At a Loss: The Struggle to Say Something About the Murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling

I watched the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile videos shortly after they were put on line, one night after another, showing two black men murdered by police officers. The Sterling shooting is pathetic and enraging. The video of Castile bleeding to death while his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, filmed and narrated and her young daughter sat in the back seat as the cop holds his gun and gives orders is an absolute abomination.

Because, see, Castile did everything he was supposed to do. He complied. He had a license to carry a concealed weapon, which he was and about which he told the officer. He complied. The one thing that anyone who wanted to support the police in all the previous murders by police - Eric Garner or Walter Scott - was that you needed to do what the cops told you. Philando Castile, who was beloved by kids at the St. Paul, Minnesota, elementary school where he worked in the lunch room, did, even volunteering the information about his weapon, which likely the cop knew about in the first place from running the plate on the car.

What do you do with that? How do you justify this shooting, knee-jerk cop defenders? He listened. He responded. But the officer's complete fear and loss of control come through when he desperately screams at the almost supernaturally composed Reynolds, "I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hand out!" Philando Castile was still moaning at that point. What the fuck do you do with that? What do you do with what seems, in the video, with no one attempting to help Castile as he bled out? It was ten minutes before anyone tried to do anything for him.

Castile didn't resist. He submitted. Why would an African American want to submit anymore if even that will just get you killed? Why fucking bother, if following the law is no defense against law enforcement?

And Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana? Shot point blank by cops who were on top of him? How dumb a cop do you have to be to do that? How likely are you to shoot your partner in such close quarters? You'd think that police officers would be trained that if they have someone on the ground and are holding him down, they don't need to shoot the suspect.

I watched the videos, like you, and I just don't know what to say anymore. I don't see how you can conclude anything other than that the two men are dead because they are black. Hell, the governor of Minnesota just said that he's sure Castile wouldn't have been shot if he had been white.

I have long said that, at some point, what needs to happen is that cops need to condemn other cops, like Muslims after a terrorist attack. Usually, the response to that is how cops would never do that to other cops, that I don't understand their job, or something about the Blue Wall of Silence, the usual litany of excuses for why we can't evolve. But the Castile case seems to offer a situation where police officers can possibly, safely say, "Yeah, he fucked up and needs to be arrested."

African Americans need to know that the police know the difference between right and wrong, protection and attack. That's incumbent upon the cops to show that their world isn't just easily killed black and readily defended white.

We are stuck in this nation in patterns that we seem to be deliberately refusing to break, as if to do so would take away the status quo and reconfigure the power dynamics of our culture. A history of racism, the proliferation of guns, the shitty training of police, the militarization of local law enforcement, so much is bound up in these acts that we may never get to untangle it and try to come up with a new way of putting it all together.

A Few Thoughts on Clinton, Email, Trump, and Trust

As with so much of our recent history, you can only understand Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server if you take into account Bill Clinton's penis in the late 1990s. For the better part of two years, on an almost nightly basis, especially in 1997 and 1998, we heard about the President's penis. We were treated to descriptions of it. The government investigated and told us with graphic detail whether it had been in a mouth or vagina or hand of one woman or another. We got to read or hear depositions in various cases involving Clinton's penis, like this from Gerry Spence on CNN on April 21, 1998: "I read -- the president's deposition here. And we see the president -- answering questions like 'Did you -- did she kiss your penis?'" On the floor of Congress, during the trial for Clinton, his penis was brought up when prosecuting congressdouche James Sensenbrenner said, really, "Among the President's lies to his aides, described in detail later in this brief, were that Ms. Lewinsky did not perform oral sex on him."

Most Americans eventually found the unrelenting emphasis on a penis less titillating and less funny after a while and just overly moralistic, hypocritical, and ludicrous. It's one reason that Clinton wasn't removed from office for lying under oath about where his penis spent time.

These things actually happened. This is history. As much as we try to, you cannot divorce history from the circumstances that are occurring now. And you know who was there the whole time? The person who was constantly questioned about the penis? The person who had been attacked ruthlessly by her husband's enemies for over five years? Yeah, that was Hillary Clinton.

Imagine for a moment that you had to hear about your spouse or partner's genitals constantly. You might wanna bail on them, sure. But one of the reasons that Republicans wanted to degrade Bill Clinton was to punish his cunt-feminist-lawyer wife for daring to be a First Lady involved in policy and not just picking china and telling schoolkids to read or some such shit. So you might think, "Yeah, fuck them," defend the offending partner, and bear it out, taking all the punches and kicks that come your way. A little emotional PTSD never hurt anyone, right?

Fast-forward to 2009 and Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State, confirmed on a 94-2 vote, including some of the very motherfuckers who tried so desperately to destroy her. And, as Secretary of State, Clinton sees how pathetic and outdated the IT at the State Department is (and remains throughout her tenure) due to perpetual underfunding, and she knows that the same motherfuckers will gun for her when they get a shot, so, fuck it, do the home server. It's just a little hinkier than what Colin Powell had done, and he got away with it.

So, yeah, who really gives a fuck what Clinton did here unless you're just trying to score political points or make a Bernie Sanders "Hail Mary" pass? Why should we give a fuck? FBI Director James Comey, a Republican, did his goddamnedest to make the whole thing seem sinister, but, basically, all he really said was "Sorry. Nothing really happened here. Can we go back to framing idiots for terrorism now?"

And yet.

One thing that this blogger can't get his little brain around is that Clinton lied to us. She didn't lie to the FBI (like David Petraeus, who, despite Fox "news" spin, did things that were far, far worse than anything Clinton was even accused of doing), but she wasn't truthful to us, the voters, about the whole email situation. Yeah, you can argue that the classification system is a clusterfuck between agencies and impossible to keep track of, but that's why you fucking ask someone, that's why you act as cautiously as possible. Goddamnit, we know all politicians lie and prevaricate and hedge. But this kind of self-inflicted wound just confirms any biases about Clinton and pushes people on the fence onto the lawn of the distrustful (which isn't always greener, but the people there tell themselves it is). As this blog said nearly a year ago, Clinton should have just announced, "Fuck, yeah, I used my own server. I know these cocksuckers in Congress. You don't."

We were always going to hear endlessly about the emails. It will be in every fucking congressional ad, like it's the greatest GOP porn ever created, where the Statue of Liberty is face raped by Benghazi and ass raped by an email server wearing a Hillary mask while some white inbred freak stands there, jacking off and saying that if you want to stop Crooked, Raping Hillary, vote White Inbred Freak to make America Great for White Inbred Freaks Again.

Shit, if Clinton becomes president, if the Democrats don't win back at least one house of Congress, you can bet that impeachment articles will be on the table on Day One. It's gonna be a fuckin' nightmare. And if you don't believe that, see the first part up there about how we spent two years of our democracy arguing over whether or not the President's dick was in a particular orifice. It's exhausting just thinking about that.

And yet.

There is no telling what would have happened if the Republican Party had nominated a relatively sane person, a typical conservative twat flea, Bush or Christie, shit, even Rubio. But they didn't. They nominated Donald Trump, a madman with the hair and politics of an anime Nazi. And that madman praises other madmen for their madness, as Trump did by blowing the corpse of Saddam Hussein for his brave murder of his own people without trial. If that doesn't scare the shit out of you, if that doesn't make you say, "Okay, fuck it, fine, Hillary. Maybe we can have a re-do in 2020," then you don't understand history (or the election of 2000, where Bush shouldn't have even been within electoral striking distance of Al Gore, but Americans, man, we love to go all in on a pair of twos).

And yet.

This blogger can't escape the feeling that he is less a voter in this election than an unwilling accomplice (not about the stupid emails, but to enabling a certain power dynamic to continue, not that he knows how to change it anymore).

And yet.

He still wants to vote for the first woman for president.

Goddamn this election. Goddamn this era. And goddamn Bill Clinton's penis and all that sprung from it (except Chelsea - she seems nice).

Sorry, Donald Trump, But the Sheriff's Badge Excuse Makes No Fucking Sense

You've seen it by now, right? The thing from a tweet put out by Republican candidate and anus dentata Donald Trump that takes the "History Made" image celebrating her as the first female presidential nominee from a major party, with a cash background and Fox "news" poll footer photoshopped in? Oh, and with a six-pointed star that reads, "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" In other words, a Star of David-shaped epithet over a pile of money. Seriously, it may as well have said, "Jewy Jew Jews Love Their Jewy Money." Which is weird because, while Clinton is a ludicrously enthusiastic supporter of all things Israel, she ain't Jewish.

Still, the message is clear: She is a puppet of the Jewish financial industry conspiracy or whatever Jewy-sounding thing you need to be a dumb fuck enough to think is real. And that level of dumb fuck forms much of the base of Donald Trump's vote. Surprise, surprise, the anti-Semitic image was tweeted out earlier on a white supremacist's account. In other words, it was stolen from a white power enthusiast by a candidate who is beloved by such people and who has retweeted them with depressing regularity.

Now, you'd think, sincerely or not, the campaign would just say, "Yeah, we fucked up. Sorry. It won't happen again." Instead, first the Trump camp took down the offending image, covered the star (mostly) with a circle, and put it back up, as if no one ever screenshot anything. Then, they sent their flying monkeys onto the airwaves to say, "God, you fuckers are so sensitive. It's a sheriff's badge? See? We're saying Hillary is a criminal by putting it on a sheriff's badge." Trump himself tweeted that. His social media director said they got the star from Microsoft Shapes and intended it to be a sheriff's badge, which "fit with the theme of corrupt Hillary and that is why I selected it."

Except that makes no fucking sense at all. When have you ever seen a sheriff's badge used as a way to accuse someone of a crime? In fact, if you look at the websites for actual campaigns for sheriff, you see the badge as it's usually depicted: a five- or six-pointed star with a location and title on it.

Here's Trump-humper and human armpit Sheriff Joe Arpaio, from his page begging for money to save his political ass:

Occasionally, it's used as a shape for the ad itself, as in this from a candidate for sheriff in Spalding County, Georgia:

Yeah, and much of the time, the badge's points have the balls on the end.

You can look at dozens of these, and the Rude Pundit has, and you won't find a single campaign for sheriff where the badge is used to indicate anything more than the job and its authority. It simply doesn't function in the way Trump claims it does.

In other words, it's utter and complete bullshit that it was supposed to be a sheriff's badge. They knew goddamn well that all the skinheads and yahoos would know exactly what was going on. They share this shit all the time on their chat rooms of the damned and dumb, on their shit-for-brains Facebook groups.

One more piece of evidence that this was meant to be a dog whistle to the Nazis and Nazi wannabes? Right now, Hillary Clinton's "corruption" is about classified material sent through emails, a money-free fake "scandal." In fact, the only "scandal" that involves money is her getting paid to give speeches to Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, to be precise, or, you know, where the Jews are. So the cash on the image is an allusion to that.

You put the Star of David on there, and what the fuck else could it be?

Francis Hopkinson, One of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Was a Sarcastic Bastard

One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence representing New Jersey, Francis Hopkinson was a smart-ass and one sarcastic bastard. Sure, he was a lawyer, judge (appointed by George Washington), harpsichordist and composer, and a designer of the American flag. But he once asked "whether a Quarter Cask of the public wine" could be payment for his work because that's how the Founders rolled.

In his essays, he could be total dickhead to anyone who pissed him off, including those who thought the United States was better off under the rule of England. For instance, he wrote "On Peace, Liberty, and Independence" in the early 1780s as part of a series of university orations, where he was a snarky fucker, mocking those who were against civil liberties springing from self-rule: "Had Great-Britain succeeded in her views with respect to this country, we should not have been put to the laborious task of framing laws for our own government, a task which we seem but indifferently qualified to perform; we should have been rid of the intolerable plague, the heart-burnings, feuds, cabals, and chicaneries attending popular elections, and we should have been eased of the enormous expense of assemblymen's wages, com|missions, fees and salaries to the officers of government, and a thousand other charges and inconveniences to which we must now be subjected: we should have had nothing more to do, but to pay when called upon, and obey when commanded."

And what he wrote about what independence means when it comes to positions on other nations could be rejiggered just a little to be used on those who would exploit stupidity and xenophobia to maintain power:

"Whilst we were dependent upon Great Britain, we had no trouble in studying the characters, customs, and manners of foreign nations; the English were so kind as to furnish us with all their ideas on these subjects. They told us, that the French are a trifling and contemptible nation;that the Spaniards are proud, sullen, and revengeful; the Germans, ostentatious; the Hollanders, boors; the Russians, savages; and, in short, that the English were themselves the only people fit to live and govern the word, as if all other nations held their dominions by usurpation. How easy was it to believe all this? Implicit faith saves an infinity of trouble. How happy were we in submitting to the government, adopting the prejudices, and aping the manners of a nation, which we conceived to be the glory of the world, and the perfection of human nature?

"Whereas, now, we are under the painful necessity of altering our sentiments. We are compelled by actual experience to acknowledge, that the French are a brave, generous, and polished people: and that none of the other nations are, in truth, such as they have been represented to us. Our commercial connections will convince us that human nature is fundamentally the same in every country. That good and bad men are to be found in every climate; and that the people of England have not actually monopolized all the virtue and wisdom of the world. Every conviction of error is a violence done to the mind, inasmuch as the forcible eradication of a prejudice must be attended with a painful sensation. The blind man is happy in his blindness, and the ignorant content with his ignorance. The wisest of men has somewhere told us that the increase of wisdom is the increase of sorrow."

That is some kick-ass shit right there, a punch right in the Trumps.

In Brief: Carpetbagging West Virginia Republican Congressman Skips District's Floods for Egypt Junket

That jolly-looking sumbitch is Congressman Alex Mooney, a Republican from the 2nd District in West Virginia. Here is what one of the counties that elected him in 2014 looked like just last Thursday:

That's from the floods that devastated parts of West Virginia, killing 20 people and wrecking homes, businesses, roads, the usual shit that floods wreck. Up there is Elkview, in Kanawha County, in the 2nd District, one of the worst-hit areas.

We know that Congressman Mooney was in Washington, D.C., which isn't very far from West Virginia, on Wednesday. We know that on Saturday he started the first meetings of a 3-day trip to Egypt he took with other members of the House of Representatives. As mentioned before, we know the flooding was obviously terrible pretty quickly on Thursday. Which, by the Rude Pundit's magical ability to look at a calendar, is before Saturday or even Friday, if that's when Mooney flew out.

Mooney's office isn't saying if he left before the floods started, which likely means that he didn't. And we know that whether or not Mooney showed up to check out the water and mud damage is more show than anything else. But half of politics is the show. Every other member of the West Virginia congressional delegation whose areas were affected went home to offer comfort and aid. Not Mooney, though. He was dining in luxury in Cairo, probably getting a goddamn camel ride around the pyramids and a blow job from a belly dancer or whatever happens in Egypt.

The added twist here is that Mooney ain't from West Virgina. He moved there in 2014 just so he could run for office as the craziest conservative whore in the brothel. Yeah, he had run for office in two other states and he hadn't paid property taxes or voted in West Virginia until his May 2014 primary. So more than a few people see him as a carpetbagger, especially since he was anti-coal industry until he decided to trick the rubes. Now, there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of residency laws to run for office. Them's the rules, you know?

But at least pretend like you give a wet rat shit about your constituents, even if it means telling the Sphinx you'll check her later.

The Real Pocahontas Would Fuck Trump's Shit Up

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee and a man wearing mongoose pubes for hair, Donald Trump, has been especially proud of one of his jokes. It's where he calls Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts "Pocahontas" because of Warren's previous statements that she is part Cherokee. "Pocahontas" is an Indian. Warren claims to be Indian. So...humor? Like an asshole dad at the dinner table every Sunday, Trump repeats this line as if he just wrote the world's first knock-knock joke. And, of course, the inbred piglets at his rallies laugh and encourage him when they're not sticking their fingers in their asses and sniffing them.

Of course, facts are to Donald Trump like penicillin is to syphilis, but at the end of the day, calling Warren "Pocahontas" is pretty much saying she's a bad-ass worker who brought shit-tons of business to the shores of America, which was what Pocahontas did in real life despite being kidnapped and likely raped by white people, all before she died at 21.

Ha-ha-ha.

Yeah, see, wait, let's see if we can get this out before laughing hysterically, Pocahontas, whose real name was Matoaka, as a young woman in an Algonquin-related tribe, would have been put to work, hard, laborious shit, including farming, building houses, and getting firewood, shit that would totally fuck-up the manicure on Donald Trump's tiny, tender fingers.

Hilarious, right? Right?

Putting aside whether the story of saving John Smith's pasty ass is apocryphal, we do know that she was captured by the English and held for ransom, like the release of English prisoners and some supplies. When the invaders' demands weren't met, she was held for a full year, during which time she was converted to Christianity and learned to read English. She was baptized "Rebecca," which was much easier for the English to pronounce. And she ended up being a diplomat between the English and her father's tribe

Man, that's just ripe for mockery.

Oh, and she was released only after she agreed to marry a white dude who fell in love with her, John Rolfe. Yeah, after two years in Virginia, he took her back to England where they exploited the shit out of her, parading her around as the civilized savage and using her as an example of how the Indians could be converted to lovin' Jesus, which was used to draw lots of investment in the Virginia Company and brought big money to the "New World." She died of a lung ailment on the way back to Virginia and was buried in England.

Are you slappin' your knees yet?

Yeah, the real Pocahontas would fuck Donald Trump's shit up badly. She'd put him on the ground and beat him bloody, much like Elizabeth Warren has been doing. Warren should announce that she's not worthy to be called Pocahontas, but she appreciates the compliment.

Laugh on, piglets, and make your pathetic war whoops and cries.

Ways Donald Trump Could Torture Prisoners That Would Be "Tough Enough"

Today, Republican candidate and psychedelic chia pet Donald Trump proclaimed that he would bring back waterboarding to use on suspected terrorists. "I like it a lot," he said, which is exactly as presidential as you'd expect him to be. He added, "I don't think it's tough enough," and implied that perhaps we'd need to be as vicious as ISIS is.

Luckily, Trump has his name on an array of products he can use that would make any terrorist or wannabe terrorist or terrorist adjacent people confess to everything from bombing plots to thinking about Trump while fucking their wives, anything, please, to make it stop.

1. Force them to be coated head to toe in Trump Success fragrance, described as douchily as possible as a stink that "captures the spirit of the driven man." Well, fuck, capture is what we all want, right? "The scent is an inspiring blend of fresh juniper and iced red currant, brushed with hints of coriander," and terrorists must be afraid of iced red currant because who the fuck knows what that is. "As it evolves, the mix of frozen ginger, fresh bamboo leaves and geranium emerge taking center stage, while a masculine combination of rich vetiver, tonka bean, birchwood and musk create a powerful presence throughout wear," we're told. And that level of bullshit would suffocate anyone.

2. Attach Donald Trump Men's Clear Stone Tie Clips to their testicles. It's the classy way to say, "Hey, haji, we're gonna be at this for a long, long time until you tell me why you were shepherding goats in a field near a place we don't like."

3. Make them eat Trump steaks and drink Trump vodka. The sheer amount of diarrhea will be enough to weaken them to the point of confession.

4. Loudly play them the audio of books "written" by Trump, like The Art of the Deal or the threatening-sounding Crippled America. You should probably tie their hands down because they will be tempted to tear off their ears.

5. Be sure to question them under the hot bulb of a Trump lamp, like this one: "the simple lines of this cylindrical lamp are accentuated and enriched by the mother of Pearl cladding. The simple geometry of the herringbone pattern adds to the understated elegance of this classically coastal piece. The shade is sand with a white liner." In fact, read them that description and let them ponder, "Cladding? The fuck?"

6. Force them to live in a country led by Donald Trump.

Yes, yes, yes, under a President Trump, the enemy will know the sweet kiss of pain and death, with just a hint of luxury and classy classiness.

Bored of Benghazi: A Note to Trey Gowdy

Fuck, no, Rep. Trey Gowdy, you narrow-headed motherfucker, we're not gonna read your bullshit committee's 800-page bullshit Benghazi report. You know why? Because, you future circus geek, there ain't 800 pages worth of anything left to fucking say about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. So even though you keep telling everyone, "I simply ask the American people to read this report for themselves, look at the evidence we have collected, and reach their own conclusions" or, when you're feeling like the smug, inbred prick you are, "You can read this report in less time than our fellow citizens were taking fire and fighting for their lives on the rooftops and in the streets of Benghazi," we are not gonna bother.

The fucking 9/11 Commission Report was just 585 pages. And math tells us that a fuckload more people died then on the soil of the United States.

You know why we're not gonna read the thing, you cartoon yokel? Because you've got nothing. If you had discovered that Hillary Clinton had taken a shit while getting updates on the situation in Benghazi, you'd've called a goddamned press conference to say that Ambassador Chris Stevens will never get to take a shit again because Secretary Clinton had been relieving herself when she should have prairie-dogged that bowel movement and personally gunned down the attackers.

But, no, really, Barney Fife without the charm, make sure you appear on all the fuckin' news shows to jack yourself off about how you found some big new things, like, what? That the military should have at least tried to get there a little faster, even though there was no means known on this earth that would have transported troops there in time? That the consulate and Ambassador Stevens should have been better protected? Well, no shit, little man. However, unless you have an email or something that says that Hillary Clinton personally ordered security away from them, then it's just lesson learned. Oh, and, by the way, we know you don't have an email or something because you had 800 pages to show it to us, and, if you did, you'd've been touting that as the greatest historical event since Ronald Reagan used his dick to knock down the Berlin Wall or whatever stupid shit you believe.

Mostly, though, we're not gonna read you Benghazi report because it's fucking boring. So fucking boring, even as you tried to write it in a not-boring way. And there's nothing you could have done to make it less boring because you don't have anything new to say, even as you try to tell us that you do, you goon who looks like your hair was cut by a spastic spider monkey.

The whole report is like one of those cooking competition shows, like Chopped. The music surges as a chef-competitor attempts to saute some onions quickly and then a dramatic drum beat hits when a judge says that the chef didn't use enough salt or something. And you might think, "What the fuck? Sprinkle some fuckin' salt on that shit. Don't just whine about it."

So when one of the "most serious" conclusions that the committee came to was that the White House was kind of a prick about getting shit to us, well, man, look in the fuckin' mirror, if you can stand to. And does anyone actually give a happy weasel fuck about what Susan Rice said on a Sunday talk show? If you do, you are not a serious person and go fuck yourself.

The worst, though, the most galling, stomach-churning, yet hilarious part is that the whole fuckin' charade was all an attempt to prove that filthy Hillary is a filthy liar. Yet, it seems, according to every piece of evidence, that when it comes to Benghazi, she's been completely exonerated. She didn't do a damn thing wrong. Yeah, you got the email server out there, and that's more bullshit to wrestle with, but, otherwise, what?

The Republicans on the select committee may as well have dug up the bodies of the dead and paraded them around, danced with them, fucked their rotting faces, and tossed them on the White House lawn. That's how much respect the GOP members had for the dead. The birds who shit on their graves have more respect for the dead than Trey Gowdy does.

Still, we'll never be done with Benghazi until Hillary Clinton is lying in the cold, cold ground, too. We'll never pretend we're a sane country that respects the facts. Not anymore, man, not anymore.

The Rude Pundit (and Others) Telling Stories in NYC Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow evening, the Rude Pundit will be telling tales at an event put together by mad genius and VICE-guy Harmon Leon. It'll be a Moth-type thing, so maybe a little less politics, a little more "Here's weird shit what happened to me."

TALE will feature this blogger, radical bastard cartoonist Ted Rall (who can tell a hell of a story), Vanessa Valero from the Moth, Amaru Dixon, and Tim Eberle.

We'll all be at the Three of Cups in Manhattan starting at 8 p.m. That's a restaurant and bar on First Avenue at 5th Street in the East Village. Tickets are a mere $5.

Come, listen, laugh, hug, drink, and drink. 

Now That the TRAP Law Fuckery Is Done, What's the Next Abortion Fuckery Conservatives Will Attempt?

The strategy of opponents of abortion rights in the last couple of decades has been pretty straightforward. They take a bunch of shit in their filthy hands and they fling it at a wall containing the Roe v. Wade decision. They see which shit sticks, and then they go back to the shitpile, pick up some more shit, and throw again. Oh, and, to be sure, a whole lot of shit has gunked up what should be a decision a woman makes in consultation with a medical professional and others, should she wish. Shit like waiting periods and mandatory ultrasounds seem to be within the overly vague "undue burden" standard. And anti-choicers did get a dilation and extraction method of late-term abortion outlawed.

Today's Supreme Court decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is a big fucking deal because it marks the end of one of the anti-choice right's favorite tactics: using the bullshit cover of "women's health" to create all kinds of impediments to women actually getting to take care of their health. Called "Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers" or, charmingly, TRAP laws, in this case, it was two Texas regulations that required doctors at family planning clinics to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles and that those clinics where abortions are performed meet the same standards as surgical centers and hospitals. They were lies based on lies propped up by lies, and the Supreme Court said today, in essence, "Yeah, you can go fuck yourself while you choke on your lies."

Or, as Jessica Mason Pieklo put it for Rewire, "Finally, we’ve got a Supreme Court decision that demands facts over rhetoric and data over belief, and doesn’t fall into the 'difficult decision that people disagree on' false equivalence. Monday’s decision is a clear, data-driven defense of the importance of access to comprehensive reproductive health care and an affirmation of abortion as a fundamental right. And that kind of defense has been a long time coming."

In his majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer slammed down the hammer of reality on the anti-choice fantasists. Over and over, in as straightforward a manner as you're gonna see in a Supreme Court decision, Breyer tells the state of Texas (and all the legislators who pretend that these regulations have any purpose than to prevent women from exercising a legal right) how full of shit they are, the level of that shit, and how meaningless their shit is, as in this summary of a District Court's findings on HB2, the Texas law:

"A collection of at least five peer-reviewed studies on abortion complications in the first trimester, showing that the highest rate of major complications—including those complications requiring hospital admission—was less than one-quarter of 1%.

"Figures in three peer-reviewed studies showing that the highest complication rate found for the much rarer second trimester abortion was less than one-half of 1% (0.45% or about 1 out of about 200).

"Expert testimony to the effect that complications rarely require hospital admission, much less immediate transfer to a hospital from an outpatient clinic."

That last piece of evidence comes from a California study of nearly 55,000 patients who had abortions and only 15 needed immediate transfer to a hospital. And that's just the beginning of a litany of "Fuck you, fuckers" from Breyer, concluding with this mic drop: "We have found nothing in Texas’ record evidence that shows that, compared to prior law (which required a 'working arrangement' with a doctor with admitting privileges), the new law advanced Texas’ legitimate interest in protecting women’s health. We add that, when directly asked at oral argument whether Texas knew of a single instance in which the new requirement would have helped even one woman obtain better treatment, Texas admitted that there was no evidence in the record of such a case." That's the difference between a lie-filled political ad and having to testify under oath.

And when it comes to the surgical center requirement that caused the closure of a bunch of clinics, leaving very few for the entire state, Breyer says, "Texas seeks to force women to travel long distances to get abortions in crammed-to-capacity superfacilities. Patients seeking these services are less likely to get the kind of individualized attention, serious conversation, and emotional support that doctors at less taxed facilities may have offered. Healthcare facilities and medical professionals are not fungible commodities. Surgical centers attempting to accommodate sudden, vastly increased demand...may find that quality of care declines. Another commonsense inference that the District Court made is that these effects would be harmful to, not supportive of, women’s health."

You got that? Supporters of these laws are doing things that will actively harm - or, you know, punish - women for deciding to get an abortion. Breyer and the majority were having none of it.

Plus you gotta love that Ruth Bader Ginsburg follows with a concurrence that is just another little kick in the nuts while Texas is on the ground, saying, in essence, "What the fuck good is a motherfucking right if you can't use it, you pricks?"

We'll see how quickly the TRAP laws fall in the other states where legislators are trying to regulate abortion out of legal existence (while seeming to ignore the fact that abortions decrease if you make access to birth control easier - it's almost as if preventing abortions isn't their ultimate goal). But you can bet that the anti-choice forces are already gearing up for the next round of fuckery. They will be tossing those turds at the wall to see if they can get something to stick.

They are declaring that they will continue to "protect women's health and safety" from the "predatory abortion industry." It's that last piece, from the bugfuck insane Family Research Council, that gives a possible indication of what the next tactic will be. They've failed to use the medical side of things to regulate clinics completely out of business (although, congrats, cocks, you've sure fucked things up for a few years). So now it's time to put the moral and medical shit on the side and go after them as business entities. Yeah, let's predict that the next round will be about putting more and more tax and other business regulations on clinics. They've tested these kinds of things before, but that's the next direction to go whole hog.

Also, you can always use the states' rights bullshit to rally the idiots. Senator John Cornyn and Gov. Greg Abbott, both of Texas, issued statements that said something like "blah, blah, blah, states that hate women should be able to hurt women without not guv'mint tellin' us what we do to our little ladies."

So, yeah, this is a day to be relieved that the Supreme Court said that they really fucking meant it when they said that abortion is legal. But gear up for the next round. It's gonna come quickly. And there's also that presidential election and that empty ninth seat, which didn't matter this time, but, well, you know.

A Few Upsides of the Brexit Disaster

While the vote yesterday in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union is a giant roach fuckball of awful consequences, many still to come, and while it represents a triumph of xenophobia and outright racism over the forces of reason and sanity, a sign of the apocalypse, and a demonstration that the Great Stupiding of the world is fully upon us (more on that next week), hey, we're human, so let's go into the weekend with a teacup half-full attitude.

1. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's hair will make President Donald Trump's epic combover look positively normal.

2. A whole bunch of stiff upper lips are getting some much-needed exercise by quivering in fear and sadness.

3. Two words: Bargain corgis.

4. For Tony Blair alone: The smug satisfaction of knowing you are no longer the worst PM of the modern era.

5. For David Cameron alone: More time to stick your dick in a pig.

6. Pound notes will make good kindling when winter rolls around.

7. Much fewer annoying Spanish tourists in England. They'll all be heading to Scotland and Ireland.

8. Owners of curry houses in Birmingham won't have to worry about more competition coming in.

9. Young people in England now have the best reason to hate the elderly.

10. Good chance that, 28 days later, the country will be decimated by crazed zombies with a rage virus. So we get to see how that goes.

11. Maybe, just maybe, voters in the United States will think, "Huh. Voting for the crazy side might not be as fun as it sounds."

Terrorists Aren't Magic, Don't Have Superpowers

One thing that the Rude Pundit has never understood is why we endow terrorists with seemingly magical powers, as if they can just use their minds and a wave of their hands to make bridges explode and bullets pierce the hearts of the infidels. This mostly goes for Muslim terrorists. We haven't made the leap to thinking that dirt-poor whites who blow shit up or gun the fuck out of some business are anything more than the luckiest knuckle-draggers in the filthy cave.

But Muslim terrorists (or, more accurately, what we label "terrorists") are treated like they will go all Thanos on our puny asses, and, woe to us, we don't have any fucking Avengers to help us, so we have to pass laws and commit acts that just make us look like little pussies. See Gitmo, see the Patriot Act, see most every fake case that's ever been hyped up to justify the security state apparatus when it's really just some deranged fucker who said some stupid shit on an online forum and the FBI treated him like he had visited Fantasy Island for wannabe jihadists.

The hysteria that surrounds our every attempt to grapple with terrorism is just goddamned depressing. Even the term is bullshit, as in the well-worn but still potent argument about why, say, Omar Mateen was a terrorist but, say, Dylan Roof isn't. Both are deluded fucknuts who wanted to intimidate and harm people because they didn't conform to their fucked-up version of the world. Both got their radical ideologies online. Both wrote or proclaimed that they were bad-ass motherfuckers wrapped up in trying to bring about greater violence or take great selfies or something.

And the term is even more full of shit when you talk about "potential terrorists," as in the mystical files that make up the "Terrorist Watch List" (or, as the FBI calls it, the Terrorist Screening Database). As you might know, you don't get to know why you are on, say, the no-fly list. That's a secret, even from you, should you find out you can't board your plane, even if you're not hiding a box cutter in your anus.

But here we are, with Democrats going to the barricades to expand the use of the TSD, which can take away your rights without any due process or charge or ability to answer. Yesterday's thrilling sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives was about taking this abuse of power and expanding it to include gun sales. While you might think that it's awesome to prevent anyone from buying a gun, if you believe that people with scary names who might have done something to make the FBI think they might at some undefined date become terrorists, if you think the government should be able to make secret lists and deny civil liberties and rights (buying those weapons is still legal, no matter what you'd like), then you're kind of not a liberal anymore on this issue and the ACLU thinks you're full of shit.

The most generous reading of the sit-in is that John Lewis and the other Democrats wanted to do something, anything to break the logjam against action on gun control. If we can get this passed, then maybe universal background checks would be next. Or, in some ways, it's kind of clever to use the TSD to say, "Well, if you're gonna label people terrorists-in-waiting, then why the fuck would you let 'em buy guns?" And if this was an effort to delegitimize the whole damn list, that would be noble. Of course, it wasn't.

Meanwhile, on the right, we get a fanning of the flames of panic, from Donald Trump's anti-Muslim desire to "figure out what the hell is going on" to Republicans who are ready to scream that Muslim Magnetos are going to come to our homes and kill us all. This past weekend, the Rude Pundit was walking past protesters outside Trump International Hotel in Manhattan. Except they weren't protesting the baboon-haired hate-seller. They were there to protest the United States allowing Syrian refugees into this country. They equated the refugees with ISIS. And even when it comes to ISIS, that, right there, is hysteria, without any facts, any truth, just purely projecting a fictional fantasy evil onto some really very ordinary criminals.

Until we learn to calm the fuck down, at the personal and the political levels, about terrorism, until we learn to separate fantastical fears from mundane reality, with a good dose of caution and awareness, we're doomed to keep pretending like we're doing good when, really, we're just playing cruel games with people's lives.

Donald Trump Maturely Masturbates to Make America Great Again

It was something of a miracle, the pundits and political consultants declared. For the first time since he became the presumptive nominee for president, Republican Donald Trump did not appear in public to masturbate furiously and violently.

Previously, every time Trump got behind a lectern or mike stand, he'd reach into his suit pants and yank out his semi-erect prick and jack off horrifyingly, smacking it down and punching it as he roared and screamed in pain and ecstasy, squeezing his nuts before beating them with the microphone, yowling like a wounded bison on a burning prairie as he came, bucking and thrusting in reaction, and then shoving his bloodied, bruised junk back into his silk drawers. Entertaining as hell, to be sure, but disturbing as fuck. For the most part, crowds loved it, and they would rush the stage when he was done to lap up the dribbled semen off the floor where Trump had just stood.

This kind of injurious self-pleasure might work in the primaries. But, certainly, he'd have to change for the general election, at some point. So it was that Trump came out to speak at the Trump Soho in New York City, which you know got paid a mighty sum for the privilege of hosting the event. The GOP's standard bearer dropped his pants, stepped out of them, and folded them with great decorum, as if he was participating in a ritual as old as the nation. Then he calmly took out his small, flaccid penis and gently stroked himself to as full an erection as a man his age might get.

"Today I‘d like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this election," he said, and everyone instinctively flinched, as if he was about to jizz immediately. Instead, Trump took out some skin moisturizer and pumped it into his wee hands. All lubed up, he began to pull on his pud with diligence, rhythm, and purpose. "The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money. That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders’ voters to join our movement," he exclaimed, perhaps forgetting, perhaps ignoring the fact that he had called the Vermont senator "Crazy Bernie, crazy as a bedbug" just last week.

Yes, Trump maintained this mellower pace. Oh, sure, a few times it seemed like he was going to punish his own pecker, veering into the realm of insult with "Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency." But he always proceeded with the focus of someone who is wanking on principle, the most noble wanking there is. Even as he pulled in Benghazi and Libya and the email server and people killed by undocumented immigrants, Trump stayed on task, maintaining a nearly martial precision to his rhythm.

By the time he got to the end, with his declaration of "We are going to make America rich again. We are going to make America safe again. We are going to make America Great Again – and Great Again For everyone," he silently paused and brought himself to orgasm, closing his eyes as his dickhole spit out a bare drop or two of spooge. It was quickly wiped up by an aide. Then he merely tucked himself back in, quietly put back on his pants, waved to the crowd, and walked out.

The gathered reporters and voters were besides themselves with awe. "Is this the "new," "mature" Trump?" they wondered. They wanted to know if this was the mythical pivot from blithering primary idiocy to more considered general election rhetoric. Yes, he did exploit the very things that people have been told to hate about Hillary Clinton, a litany that anyone who pays attention to politics could rattle off readily. Yes, he delivered his broadside as if he hadn't just been given electric shocks to his nipples. You could practically hear the glee in the voices of the CNN and MSNBC anchors as they reported on the new version of the new, reasonable, calmer Trump, like this might actually become a close race.

Calmer, perhaps, but, for fuck's sake, do we not notice that he's still just jacking off on us?

So You've Decided to Assassinate Donald Trump...

So you've decided to assassinate Donald Trump. If so, this pamphlet is for you.

You might think you have the best intentions, like killing the man who would bring misery to millions if he's elected president. Or you might think that you're going to be the one to stop New Hitler. Or maybe you just don't like his stupid face. If this describes you, read on for a few things to bear in mind as you pack your gun and figure out your escape route or the best place to stand if you're going for the suicide bombing.

First, let's imagine that you've succeeded, that the Secret Service or the police didn't take you down, that you were able to get past security and shoot him right in the heart or go all sniper from a distance or blow him up. Your success is not a reason to celebrate with your anarchist or whatever pals or your fellow dead Muslims. In fact, you should anticipate that you might unleash unintended reactions.

1. Chances are that your actions would give every Trump-loving yahoo with some assault-type weaponry the excuse to go completely bugfuck insane and things'd get mighty shooty pretty quickly. The Republican candidate has attracted lots of gun-humpers who love to sashay around outside his events like debutantes showing off the latest taffeta fashion statements. They are just aching, throbbing, and aroused, hoping that they'll get the sign that the liberal genocide can begin. Your murder of their tangerine godhead would be as good a reason as any to declare the war has begun.

2. Dead Trump is not necessarily any less powerful than Live Trump. As any crazed religious zealot will tell you between barking maniacal prayers about eternal pain and wrath and other shit, a martyr can have as much or more of an effect than some raving fucknut. All of a sudden, even those who are not inclined to get all bullet-happy will feel as if they have to act to redeem the beliefs of the murdered cult leader...sorry, candidate. There will always be opportunists who will step in to fill the void left by the bloodied, cold corpse of Donald Trump. They are his true heirs, they will say, the ones who will build a wall with the bones of their enemies, with a moat filled by refugee children's tears. They are even more devolved versions of the debased man himself. We can call them "Sarah Palin."

3. And you'd end up making the repressive security apparatus kick into high gear as the federal government, spurred by rabid Republicans who will newly find their love of Trump, releases all of its tyrannical powers on anyone who has even whispered a vaguely threatening thing about the candidate. Like a certain blogger who regularly tweets about the need to punch Trump in the nuts.

4. Chances are that you won't succeed in assassinating Donald Trump. But you might maim him, and, if history and movies have taught us anything, a wounded crazy man is infinitely more dangerous than a whole one. Let's not even get into what would happen if you missed your shot and took out Melania, but, certainly, the word "purge" would come up. You will also have a semi-martyr effect, except now Trump with an eye patch and half a nose will be endowed with some kind of mystical powers, as if he can't be killed. This would have the inevitable result of drawing a sympathy vote and will more than likely create the exact opposite effect than the one you desire.

So sit tight, dear assassin, and just don't do it. You don't need to worry about taking out Trump. He's doing a good enough job of that without your interference.

(Note: If you are a time traveler who was sent back here to prevent a dystopian hellscape from occurring, or if you've got Dead Zone-like psychic powers and can see Trump blowing up the world, well, you do what you think is best.)

A Millennial Speaks: Thank You, Bernie Sanders

This blogger has mentioned his contentious discussions with the millennial generation. So he reached out to one, R. Sharp, to see where he stood on moving forward in a post-Bernie election. This is what he wrote. It's optimistic in a way that younger people need to be, but it's realistic in that it's tempered with an understanding of the work that still needs to be done. Check it out:

Thank You, Bernie Sanders

In this year's election cycle we have seen many different views of what America should look like according to a few handpicked, privileged individuals. Like many others, I didn't really give a shit what these corporate puppets had to say. In my mind this country was set in its ways and nothing would ever change. It wasn't until the junior senator from Vermont changed that perception. Bernie Sanders showed me that there was at least one person in Washington who truly cared about the rest of us. His call for economic, racial, and political justice was new and refreshing to me. His so-called "radical" ideas for breaking up the big banks and providing free college tuition and healthcare struck a chord with me. Bernie Sanders made me want to learn more about politics and how our government works.

For months I did my research, constantly watching CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. I read online articles from opposing sides of each issue and watched countless documentaries that forced me to question my convictions or my lack of them. Never in my life had I cared this much about politics. Bernie was a saint to me, always calling out the injustices in our society and laying out coherent plans to fix them. He spoke of the greed of the 1% and how they managed to make billions for themselves while countless starving children spent their nights on the streets with no hope for a better life. I asked myself: What could I do to change this? I found the rather obvious answer quickly: I could vote.

The voting process was always sort of a scam to me. It was just the government trying to convince the common people they had a voice that could change things, when, in reality, they already had everything predetermined, bought and paid for. It wasn't until my searching opened my eyes and made me realize the true power of the vote. I immediately registered and took every opportunity I had to spread the word among my friends, co-workers, and peers. The message was simple, maybe even naive: you can have an impact on our society if you vote.

So now here we are, five months from another election that will shape the future of our nation. Sadly, Bernie has been defeated in his bid for the White House. However, his ideals and proposals have shaken the foundation of the Democratic Party, if not all of American politics. His words have resonated with millions in every state, and he has gathered a dedicated following of young people.

My message to those who are disappointed with Sanders' primary loss is this: Stay with it. Use that fire you have burning within and put it in action. Stand up for the change you want to see, stand up for what's right, and please, for the love of God, stand up and vote in November. If you are a Bernie supporter who doesn't care anymore because he is out of the race, reevaluate yourself. Remember how Bernie inspired you to give a damn.  Vote for what Bernie stands for, but more importantly vote for what you stand for. Vote so that Bernie’s beliefs can at least have a chance to become real with the next president. If you don't, we could end up with an orange-skinned super villain in office come January.

I've had to face that the American dream as we thought we knew it is dead and gone. So many people in this country are doomed to failure the second after they are born. Whether it's because of where they live, how much money their parents make, or the color of their skin, there are millions of us who will never have the opportunity to better themselves.

When I was in grade school my teacher asked the class a simple question: What is the American dream? My friend's hand shot up immediately. "The American dream is when you make a lot of money and don't have to work," he said.

My teacher was in shock, he shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "That's what's wrong with your generation," he said. "The American dream is about being self sufficient and supporting those you love, it's about having opportunities open for you regardless of class and social status. Everyone gets a shot at success." You can imagine how a room full of adolescents reacted to this. No one cared. We thought Teach had lost his grip with reality. It wasn't until now that I realize what he meant and what’s been lost and how we might get it back.

Thank you, Bernie Sanders, for inspiring me to care about the future of this country. For opening my eyes and allowing me to see the world through a different lens. Thank you for your spirit, and, most of all, thank you for making me wake up and join the fight.

Photos That Really Bring the Awfulness of this Week Together in One Idiotic Image

Left to right, those men with the guns are Bifkin, Gooch, the Grundle, and Uncle Taint. They were outside the boot-scootin' joint, Gilley's, in Dallas yesterday where Donald Trump was continuing his election year road show, What Crazy Shit Will This Dumbfuck Say Today?

The Perineum Four up there wanted to show how much they love them some Second Amendment and, to them, a spray-tanned man who lives in a fancy golden apartment is just the candidate to stand up for them and their mighty weapons of self-defense and ground-standing. Well, Trump did say his daughter was hot enough for him to date, so they probably understand him better than most.

It's the perfect image for the end of this terrible week, only missing a t-shirt with Vladimir Putin riding an alligator on it: A quartet of skeevy men, armed and hoping it's gonna be go time some day, outside a political rally where a candidate tells them everything they feel about outsiders and Mooslims is right.

Fuck this week. Fuck this year. Fuck this election. But mostly, today, fuck those four poor suckers who have bought into every lie shoved into their brains by Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, and, yeah, the modern Republican Party. They're pathetic men who believe that their masculinity and their freedom are measured by their ability to keep and bear as many fuckin' arms as they can afford, not understanding how very weak and scared they actually seem.

Once Upon a Time, the United States Believed in Genuine Gun Control

Nearly fifty years ago, in the wake of the assassinations of MLK and RFK and not that long after JFK, there was a moment when the United States Congress actually considered, seriously, strict gun control laws. As part of an omnibus crime bill that was debated in June of 1968, shortly after Bobby Kennedy was shot dead, gun registration and licensing was on the table. It was a fascinating debate in the nation, with bizarro bedfellows, as well as organizations and the media taking stands that not only seem surprising now, but are considered downright un-American in many quarters.

In a cover story on Time magazine for June 21, 1968 was "The Gun Under Fire," with a Roy Lichtenstein image of a gun pointing at the reader. The article contains a paragraph that is unthinkable in a mainstream magazine today: "High on the list of reforms sought by many gun-control advocates is a system of dual registration, similar to the one for autos. The driver is licensed, and his vehicle is registered separately. The same principle could apply to guns - licensing for the owner, registration for each of his firearms. It would be a nuisance, to be sure, but, given the destructive power of guns, it would hardly be an outrageous imposition in an industrial society that demands registration of cars, businesses, private planes, dogs and marriages, as well as prescriptions for many mild drugs. Even the Bedouins of Jordan, rootless wanderers and fierce individualists all, are required to register their rifles with desert police."

The attitude there is one of "No shit. What kind of assholes wouldn't agree to this?"

In fact, the Republican Governors Conference approved of greater gun control in their June meeting in 1968, and the U.S. Mayors Conference recommended banning handgun ownership for anyone but law enforcement. The thinking among many conservatives was that the gun nuts were fucking everything up for the hunters. And a majority of Americans, 84%, supported strong gun control legislation.

One extraordinary moment was President Lyndon Johnson's message to Congress on gun control as the bill was being debated. "I propose, first, the national registration of every gun in America," Johnson said. "Registration will tell us how many guns there are, where they are, and in whose hands they are held." He also proposed licensing. And, in case anyone wanted to fuck with the man with the big dick, he continued, "Nothing in these proposals will impair the legitimate ownership or use of guns in this country...Nor are they threats to the mystique of manhood or to the heritage of our people...The only heritage that is harmed is the record of violent death and destruction that shames our history."

If President Obama even hinted at this, he would be lynched faster than you can say, "NRA." But here we were, in a time when we were allowed to talk about everything up to and including confiscation of and outlawing handguns.

In the end, this debate was the event that made the NRA shift into full-on batshit paranoia. And the organization had some interesting partners in this. The Black Panthers, for example, feared that registration would allow their guns to be confiscated. Leftists wanted to be able to keep their guns as self-defense against the "abundantly armed" state. Sounds horribly familiar, no?

The gun control law that did pass contained some provisions about the sale and transfer of firearms, but, as LBJ admitted after signing it, it fell far, far short of what he felt was needed. Of course, these days, those provisions about the importation and shipping of certain guns would be considered an attempt to go into a gun owner's home, kill their family, rape their dog, and take their guns out of their cold, dead asses. Not necessarily in that order.

Since then, the whole window of what can be accomplished on gun control has closed more and more. We once could get an assault weapons ban or a waiting period. Now, even after yesterday's really beautiful filibuster by a large number of senators, the best we can hope for is that the people on the perverse (and punitive) terrorist watch list will be prevented from buying guns and maybe expanded background checks. Registration and licensing is not something you can even bring up without being considered an insane radical. We have devolved since the 1960s. And we can barely conceive of reducing the number of guns.

Oh, one more thing about 1968. On May 27, just 10 days before his murder, Robert Kennedy was speaking in Roseburg, Oregon, and good many people in the crowd were angry at his support of gun control measures. Kennedy was booed as he defended the proposals. One man told Kennedy that he was against gun control because "Nazi Germany started with the registration of guns." Yeah, nothing's new. Nothing.  Kennedy's caravan would head south, down the West Coast, towards his nearly inevitable end.

Queering the Killing, Killing the Queer

When we were younger, we would go every weekend to Strokes in Lafayette, Louisiana. Hell, sometimes we'd even go on weeknights if we just felt like dancing our asses off for a while. We, all of us, the queers, the straights, the bis, we'd shake and groove as a group, as couples, even solo, if the mood was right and the drugs and liquor had drop-kicked inhibitions out into the humid night outside. We'd show up for the drag nights, watching cross-dressers do their Judy Garland or Janet Jackson, cheering and treating them like the divas they were. Strokes was, ostensibly, a gay nightclub, and the bathrooms there were legendary for a quick hookup, but mostly it was the one place in town that accepted all of us so we just be who we were without anyone needing to pretend.

In south Louisiana in the 1980s, going to a place like Strokes was an act of rebellion, a giant middle finger, a "Suck my dick" to the hateful forces of the Christians and the conservatives, the Catholics and the evangelicals, the dumb and the sexually-repressed, all telling us that we were wrong, that we were deserving of their hate. During this time, the memory of the 1973 arson fire at the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans where 30 people died, was still strong with the patrons at Strokes.

Strokes used to be just off one of the main thoroughfares in Lafayette, on Johnston Street, behind the strip mall that once housed Raccoon Records. It was back a bit, somewhat out of sight. You more or less had to know it was there or you wouldn't notice it. The outside was nondescript. Just a regular wood-framed building with only a small sign denoting what was there. Inside, the dance floor was the center of the room, the stage area for the drag queens was just off to the left, the bar on the right, tables all around. The lights were a kaleidoscopic wonder, dizzying and disorienting, especially when a scented fog was blown over the crowd. It was always packed on weekends, and we were almost always there until closing at 2 a.m.

And we dreaded leaving. Because, see, once we exited the doorway at Strokes, at the end of a night, sweaty, exhausted, most of us drunk or high, laughing, ready to go to the late night all-you-can-eat pizza buffet down the street so we had something to puke up in the morning, we had to face the assholes who always hung out in the parking lot waiting for their turn to yell at us. They weren't there every time, but they were there enough, prepared to make us feel like shit pretty quickly. It was a group of young men - it was always men - who gathered to drink beer and yell, "Fag" and "Fruit" and "Cocksucker" and "Dyke" and anything else, like this was their evening revelry. Mostly, we'd just ignore them and go to our cars. Every now and then, one of them would actually try to get in one of our faces, usually Ronald's, since he was the thinnest, least threatening of our group. A couple of times they'd throw beer bottles at us, shattering on the ground near us.

It was fucked-up, but it never got worse than that. Two people in our group would be beaten for being queer elsewhere. But the gaybashers outside Strokes never took a swing.

And no one ever hurt anyone inside the club. It was an oasis. It doesn't exist anymore, but other oases exist everywhere, places where you are just free.

So it's impossible to comprehend the violation that occurred with the Orlando massacre at the Pulse nightclub if you don't take into account that a safe space, a real safe space, has been desecrated. And one of the saddest parts of this whole thing is that Omar Mateen was either going to Pulse to case the joint repeatedly or, more likely, he, too, felt safe there. More and more it seems like he was trying to cope with his innate queerness, something that neither marriage to women nor prayer was helping, something that his father told him was an abomination and would get him punished by their Muslim God. Mateen's actions in murdering 49 people were monstrous and unforgivable, not least because he decided to bring the hatred of himself and the still-strong hatred from the outside world into the safe space, the place of celebration, the place where, as we know from the victims, queer and straight, primarily Latino, primarily young, acceptance was available, at least inside the club's walls.

Yeah, this is an over-romanticized vision of gay nightclubs. But you cannot separate a mass shooting from the space where it occurred. If one happens at a school or a workplace or a movie theater playing a particular film, those have meaning. As does this one. You cannot talk about the Orlando massacre and leave out that it was an attack on the gay community. That's like talking about Newtown and leaving out that most of the victims were small children.

Queer these killings because this was about killing the queer.

Donald Trump Is ISIS's Dream Candidate for President

The first question this here blogger thought of after listening to Donald Trump yesterday was "What the fuck do you think England, Germany, and our closest allies are going to do when you refuse to allow their Muslim citizens into the United States, you blithering orangutan abortion?" Because one way to make it pretty fucking clear that we're at war with Islam is to treat Islamic people like they are guilty of crimes they didn't commit, don't support, and are pretty fucking pissed about.

ISIS couldn't have asked for a better candidate to be running for president. If Trump were to win, it would be like Eid all year long for them. What more could a terrorist ask for from a decadent Western country? It would run nonstop on ISIS websites: Mega-rich hedonist Donald Trump, proclaiming he loves Jesus and hugging the American flag, in his gold-plated penthouse that makes Saddam Hussein's decorating taste look minimalist, on his private jet, in photos with mostly naked women. And then, when he goes on one of his tears about how the United States needs to go after members of the "Muslim community" who he thinks are supporting terrorists and how mosques need to be held responsible, just edit that shit and there's your recruitment video for the next generation or so.

Didn't we learn a goddamned thing after 9/11? Trump is so proud of his lie that he never supported the invasion of Iraq (when, in reality, he turned against it when pretty much the entire nation was turning against it), that it was a mistake, that he would never make that mistake, that he wouldn't overreact in that way. But his entire "plan" for dealing with "radical Islam" is to overreact like a paranoid schizophrenic on PCP discovering a mosquito stinging him. By the time he's done, he'll have scratched off his skin and be bleeding to death, but, goddamnit, he's not itching anymore.

Everything we did in the years after 9/11 played into the hands of al Qaeda. Every. Fucking. Thing. From Gitmo and Abu Ghraib to the Iraq "war" that helped drag down the economy to the terror alerts that were meant to keep the entire population shit-scared. And here comes this fucking flaming lunatic declaring that the best thing to do is demonize Muslims, torture prisoners, and bomb "the hell" out of places that we're already bombing the hell out of. Oh, and then pretend like this is a more sensible policy than every fucking thing we did after 9/11. It's like ISIS said, "We need someone who is going to alienate America's allies and enrage even larger segments of the Muslim world than President Drone Murder. Oh, hey, who is that the Republicans nominated? Fuck, yeah, motherfuckers, that persimmon-colored man is a gift from God right there."

Today, President Obama, finally had enough of listening to Trump (and, let's be honest here, many other conservatives) whimper their pitiable whines of "He won't say, 'Radical Islam.'" He showed Trump his pimp hand and back-slapped him: "Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith? We’ve heard these suggestions during the course of this campaign. Do Republican officials actually agree with this? Because that's not the America we want. It doesn't reflect our democratic ideals. It won’t make us more safe; it will make us less safe -- fueling ISIL’s notion that the West hates Muslims, making young Muslims in this country and around the world feel like no matter what they do, they're going to be under suspicion and under attack." And he couldn't have had more contempt in his voice than when he said the phrase "politicians who tweet." He might as well have been spitting in Trump's stupid face.

It's really this simple: If you support Donald Trump, you are giving aid and comfort to ISIS, more clearly than just about any Muslim in the world.

Late Post Today

Still wiping off the grime from a hike in the right-wing shitpile. 

Back later with more mucky rudeness.