicely, like a pig farm cesspool. It's that, now that right wingers are the ones gettin' all marchy and shouty about things, liberals want them to shut up or want them to get shooty.
Cal Thomas, a man who looks for all the world like he's at the local porn shop contemplating whether he wants to buy the foot-long black vibrator with three settings or the one with turbo power added (Cal, babe, it's only a five-buck difference), writes this week in his "column" (if, by "column," you mean, "another trip down the sad highway of desperately staving off irrelevance") that the left believes that: "Now when the right becomes angry about what it sees as the systematic dismantling of the country through higher taxes, misspending (by both parties) and tone deafness, it is supposed to be setting the stage for the next Timothy McVeigh and is somehow illegitimate and outside constitutional boundaries."
Like a particularly ambitious Pomeranian that's trying to drag around an entire cow leg, Thomas scribbles like he's onto something, even going to the well of rape allusion: "If you don't like President Obama's policies, you are a racist who is setting him up for assassination by a neo-Nazi who is waiting in the (right) wings for sufficient inspiration. You should be lying down and taking it, because Obama wants only the best for all Americans."
Slightly less evolved than Thomas, more of a fish to Thomas's lizard, Mona Charen goes further, saying that Democrats actually want violence to occur at Tea Parties: "Democrats are reduced to warning that certain attitudes can lead to violence because there hasn't been any actual violence at the tea party rallies. All have been remarkably orderly and even friendly. You can almost feel the Democrats' frustration at this."
Everyone's jumping in on the act. Jonah Goldberg, a man who must never be able to wash the scent of Glenn Beck's ass from his nose, complains, "[D]issent has gone from being the highest form of patriotism under George W. Bush to the most common form of racism under Barack Obama." And he's the closest to being anywhere near correct about the left's attitude toward the teabaggers.
But the really funny part is that not a one of the writers above offers any real evidence where someone on the left says they want to deny the teabaggers the right to protest or take away their free speech or that they want the gun toters to start firing. Oh, sure, they might quote Bill Clinton saying that "the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike." He said this in a speech marking the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Clinton later said he was disconcerted by threats on the lives of people in government, which is not, you know, generally considered protected speech, although mostly we overlook it in our impolite political discourse. Neither Clinton, nor anyone else, has said teabaggers should stop speaking or marching. Jesus, for most of them, it's the only exercise they get.
And you know why? It's because we wouldn't say that. What we do think is patently absurd is that they are marching and threatening and yelling about shit that's just not factually true. An example? When gay rights activists interrupted President Obama yesterday over his inaction on repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule, that was protest over something real. When town hall screamers last summer were getting red-faced with their members of Congress over "death panels," that was about a lie. Now, was anyone dragged out of a town hall meeting because they insisted on repeating a lie and getting an answer about it? Fuck no. Speak more, good teabaggers, because you sound like dumb fucks.
We don't want violence. Jesus, we might get caught in the crossfire while we counterprotest, which we're allowed to do, sometimes in greater numbers than the actual supposedly massive tea party movement.
So, no, march and dissent away, motherfuckers. It's your right to stand in public and be an idiot who parrots the lies of those who are actually fucking up your lives. It's our job to figure out how to tap into that mass reserve of American stupid power and use it for our objectives. We just haven't figured out how to degrade ourselves enough to do it yet.
Monday, April 19, 2010
People With Nothing Better to Do Descend on Virginia and DC:
A bunch of fucking insane closeted homosexuals have gathered in Virginia for today's festival of latency. Calling it a rally to "Restore the Constitution," it's all about open-carry of loaded firearms on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. But, really, it's just an excuse for a bunch of pansy-ass motherfuckers who are afraid of fucking their Bud-butt-buddies to walk around with ludicrously large penis substitutes and call it "freedom." God fucking bless America, man, God fucking bless us.
It's being done despite the fact that another rally is taking place across the river in DC, a Second Amendment March. But, see, in that march, the pistol-fellaters aren't allowed to carry, so it isn't quite as rife with unspoken homoerotic desire. And the Second Amendment March people are adamantly clear: "The media and bloggers have been falsely reporting that Second Amendment March is an armed rally. Their information is false. We don't know where this rumor originally started, but it seems that it has been perpetuated despite our very clear posting on our site that the unlawful carrying of firearms is not permitted. These people may be confusing us with another group that is holding an armed rally in Virginia on the same day as Second Amendment March. That group is a separate entity entirely and is not at all associated with the Second Amendment March event." You know shit's weird when the pathetic losers at the DC march are trying to say that those people across the way are fucking crazy.
Besides, at the Virginia rally, you can talk from the back of a pick-up truck (really). It's a piquant mix of militias, birthers, and racists. Mostly, all three of those in one.
Enough with the jokes about "ooh, gun=penis=closeted gays." The whole effort is so ludicrous. Marching in support of the right to bear arms in this country is as useless as having a march to keep ice cream cold. It's a lie, it's a scam. It's like everyone organizing everyone of these bullshit "whip up the yokels" marches or rallies or tea parties or facefuckfests or whatever are just Glenn Beck wannabes who have seen how much cash can be made from old-time hucksterism and exploitation.
Because Obama ain't gonna do a damn thing about gun laws. But that doesn't change the perception, fomented by vile con men, like televangelists of a couple of decades ago, swindling the spare change from the purses of the imbeciles because they think a black man must wanna take away the weapons they wanna kill him with. He doesn't.
And it's just gonna get nuttier and nuttier here in the USA, as Bill Clinton said this weekend. Fuck, there's already groups for whom the NRA isn't quite hardcore enough, people who sodomize themselves with their loaded rifles, and hope for the day when you can walk around Wal-Mart and your kid's high school football game with a loaded Glock.
The saddest part is that, should any of these little groups of fucktarded terrorist wannabes actually attempt anything, they would be wiped out by the cops and the feds. It wouldn't even be close. And they know it. It's all bluster and nonsense. Timothy McVeigh was a little bitch who ran away from the truck and didn't make a stand of any sort. He got lucky. And that was as brave as they get.
So let the mini-McVeighs have their punk-ass rally where they can compare gun sizes.
A bunch of fucking insane closeted homosexuals have gathered in Virginia for today's festival of latency. Calling it a rally to "Restore the Constitution," it's all about open-carry of loaded firearms on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. But, really, it's just an excuse for a bunch of pansy-ass motherfuckers who are afraid of fucking their Bud-butt-buddies to walk around with ludicrously large penis substitutes and call it "freedom." God fucking bless America, man, God fucking bless us.
It's being done despite the fact that another rally is taking place across the river in DC, a Second Amendment March. But, see, in that march, the pistol-fellaters aren't allowed to carry, so it isn't quite as rife with unspoken homoerotic desire. And the Second Amendment March people are adamantly clear: "The media and bloggers have been falsely reporting that Second Amendment March is an armed rally. Their information is false. We don't know where this rumor originally started, but it seems that it has been perpetuated despite our very clear posting on our site that the unlawful carrying of firearms is not permitted. These people may be confusing us with another group that is holding an armed rally in Virginia on the same day as Second Amendment March. That group is a separate entity entirely and is not at all associated with the Second Amendment March event." You know shit's weird when the pathetic losers at the DC march are trying to say that those people across the way are fucking crazy.
Besides, at the Virginia rally, you can talk from the back of a pick-up truck (really). It's a piquant mix of militias, birthers, and racists. Mostly, all three of those in one.
Enough with the jokes about "ooh, gun=penis=closeted gays." The whole effort is so ludicrous. Marching in support of the right to bear arms in this country is as useless as having a march to keep ice cream cold. It's a lie, it's a scam. It's like everyone organizing everyone of these bullshit "whip up the yokels" marches or rallies or tea parties or facefuckfests or whatever are just Glenn Beck wannabes who have seen how much cash can be made from old-time hucksterism and exploitation.
Because Obama ain't gonna do a damn thing about gun laws. But that doesn't change the perception, fomented by vile con men, like televangelists of a couple of decades ago, swindling the spare change from the purses of the imbeciles because they think a black man must wanna take away the weapons they wanna kill him with. He doesn't.
And it's just gonna get nuttier and nuttier here in the USA, as Bill Clinton said this weekend. Fuck, there's already groups for whom the NRA isn't quite hardcore enough, people who sodomize themselves with their loaded rifles, and hope for the day when you can walk around Wal-Mart and your kid's high school football game with a loaded Glock.
The saddest part is that, should any of these little groups of fucktarded terrorist wannabes actually attempt anything, they would be wiped out by the cops and the feds. It wouldn't even be close. And they know it. It's all bluster and nonsense. Timothy McVeigh was a little bitch who ran away from the truck and didn't make a stand of any sort. He got lucky. And that was as brave as they get.
So let the mini-McVeighs have their punk-ass rally where they can compare gun sizes.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Photos That Make Teabaggers Shit Blood:
That large black man is Rick Walker, and he is the living embodiment of that old white guy's nightmares. Walker was marching in a counterprotest against the deluded megacult known as the Tea Party, who were having some kind of rally of the damned on Tax Day yesterday. He's part of a new group called "The Other 95%," which was created to use "facts" and "reality" to counter the fantasy policies the teabaggers have conjured like a World of Warcraft hellscape.
And what's not to love about the picture? The skinny, bearded white guy who seems to be holding a not-at-all agitated Walker back? The face of the goateed old guy, who looks like he's ready to vomit out some acid mixture of fear and confusion in his gut, wondering who let the Negroes in to ruin their perfectly fun cross-burning?
Oh, sweet goateed old guy, Walker didn't want to harm you. He didn't want to cut your throat or your Medicare. He wanted to pierce your thick coat of nutzoid shellac, a rigid shell made of Glenn Beck's semen, Sarah Palin's spit, and Republican cash money.
That large black man is Rick Walker, and he is the living embodiment of that old white guy's nightmares. Walker was marching in a counterprotest against the deluded megacult known as the Tea Party, who were having some kind of rally of the damned on Tax Day yesterday. He's part of a new group called "The Other 95%," which was created to use "facts" and "reality" to counter the fantasy policies the teabaggers have conjured like a World of Warcraft hellscape.
And what's not to love about the picture? The skinny, bearded white guy who seems to be holding a not-at-all agitated Walker back? The face of the goateed old guy, who looks like he's ready to vomit out some acid mixture of fear and confusion in his gut, wondering who let the Negroes in to ruin their perfectly fun cross-burning?
Oh, sweet goateed old guy, Walker didn't want to harm you. He didn't want to cut your throat or your Medicare. He wanted to pierce your thick coat of nutzoid shellac, a rigid shell made of Glenn Beck's semen, Sarah Palin's spit, and Republican cash money.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Ten Lowest-Polling Tea Party "Action Items":
Hey, didja hear that some damn Tea Party group or other put together a fancy website and announced a brand spanking new "Contract From America." It's like the "Contract With America," except there's a different word in the middle. Oh, and it ain't from Newt Gingrich. See, they did a totally accurate, no snake-oil science stuff, online poll of people who visited their totally not Republican (despite being sponsored by or partnered with Republican Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the Republican Liberty Caucus, and the College Republicans) website.
Good tea fanciers had 21 choices, and, by golly, they got ten of 'em with more than 50% agreement. Oh, and screw you, buddy, if you think things like number 4, "Enact Fundamental Tax Reform," and number 10, "Stop the Tax Hikes," are pretty much the same thing and that there's really only 5 or 6 actual individual items in the Contract. What are you? An elitist lawyer with a "degree" to look at "contracts"?
Although, truth be told, it looks like the entire thing was a set-up because the other possible "Action Items" don't exactly seem like they'd be very popular with the teabagging set:
1. Check spelling.
2. Eat a salad every now and then.
3. Understand that taxes for almost everyone have actually gotten lower under President Obama.
4. Stop taking government money like Social Security disability payments or Medicare.
5. Appreciate racial diversity in a way that doesn't involve witch doctors or monkeys.
6. Require that anyone dressing up as a Founder must have actually read that person's work.
7. Get information from more than one 24-hour news channel.
8. Take a walk every now and then.
9. One gun is more than enough.
10. Love, baby, love.
Hey, didja hear that some damn Tea Party group or other put together a fancy website and announced a brand spanking new "Contract From America." It's like the "Contract With America," except there's a different word in the middle. Oh, and it ain't from Newt Gingrich. See, they did a totally accurate, no snake-oil science stuff, online poll of people who visited their totally not Republican (despite being sponsored by or partnered with Republican Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the Republican Liberty Caucus, and the College Republicans) website.
Good tea fanciers had 21 choices, and, by golly, they got ten of 'em with more than 50% agreement. Oh, and screw you, buddy, if you think things like number 4, "Enact Fundamental Tax Reform," and number 10, "Stop the Tax Hikes," are pretty much the same thing and that there's really only 5 or 6 actual individual items in the Contract. What are you? An elitist lawyer with a "degree" to look at "contracts"?
Although, truth be told, it looks like the entire thing was a set-up because the other possible "Action Items" don't exactly seem like they'd be very popular with the teabagging set:
1. Check spelling.
2. Eat a salad every now and then.
3. Understand that taxes for almost everyone have actually gotten lower under President Obama.
4. Stop taking government money like Social Security disability payments or Medicare.
5. Appreciate racial diversity in a way that doesn't involve witch doctors or monkeys.
6. Require that anyone dressing up as a Founder must have actually read that person's work.
7. Get information from more than one 24-hour news channel.
8. Take a walk every now and then.
9. One gun is more than enough.
10. Love, baby, love.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Wow, Your State Sucks, Too (Arizona Edition):
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit looked at the backwards ass fucks in the legislature in Nebraska, people who sodomize themselves with corncobs in order to feel anything like pleasure, and the savage new anti-abortion laws there. Today we move down and to the left on the map o' stupid states.
This week, the fine (mostly) white Republican people in the legislature of that former Mexican territory, Arizona, decided that the police now have the power to stop and ask people for their papers in order to determine if someone is a citizen. And if that person doesn't have papers? Are they assumed to be innocent? Aw, fuck no. That's for pussy states, not Arizona, which all big and tough with its big and tough white people. You are assumed at that point to be illegal. It's charmingly retro, like South African apartheid, except a few skin shades lighter.
Oh, but this is way, way better than just a throwback to the "Let me see your I.D." good ol' days. S.B. 1070 fucks shit up but good. Check this out:
"No official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may adopt a policy that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." That eliminates sanctuary cities, where undocumented immigrants could find a relative degree of normalcy when not, you know, taking care of those cactus gardens of the Tempe bourgeoisie or watching their kids.
Also, it adds a new category for civil lawsuits (which Republicans used to call "frivolous): "A person may bring an action in superior court to challenge any official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state that adopts or implements a policy that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." You win? You get at least $1000 and all fees paid. That's a fuckin' lottery, man.
And here's the money shot of this immigrant porn: "For any legitimate contact made by an official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made to determine the immigration status of the person. The person's immigration status shall be verified with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States code section 1373(c)." What makes a cop have "reasonable suspicion"? Well, let's just say that until the first creamy white Canadian is stopped and asked for a passport, we can pretty much assume what makes one a suspicious character is a conspicuous desire to do manual labor and eat from taco trucks. Round up los usual suspects.
The only positive aspect of this bill is the expansion of enforcement of existing laws that prohibit people from hiring illegals. Of course, those criminals can probably afford lawyers, unlike the illegals who are rounded up. Unlike the legals and citizens who will be rounded up.
Again and again, in Nebraska, in Arizona, Republicans demonstrate that the only response they have to social problems is to punish the victims.
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit looked at the backwards ass fucks in the legislature in Nebraska, people who sodomize themselves with corncobs in order to feel anything like pleasure, and the savage new anti-abortion laws there. Today we move down and to the left on the map o' stupid states.
This week, the fine (mostly) white Republican people in the legislature of that former Mexican territory, Arizona, decided that the police now have the power to stop and ask people for their papers in order to determine if someone is a citizen. And if that person doesn't have papers? Are they assumed to be innocent? Aw, fuck no. That's for pussy states, not Arizona, which all big and tough with its big and tough white people. You are assumed at that point to be illegal. It's charmingly retro, like South African apartheid, except a few skin shades lighter.
Oh, but this is way, way better than just a throwback to the "Let me see your I.D." good ol' days. S.B. 1070 fucks shit up but good. Check this out:
"No official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may adopt a policy that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." That eliminates sanctuary cities, where undocumented immigrants could find a relative degree of normalcy when not, you know, taking care of those cactus gardens of the Tempe bourgeoisie or watching their kids.
Also, it adds a new category for civil lawsuits (which Republicans used to call "frivolous): "A person may bring an action in superior court to challenge any official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state that adopts or implements a policy that limits or restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law." You win? You get at least $1000 and all fees paid. That's a fuckin' lottery, man.
And here's the money shot of this immigrant porn: "For any legitimate contact made by an official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made to determine the immigration status of the person. The person's immigration status shall be verified with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States code section 1373(c)." What makes a cop have "reasonable suspicion"? Well, let's just say that until the first creamy white Canadian is stopped and asked for a passport, we can pretty much assume what makes one a suspicious character is a conspicuous desire to do manual labor and eat from taco trucks. Round up los usual suspects.
The only positive aspect of this bill is the expansion of enforcement of existing laws that prohibit people from hiring illegals. Of course, those criminals can probably afford lawyers, unlike the illegals who are rounded up. Unlike the legals and citizens who will be rounded up.
Again and again, in Nebraska, in Arizona, Republicans demonstrate that the only response they have to social problems is to punish the victims.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Why Does Nebraska Think Women Are Idiots?:
Last month, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, a Republican, opposed a bill that would have provided prenatal care for poor women in his state. His refusal to back the legislation was based solely on the fact that the bill would have provided such care for illegal immigrants, despite the offer from private donors to give $3 million to cover illegals. State Senator Brad Ashford, who sponsored the bill, said that he just wanted to help "unborn babies." Because the legislature lacked the votes to override an expected veto, the bill has been put on ice.
Today, Governor Heineman is expected to sign two bills passed by the legislature regarding abortion. Now, logic would seem to dictate that, since Heineman obviously could give a rat's ass if healthy babies are born, the new legislation must be something like "free abortions for everyone." Ah, but then you'd be using your thinking brain.
Because, and this is hilarious, considering Heineman's previous action, one of the bills that is about to become law (briefly, before the court challenge) contains the statement that the it is "an expression of the will of the people of the State of Nebraska and the members of the Legislature to provide protection for the life of the unborn child whenever possible." Except, of course, when that unborn child happens to be encamped in the womb of an undocumented Ecuadoran maid.
More specifically, LB594 aims to treat women who want abortions like idiot children better sent to "live with relatives," who are incapable of making rational decisions because their disruptive lady parts render them irrational. Indeed, on some level, the bill says that only sick women or those with a particular kind of crazy qualify medically for abortions. According to Section 6:
"The physician performing the abortion [must have] formed a reasonable medical judgment, documented in the permanent record, that:
"(a) The preponderance of statistically validated medical studies demonstrates that the physical, psychological, and familial risks associated with abortion for patients with risk factors similar to the patient’s risk factors are negligible risks;
"(b) Continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated by induced abortion; or
"(c) Continuance of the pregnancy would involve less risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman than if the pregnancy were terminated by an induced abortion."
In other words, bitch gotta be nuts if she wants an abortion. Oh, and if the doctor fucks up any of the steps in this process, he or she can be sued. That's right: "The absence of physical injury shall not preclude an award of non-economic damages including pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering, emotional distress, psychological trauma, loss of society or companionship, loss of consortium, injury to reputation, or humiliation associated with the abortion."
You got that? In Nebraska, land of wheat and football and corn and cows, not only are the Republicans halting prenatal care for the precious fetuses, they're encouraging medical malpractice lawsuits. Where's your precious government intrusion now, nutzoids?
By the way, the bill contains all kinds of new rules regarding late-term abortion, and another bill Heineman will sign outlaws the procedure at 20 weeks, with no mental health exception. This one is aimed at driving the state's sole late-term abortion provider, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, out of business in Nebraska. Carhart has thought about moving shop over to Kansas in order to replace his friend, the murdered George Tiller.
And thus our American obsession with enforced pregnancy continues. It's as if it's one of the last bastions of patriarchal control, one of the dwindling number of ways that women can be kept in their place, a cause that needs a fight, with new and creative ways to halt progress. Of course, the logic of the battle, as it comes up against other conservative beliefs, keeps getting more and more perverse.
Last month, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, a Republican, opposed a bill that would have provided prenatal care for poor women in his state. His refusal to back the legislation was based solely on the fact that the bill would have provided such care for illegal immigrants, despite the offer from private donors to give $3 million to cover illegals. State Senator Brad Ashford, who sponsored the bill, said that he just wanted to help "unborn babies." Because the legislature lacked the votes to override an expected veto, the bill has been put on ice.
Today, Governor Heineman is expected to sign two bills passed by the legislature regarding abortion. Now, logic would seem to dictate that, since Heineman obviously could give a rat's ass if healthy babies are born, the new legislation must be something like "free abortions for everyone." Ah, but then you'd be using your thinking brain.
Because, and this is hilarious, considering Heineman's previous action, one of the bills that is about to become law (briefly, before the court challenge) contains the statement that the it is "an expression of the will of the people of the State of Nebraska and the members of the Legislature to provide protection for the life of the unborn child whenever possible." Except, of course, when that unborn child happens to be encamped in the womb of an undocumented Ecuadoran maid.
More specifically, LB594 aims to treat women who want abortions like idiot children better sent to "live with relatives," who are incapable of making rational decisions because their disruptive lady parts render them irrational. Indeed, on some level, the bill says that only sick women or those with a particular kind of crazy qualify medically for abortions. According to Section 6:
"The physician performing the abortion [must have] formed a reasonable medical judgment, documented in the permanent record, that:
"(a) The preponderance of statistically validated medical studies demonstrates that the physical, psychological, and familial risks associated with abortion for patients with risk factors similar to the patient’s risk factors are negligible risks;
"(b) Continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated by induced abortion; or
"(c) Continuance of the pregnancy would involve less risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman than if the pregnancy were terminated by an induced abortion."
In other words, bitch gotta be nuts if she wants an abortion. Oh, and if the doctor fucks up any of the steps in this process, he or she can be sued. That's right: "The absence of physical injury shall not preclude an award of non-economic damages including pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering, emotional distress, psychological trauma, loss of society or companionship, loss of consortium, injury to reputation, or humiliation associated with the abortion."
You got that? In Nebraska, land of wheat and football and corn and cows, not only are the Republicans halting prenatal care for the precious fetuses, they're encouraging medical malpractice lawsuits. Where's your precious government intrusion now, nutzoids?
By the way, the bill contains all kinds of new rules regarding late-term abortion, and another bill Heineman will sign outlaws the procedure at 20 weeks, with no mental health exception. This one is aimed at driving the state's sole late-term abortion provider, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, out of business in Nebraska. Carhart has thought about moving shop over to Kansas in order to replace his friend, the murdered George Tiller.
And thus our American obsession with enforced pregnancy continues. It's as if it's one of the last bastions of patriarchal control, one of the dwindling number of ways that women can be kept in their place, a cause that needs a fight, with new and creative ways to halt progress. Of course, the logic of the battle, as it comes up against other conservative beliefs, keeps getting more and more perverse.
Monday, April 12, 2010
In Brief: Haley Barbour: "No, We're Really Just Stupid Fucking Rednecks":
Every time someone wants to elevate the South, to say that it's finally learned to grapple with its past and come to terms with it, as when, say, Virginia and North Carolina went for Obama in 2008, another leader comes along to say, in essence, "That was a nice moment. But, please, remember, we're really stupid fucking racist rednecks."
This week, that duty went to Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a man who talks like Foghorn Leghorn with a mouth full of balls. On CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley (tagline: "Can you fucking believe we finally gave Candy Crowley a show?"), Barbour said of the recent kerfuffle over Virginia's governor declaring April "Remember the Losers" month (or "Confederate History Month") without mentioning slavery in the initial proclamation, "I don't know what you would say about slavery, but anybody that thinks that you have to explain to people that slavery is a bad thing, I think that goes without saying...To me, it's a sort of feeling that it's a nit, that it is not significant, that it's not a -- it's trying to make a big deal out of something doesn't amount to diddly." That last part wasn't about slavery, per se, but about the outrage over the lack of mention of slavery.
Barbour gave some historical background to the South's continuing glorification of the Confederacy: "My state legislature has made a legislatively enacted holiday, Confederate Memorial Day, and done it for years under Republican governors, Democratic governors. And for seven years as governor, I have issued a proclamation because of what the legislature has done. My Democratic predecessors did so as well [as did the Democratic legislatures]...I'm unaware of them being criticized for it or them having their supporters feel uncomfortable with it."
Do we even need to say why most of their supporters are perfectly comfortable with Confederate Memorial Day? Do we even need to say why dissenters in Mississippi might stay silent?
By the way, last year's charming proclamation of Confederate Memorial Day, right towards the end of Confederate History and Heritage Month, read, "[T]he month of April...shall be set aside to honor, observe, and celebrate the Confederate States of America, its history, those who served in its armed forces and government, and all those millions of its citizens of various races and ethnic groups and religions who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause which they held so dear from its founding on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, until the Confederate ship CSS Shenandoah sailed into Liverpool Harbor and surrendered to British authorities on November 6, 1865." One can assume that the slaves didn't exactly hold the cause "dear." But then again, it's only about "citizens."
Doing anything remotely related to the Confederacy without mentioning slavery is like having a funeral for someone you know is alive. You can pretend as much as you want. That won't make the living any more dead.
Every time someone wants to elevate the South, to say that it's finally learned to grapple with its past and come to terms with it, as when, say, Virginia and North Carolina went for Obama in 2008, another leader comes along to say, in essence, "That was a nice moment. But, please, remember, we're really stupid fucking racist rednecks."
This week, that duty went to Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a man who talks like Foghorn Leghorn with a mouth full of balls. On CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley (tagline: "Can you fucking believe we finally gave Candy Crowley a show?"), Barbour said of the recent kerfuffle over Virginia's governor declaring April "Remember the Losers" month (or "Confederate History Month") without mentioning slavery in the initial proclamation, "I don't know what you would say about slavery, but anybody that thinks that you have to explain to people that slavery is a bad thing, I think that goes without saying...To me, it's a sort of feeling that it's a nit, that it is not significant, that it's not a -- it's trying to make a big deal out of something doesn't amount to diddly." That last part wasn't about slavery, per se, but about the outrage over the lack of mention of slavery.
Barbour gave some historical background to the South's continuing glorification of the Confederacy: "My state legislature has made a legislatively enacted holiday, Confederate Memorial Day, and done it for years under Republican governors, Democratic governors. And for seven years as governor, I have issued a proclamation because of what the legislature has done. My Democratic predecessors did so as well [as did the Democratic legislatures]...I'm unaware of them being criticized for it or them having their supporters feel uncomfortable with it."
Do we even need to say why most of their supporters are perfectly comfortable with Confederate Memorial Day? Do we even need to say why dissenters in Mississippi might stay silent?
By the way, last year's charming proclamation of Confederate Memorial Day, right towards the end of Confederate History and Heritage Month, read, "[T]he month of April...shall be set aside to honor, observe, and celebrate the Confederate States of America, its history, those who served in its armed forces and government, and all those millions of its citizens of various races and ethnic groups and religions who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause which they held so dear from its founding on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, until the Confederate ship CSS Shenandoah sailed into Liverpool Harbor and surrendered to British authorities on November 6, 1865." One can assume that the slaves didn't exactly hold the cause "dear." But then again, it's only about "citizens."
Doing anything remotely related to the Confederacy without mentioning slavery is like having a funeral for someone you know is alive. You can pretend as much as you want. That won't make the living any more dead.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Live with Stephanie Miller, Hal Sparks, and John Fugelsang (and the Rude Pundit):
The Rude Pundit will be appearing as a guest at a special live event, Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal Show, featuring the titular radio host, Hal Sparks, and John Fugelsang. The show's in New York City at the Greene Space at the WNYC studios on Saturday, April 17 at 8 p.m. That's at 44 Charlton Street (at Varick). Tickets are going fast. A splendid time ought to be had by all.
The Rude Pundit will be appearing as a guest at a special live event, Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal Show, featuring the titular radio host, Hal Sparks, and John Fugelsang. The show's in New York City at the Greene Space at the WNYC studios on Saturday, April 17 at 8 p.m. That's at 44 Charlton Street (at Varick). Tickets are going fast. A splendid time ought to be had by all.
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