A Dozen Random Thoughts Upon Reading the Released Torture Memos:
The Rude Pundit scribbled these while reading all four of the newly declassified torture technique memos:
1. This is all such cuntish ass covering. Almost comically legalistic, they repeat the phrase "you have informed us," so that there's a circle jerk of putting the blame elsewhere. Yes, the Justice Department approved shit, but it was based on what they were told, which, from the CIA's perspective, was that everything was hunky-fuckin'-dory and it all worked without harming anyone.
2. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel approved techniques only in strangely specific detail, like face slapping with a certain placement of fingers. Did anyone ever turn someone in for slapping a detainee in the wrong way? It's all useless and barbaric.
3. Just because you change the definition for yourself, it doesn't meant the definition's been changed.
4. In what realm does slamming someone against a wall 20 or 30 times not constitute an intent to cause extreme pain? Just because you say you're only doing it to shock and alarm someone doesn't make it so. The same could be said about slamming some guy's nuts in a book.
5. In what realm does putting someone in, more or less, a closed coffin for 18 hours a day not constitute an intent to cause severe mental pain? And who's keeping the time so that the detainee is only in there for 8 hours at a stretch?
6. From page 40 of one May 10, 2005 memo: "[W]e conclude that the authorized use of sleep deprivation by adequately trained interrogators...could not reasonably be considered specifically intended to cause severe mental pain or suffering."
7. From page 112 of Volume 1 of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago: "Sleeplessness was a great form of torture: it left no visible marks and could not provide grounds for complaint even if an inspection-something unheard of anyway-were to strike on the morrow."
8. The repetitious nature of the memos, reiterating the same things are a-okay, means that people in the CIA and elsewhere were shitting themselves over possible prosecution and wanted to be reassured that their asses were covered if they, for instance, "accidentally" caused severe mental or physical pain while doing a "combination" of techniques (the subject of the 20-page May 10, 2005 memo). Of course Barack Obama had to tell the CIA that their agents would not be prosecuted. He'd've faced a revolt, even though the people doing this knew it was wrong. Otherwise, they wouldn't have kept looking for that ass cover. Now, can we use those vicious bastards to turn on Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and the other Bush administration pukes and not let the Spanish do the goddamned job we should be doing ourselves?
9. No, fuckers on the right, this ain't as bad Saddam Hussein or Torquemada, but it's just a few degrees from what Reagan used to condemn the Soviet Union for (while, you know, supporting far worse in Central America). But what else it ain't is us, America. Or at least an ideal of what we're supposed to represent. Page 36 of the May 30, 2005 memo lists all the horrible things done to prisoners in other countries, like Pakistan and Egypt as a way of mitigating the CIA's techniques. Yeah, slitting the throat of your victim after you've raped them is worse than stopping after the rape. But, you know, you still did the rape.
10. Everything happens in steps and degrees in this life. You tell someone it's okay to strip someone naked, slap them around, deprive them of sleep, throw cold water on them, and waterboard them, at what point do you get to how much electricity can be applied without "severe" pain?
11. Steven Bradbury's sign-off of "Please let us know if we may be of further assistance" ought to be tattooed on his ass in prison.
12. Chant this: Someone needs to pay, someone needs to pay, someone needs to pay.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Tea Parties: So That Happened:
Yesterday, thousands of poor and middle-class people were manipulated into helping rich people keep more of their money. It's sort of like going to a Yankees game, but without the souvenirs.
The Rude Pundit thinks it's generally a good thing when large groups of people come together for a cause, and, agree or disagree with the cause, getting people in the habit of protesting is ultimately positive for the nation. It gives us a more European feel, where citizens tend to actually give a shit about what their government is doing. Would that many of the people holding up signs yesterday had respected our antiwar marches back in 2003 and 2004, but, hey, water under a bridge built of bones, you know.
What is stunning is that yesterday's Tea Party protests were based on a demonstrable, factual lie. It wasn't about interpreting something or opinions. No, what people were protesting was actually a falsehood. They were played for suckers while they thought they were saving democracy. It was a bait and switch, man, a con game that was more dishonest than sidewalk three-card monte.
The whole day was filled with Fox-fanned falsehoods, starting with the whole acronym the protests adopted after "teabag" became the subject of mucho deserved mocking. "Taxed Enough Already" presupposes that taxes will be raised. And it seems that the tea partyers simply think that Barack Obama is lying to them when he says that the taxes for the vast, vast majority of Americans are lower under his plan. (On his radio show, Alan Colmes was screaming at callers who kept insisting that Obama was raising taxes for everyone.) The protests were against some fantasy administration, a sandwich of fascism on a socialism bun covered in a secret sauce of tyranny. It's like prayer: you can't really prove that it matters, but, hey, someone told you it was a good idea to do it, so down on your knees you go.
But it's not just the concept of being "taxed enough" that was a chimera. The Fox "news" hosts built the day around a fantasy America, as if we were all in a 1950s elementary school history class being force-fed the long-disproved myths of the nation.
Take, for instance, this one that Taste of Texas restaurant owner Nina Hendee told Glenn "Twitchy" Beck while they were standing outside the Alamo in San Antonio: "The night before the Alamo fell, [Col. William B.] Travis gathered his men in this courtyard, took out his saber right there, and this is where the line in the sand came from. He drew -- history says -- he drew the line in the sand right here and said, 'If you'll will stand with me and fight with me, you may die with me, come and cross this line with me,' and they did." Beck returned to that "line in the sand" again and again in his broadcast yesterday, as when he yammered, "I have a feeling something big is starting with the tea parties and I think the line is being drawn in the sand once again."
Except, you know, Travis didn't draw a line in the sand at the Alamo. He was kind of a dick, too. And let's not even get into why the Alamo was there in the first place.
Later, on On the Record with Greta Van Susteren's Nose Job, Beck echoed himself: "Everybody's always heard, you know, draw a line in the sand. This is where it happened. They drew a line in the sand and said, Enough is enough." Which is a misreading based on a lie. Even if the line story was true, the soldiers knew they were gonna die.
Compound this with the near-constant, unrelenting gang rape of the Founders by Fox and the tea partyers. Sean Hannity had on the creepy fuckin' Thomas Paine actor and, really, they may as well skull-fucked the real Paine's bones, each taking a hole so Hannity and the old guy could rub their cocks against each other. Said faux Paine, "My name is Thomas Paine. In 1776, I wrote, 'The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.' Now, my fellow Americans, it's your moment to change the course of history. On this night in Atlanta, Georgia, citizen Sean Hannity and the rest of an aroused nation will hear from you as we the people once again declare our independence." Of course, Paine was advocating for war with Great Britain. Yeah, "Common Sense" even lays out the military strategy and the postwar economic situation. Oh, and he was also specifically advocating for the unity of the colonies, not really for any kind of states' rights. But, sure, yeah, he did write that thing about the sun.
How goddamned simple-minded this whole tea party thing was. How divorced from reality. What a waste of time, of energy, of paper and ink. All it succeeded in doing was propping up some egos, giving understandably frustrated people a place to misdirect their anger, and allowing there to be an hour of TV that featured Ted Nugent, Penn Jillette, and Janine Turner, like Hell's Tonight Show.
One last thing: Unless Joe the Plumber starts snakin' some fuckin' pipes, he has to drop the title.
Yesterday, thousands of poor and middle-class people were manipulated into helping rich people keep more of their money. It's sort of like going to a Yankees game, but without the souvenirs.
The Rude Pundit thinks it's generally a good thing when large groups of people come together for a cause, and, agree or disagree with the cause, getting people in the habit of protesting is ultimately positive for the nation. It gives us a more European feel, where citizens tend to actually give a shit about what their government is doing. Would that many of the people holding up signs yesterday had respected our antiwar marches back in 2003 and 2004, but, hey, water under a bridge built of bones, you know.
What is stunning is that yesterday's Tea Party protests were based on a demonstrable, factual lie. It wasn't about interpreting something or opinions. No, what people were protesting was actually a falsehood. They were played for suckers while they thought they were saving democracy. It was a bait and switch, man, a con game that was more dishonest than sidewalk three-card monte.
The whole day was filled with Fox-fanned falsehoods, starting with the whole acronym the protests adopted after "teabag" became the subject of mucho deserved mocking. "Taxed Enough Already" presupposes that taxes will be raised. And it seems that the tea partyers simply think that Barack Obama is lying to them when he says that the taxes for the vast, vast majority of Americans are lower under his plan. (On his radio show, Alan Colmes was screaming at callers who kept insisting that Obama was raising taxes for everyone.) The protests were against some fantasy administration, a sandwich of fascism on a socialism bun covered in a secret sauce of tyranny. It's like prayer: you can't really prove that it matters, but, hey, someone told you it was a good idea to do it, so down on your knees you go.
But it's not just the concept of being "taxed enough" that was a chimera. The Fox "news" hosts built the day around a fantasy America, as if we were all in a 1950s elementary school history class being force-fed the long-disproved myths of the nation.
Take, for instance, this one that Taste of Texas restaurant owner Nina Hendee told Glenn "Twitchy" Beck while they were standing outside the Alamo in San Antonio: "The night before the Alamo fell, [Col. William B.] Travis gathered his men in this courtyard, took out his saber right there, and this is where the line in the sand came from. He drew -- history says -- he drew the line in the sand right here and said, 'If you'll will stand with me and fight with me, you may die with me, come and cross this line with me,' and they did." Beck returned to that "line in the sand" again and again in his broadcast yesterday, as when he yammered, "I have a feeling something big is starting with the tea parties and I think the line is being drawn in the sand once again."
Except, you know, Travis didn't draw a line in the sand at the Alamo. He was kind of a dick, too. And let's not even get into why the Alamo was there in the first place.
Later, on On the Record with Greta Van Susteren's Nose Job, Beck echoed himself: "Everybody's always heard, you know, draw a line in the sand. This is where it happened. They drew a line in the sand and said, Enough is enough." Which is a misreading based on a lie. Even if the line story was true, the soldiers knew they were gonna die.
Compound this with the near-constant, unrelenting gang rape of the Founders by Fox and the tea partyers. Sean Hannity had on the creepy fuckin' Thomas Paine actor and, really, they may as well skull-fucked the real Paine's bones, each taking a hole so Hannity and the old guy could rub their cocks against each other. Said faux Paine, "My name is Thomas Paine. In 1776, I wrote, 'The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.' Now, my fellow Americans, it's your moment to change the course of history. On this night in Atlanta, Georgia, citizen Sean Hannity and the rest of an aroused nation will hear from you as we the people once again declare our independence." Of course, Paine was advocating for war with Great Britain. Yeah, "Common Sense" even lays out the military strategy and the postwar economic situation. Oh, and he was also specifically advocating for the unity of the colonies, not really for any kind of states' rights. But, sure, yeah, he did write that thing about the sun.
How goddamned simple-minded this whole tea party thing was. How divorced from reality. What a waste of time, of energy, of paper and ink. All it succeeded in doing was propping up some egos, giving understandably frustrated people a place to misdirect their anger, and allowing there to be an hour of TV that featured Ted Nugent, Penn Jillette, and Janine Turner, like Hell's Tonight Show.
One last thing: Unless Joe the Plumber starts snakin' some fuckin' pipes, he has to drop the title.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Extremism as Defined by the Right:
Last night on his Fox "news" program, Bill O'Reilly, a man who wants to shove a falafel up Glenn Beck's ass, went the full nutzoid on Rosa Brooks. Now, you may sanely ask, "Who the fuck is that?" She's a (now former) Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor who has taken a position as an advisor to the undersecretary of defense policy. Now, you may sanely ask, "Who the fuck fucking cares?" But you are not Bill O'Reilly (unless you are, in which case the Rude Pundit would like to take this opportunity to say, "Really, dude? Really?").
O'Reilly, after sputtering over the fact that Spain is looking into charging ex-Bush administration officials with crimes against humanity, decides to go for some bizarro moral equivalency by dragging Brooks out of the behind-the-scenes advisory position to make her a new poster child for what he sees as far left extremism. He tosses in a few quotes from Brooks's columns where she says that torture is bad and people should be punished for it, even if they're government officials. And, horror of horrors, O'Reilly says she was a "special counsel to George Soros's Open Society Institute," which, in O'Reillyzania, is akin to being Satan's pitchfork sharpener.
Here's how the man bottom lines Brooks's new position: "And now she has access to America's defense secrets at the Pentagon. Again, what the deuce is going on? This is madness...A confirmed far left radical is now operating within the Pentagon." Later, in a discussion with some who-the-fuck-cares Heritage Foundation stooge, he adds, "[T]his woman is as far as left as you can get...And I think they're doing it -- I think she's a spy for elements of the Obama administration. They're putting her in the Pentagon so she can report back to them what Gates and the other people are doing. There's no other reason on earth that this woman who teaches at Georgetown and this and that should be in that position. She's a nut."
So there you go. There's where conservatives draw the line on liberal extremism. By the way, if O'Reilly's people had decided to read just a little more of Brooks's work, like in her position as a law professor, they'd have discovered she's a moderately left wing scholar who calls for sanity and rationality in America's policies in the era of terrorism. Look at her article on the Geneva Conventions, where she cautions both sides of the argument about the applicability of the conventions to terrorism detainees: "Acknowledging that the Bush Administration's read of the Geneva Conventions is not implausible does not require agreement with the Administration's policies. It is entirely possible to accept that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terrorist suspects, but still consider the Administration's detention and interrogation policies both morally bankrupt and strategically foolish." In the same article, she even chides those on the left who see terrorism as a law enforcement matter for having a "head-in-the-sand quality." Oh, fuck. Not nuance. Makes brain hurt.
Meanwhile, conservatives have gone to paranoiac paradise because the Department of Homeland Security issued a report that said something so patently obvious about right wing extremism that they may as well have put out a white paper announcing, "Oral sex feels great, and ice cream is tasty, especially with pie." What caused Joe Scarborough to sneeringly say that the Obama administration is waging a "war on veterans"? What made Newt Gingrich wind himself by frantically thumb tweeting that the DHS is "smearing veterans and conservatives"? What forced Michelle Malkin to put away the ivory dildo long enough to type that the report was a "piece of crap" and a "sweeping indictment of conservatives"?
It said that when people lose their jobs and homes, they might be easily convinced that immigrants and the black president are to blame, especially if they think he's gonna take their guns and put them in FEMA concentration camps. And they might think about doing stupid shit, like, you know, blowing up a federal building or something. Oh, and because extremist groups, like militias and white supremacists, might try to convince veterans to join up to exploit their skills because, you know, it's that or homelessness, joblessness, and suicide for way, way too many of them.
As the report says, "Prominent anti-government conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty." Or, in other words, duh. However, for conservatives, this report, which is just a heads up for law enforcement, shows that the White House has it out for them, which is convenient on a day when Fox "news" is trying to prove it's still valid by getting a few people out to stand around with signs and teabags.
The threat assessment also points out that it's the solitary nuts who just need a nudge that pose the greatest danger: The DHS "has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts." Does it really need to be pointed out that the most destructive act of domestic terrorism was committed by a right-wing extremist Army veteran? Makes brain hurt...
So there's your conservative movement's consistency: a slightly liberal law professor is a nut who has no business in the Defense Department, but right wing nuts are representative of conservatives. Jesus. All they've got left are the rubes pathetically tossing tea.
Last night on his Fox "news" program, Bill O'Reilly, a man who wants to shove a falafel up Glenn Beck's ass, went the full nutzoid on Rosa Brooks. Now, you may sanely ask, "Who the fuck is that?" She's a (now former) Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor who has taken a position as an advisor to the undersecretary of defense policy. Now, you may sanely ask, "Who the fuck fucking cares?" But you are not Bill O'Reilly (unless you are, in which case the Rude Pundit would like to take this opportunity to say, "Really, dude? Really?").
O'Reilly, after sputtering over the fact that Spain is looking into charging ex-Bush administration officials with crimes against humanity, decides to go for some bizarro moral equivalency by dragging Brooks out of the behind-the-scenes advisory position to make her a new poster child for what he sees as far left extremism. He tosses in a few quotes from Brooks's columns where she says that torture is bad and people should be punished for it, even if they're government officials. And, horror of horrors, O'Reilly says she was a "special counsel to George Soros's Open Society Institute," which, in O'Reillyzania, is akin to being Satan's pitchfork sharpener.
Here's how the man bottom lines Brooks's new position: "And now she has access to America's defense secrets at the Pentagon. Again, what the deuce is going on? This is madness...A confirmed far left radical is now operating within the Pentagon." Later, in a discussion with some who-the-fuck-cares Heritage Foundation stooge, he adds, "[T]his woman is as far as left as you can get...And I think they're doing it -- I think she's a spy for elements of the Obama administration. They're putting her in the Pentagon so she can report back to them what Gates and the other people are doing. There's no other reason on earth that this woman who teaches at Georgetown and this and that should be in that position. She's a nut."
So there you go. There's where conservatives draw the line on liberal extremism. By the way, if O'Reilly's people had decided to read just a little more of Brooks's work, like in her position as a law professor, they'd have discovered she's a moderately left wing scholar who calls for sanity and rationality in America's policies in the era of terrorism. Look at her article on the Geneva Conventions, where she cautions both sides of the argument about the applicability of the conventions to terrorism detainees: "Acknowledging that the Bush Administration's read of the Geneva Conventions is not implausible does not require agreement with the Administration's policies. It is entirely possible to accept that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terrorist suspects, but still consider the Administration's detention and interrogation policies both morally bankrupt and strategically foolish." In the same article, she even chides those on the left who see terrorism as a law enforcement matter for having a "head-in-the-sand quality." Oh, fuck. Not nuance. Makes brain hurt.
Meanwhile, conservatives have gone to paranoiac paradise because the Department of Homeland Security issued a report that said something so patently obvious about right wing extremism that they may as well have put out a white paper announcing, "Oral sex feels great, and ice cream is tasty, especially with pie." What caused Joe Scarborough to sneeringly say that the Obama administration is waging a "war on veterans"? What made Newt Gingrich wind himself by frantically thumb tweeting that the DHS is "smearing veterans and conservatives"? What forced Michelle Malkin to put away the ivory dildo long enough to type that the report was a "piece of crap" and a "sweeping indictment of conservatives"?
It said that when people lose their jobs and homes, they might be easily convinced that immigrants and the black president are to blame, especially if they think he's gonna take their guns and put them in FEMA concentration camps. And they might think about doing stupid shit, like, you know, blowing up a federal building or something. Oh, and because extremist groups, like militias and white supremacists, might try to convince veterans to join up to exploit their skills because, you know, it's that or homelessness, joblessness, and suicide for way, way too many of them.
As the report says, "Prominent anti-government conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty." Or, in other words, duh. However, for conservatives, this report, which is just a heads up for law enforcement, shows that the White House has it out for them, which is convenient on a day when Fox "news" is trying to prove it's still valid by getting a few people out to stand around with signs and teabags.
The threat assessment also points out that it's the solitary nuts who just need a nudge that pose the greatest danger: The DHS "has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts." Does it really need to be pointed out that the most destructive act of domestic terrorism was committed by a right-wing extremist Army veteran? Makes brain hurt...
So there's your conservative movement's consistency: a slightly liberal law professor is a nut who has no business in the Defense Department, but right wing nuts are representative of conservatives. Jesus. All they've got left are the rubes pathetically tossing tea.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A Few More Notes Regarding the Tea Party Protests:
1. This doesn't seem quite right: The "Teabag Obama" blog offers "Proper Teabagging Instructions." And there's about ten things wrong there.
2. The same blog, which is just a damned funny read, says, helpfully and with no sense of irony, "Teabagging is for everyone." The Rude Pundit agrees. Sweet Jesus, he agrees.
3. The list of suggested signs for the events contains this call to violence: "Tea Party Today: Tar and Feathers Tomorrow."
4. Some of the truly awesome signs that have actually been held at various anti-tax protests:
Did someone ask that old white lady if George Bush also supported "unconstitutional, anti-Christ, socialism, federal deficit spending programs"?
Ah, fuck this. Fuck the puns and the mocking. It's just too fucking depressing. Somewhere, Karl Marx is laughing his bearded ass off. Because what is this but classic exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie? It's a bunch of rich fucks, beginning with that tool Rick Santelli on CNBC and ending with the slavering profitmongers at Fox "news," making the poor idiots, who are desperate from fear of or actual job loss and heath insurance loss and home loss, do their bidding. Look at the people attending. Bedraggled Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin wannabes, clinging to the image of those who create the illusion of the working class without the work or the class. Ignorance is such bliss, man.
This movement's gonna die a horribly gruesome death. It really is just the last hideous gasps of a kind of right wing populism that's got nothing to do with actual populism and everything to do with a desperate scrabbling to preserve the status quo for the wealthy. It's ideological endgame, motherfuckers, and the checkmate ain't gonna be pretty.
1. This doesn't seem quite right: The "Teabag Obama" blog offers "Proper Teabagging Instructions." And there's about ten things wrong there.
2. The same blog, which is just a damned funny read, says, helpfully and with no sense of irony, "Teabagging is for everyone." The Rude Pundit agrees. Sweet Jesus, he agrees.
3. The list of suggested signs for the events contains this call to violence: "Tea Party Today: Tar and Feathers Tomorrow."
4. Some of the truly awesome signs that have actually been held at various anti-tax protests:
Did someone ask that old white lady if George Bush also supported "unconstitutional, anti-Christ, socialism, federal deficit spending programs"?
Ah, fuck this. Fuck the puns and the mocking. It's just too fucking depressing. Somewhere, Karl Marx is laughing his bearded ass off. Because what is this but classic exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie? It's a bunch of rich fucks, beginning with that tool Rick Santelli on CNBC and ending with the slavering profitmongers at Fox "news," making the poor idiots, who are desperate from fear of or actual job loss and heath insurance loss and home loss, do their bidding. Look at the people attending. Bedraggled Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin wannabes, clinging to the image of those who create the illusion of the working class without the work or the class. Ignorance is such bliss, man.
This movement's gonna die a horribly gruesome death. It really is just the last hideous gasps of a kind of right wing populism that's got nothing to do with actual populism and everything to do with a desperate scrabbling to preserve the status quo for the wealthy. It's ideological endgame, motherfuckers, and the checkmate ain't gonna be pretty.
Monday, April 13, 2009
"A Storm Is Gathering" vs. "The Gathering Storm":
Lizz Winstead and the crazed comics at Shoot the Messenger have come up with a response to the deeply insane anti-gay marriage ad, "The Gathering Storm." The ad itself is a seeming self-parody, where we learn the evil done to poor straights by gays wanting rights (it comes down to: "I can't discriminate without consequences anymore").
Which one is funnier, the real or the parody? Both are quite disturbing, but Shoot the Messenger wins points because the troupe gathered on Easter Sunday to film this. Just like what Zombie Jesus would do.
Check it out at STM's website.
Lizz Winstead and the crazed comics at Shoot the Messenger have come up with a response to the deeply insane anti-gay marriage ad, "The Gathering Storm." The ad itself is a seeming self-parody, where we learn the evil done to poor straights by gays wanting rights (it comes down to: "I can't discriminate without consequences anymore").
Which one is funnier, the real or the parody? Both are quite disturbing, but Shoot the Messenger wins points because the troupe gathered on Easter Sunday to film this. Just like what Zombie Jesus would do.
Check it out at STM's website.
Glenn Beck in Teabag Heaven:
Glenn Beck settles down to finally sleep. It had been a long day, an exhausting one, promoting his 9/12 Project, imploring people to protest the modest tax increase on the wealthy by joining in the April 15 tea parties all around the nation, calling for active but polite revolution, walking that high wire that he knows he's on as the leader of a burgeoning faux movement, balancing precariously between being a demagogic violent cult leader and a blustering buffoon, with people around him willing his fall to one side or the other or some merger of the two. Yes, after a day of that, Glenn Beck returned home for his night time routine: he smoked a little crystal meth, beat his kids for telling him not to beat them again, tied up his wife on the bed, shoved an enema up his ass and took a shit on her before jacking off in her hair, weepingly apologized while he untied her, downed a few Ambien, and headed to his office to watch burn victim porn until he could stagger over to the couch and collapse at last. It's the little things that get him through the days.
His dream is so very joyous. It is already Wednesday, and Beck senses that he's in Boston, surrounded by his followers, some merrily dressed in 18th century costumes, big titted women in bustiers and giant skirts, men with little pony tails or in white powder wigs and long coats, some imitating the founders - dressed as Thomas Paine or Ben Franklin - and others, an entire crowd, old and young, fat and skinny, holding signs praising Beck, demanding more teabags for justice, and there's Bill O'Reilly and Bill Hemmer and Sean Hannity, winking at him, telling him that it's okay that he's the star now. There's a giant banner that reads: "Teabagging for America." It had to be teabags. They're easier to carry than loose tea.
Humbled, a few tears coming down his face, he hoists a teabag into the air. It's Celestial Seasonings chamomile because, to Beck, in his dream there's something almost intolerably effete, no, faggy about it. Everyone, even the Fox people, raise their teabags. At the end of the wharf, where the original Boston Tea Party site is still being refurbished, Beck faces the water and says, "This is for you, Mister President. We teabag you in the name of the citizens of the United States," and he casts his teabag into the harbor. He turns back, ready to watch the others do the same, but when he sees the crowd again, a very, very different scene is laid out before him.
Instead of the proud 9/12ers, Glenn Beck sees dozens and dozens of people on their knees. Standing over them are ludicrously dressed men, in leather bondage gear, in perverse variations of button-down coats and breeches. There's obvious cross-dressers standing there. And all of them, every man standing, has his balls out. Not just out, but in the slurping mouths of the men and women on their knees in front of them. There's Neil Cavuto, with John Hancock's nuts bobbing in and out of his agape, lapping facehole, jacking himself off. O'Reilly's trying to tell Paul Revere how to put his balls in, but the old silversmith keeps shoving them in to shut O'Reilly up. There's Greta Van Susteren, bouncing up and down on a propped up dildo, sucking the twin orbs of a man in Betsy Ross drag. "Oh, God," Beck thinks, "oh, dear God, this is not what I meant at all." Crying now, he falls to his knees, yelling, "Please, stop the teabagging."
The sobbing Beck feels something rubbing on the top of his head and hears a voice saying, "Yef, yef, yef." Beck turns around, leans back, and sees a man in Revolutionary War-era garb with a large nose and short wig with his ballsack in his hand. He says, "Aye, Beck, your pointy hair feelf wonderful on my tefticlef. Thefe are the timef that try men'f foulf, you know."
The look, the use of "f" for "s." It dawns on Beck. "Thomas Paine?" The man bows, his nutsack swinging in front of Beck's face.
Paine gestures to his cold balls. "Fir, thif if a teabag party, if it not? Then thefe bagf are for you, fir."
"But, no, I can't..." Beck looks over and sees Sean Hannity fairly gobbling the balls of Benjamin Franklin. Catching him staring, Hannity gives Beck a thumbs up and goes back to work denuding Franklin's balls. Beck understands: this is what he has to do to make America safe.
So he gets his knees in a comfortable position and grimly, slowly, begins to lick Thomas Paine's balls. And, strangely, Beck discovers it's kind of fun, with Paine's hard cock rubbing the side of his face. Yes, yes, Glenn Beck decides that he likes teabagging. He likes the feel of patriot balls in his mouth. By god, he really loves balls. And he can feel himself getting an erection. This is great. A totally new sensation. And when Paine grabs him by his hair to make him slow his slobbering down a bit, Beck almost comes without touching himself. Indeed, this is a party now. A real teabag party. When one is concentrating on pleasuring a man's nuts, one forgets all about taxes. The only cause is seeing how hot you can get those boys.
Beck's alarm goes off. He thinks for a moment about the comfort of having a mouthful of balls. He twitches a little, having to keep the meth desire in check for the day, and decides to get moving. Reality is reality, after all, and he's got a whole nation waiting for his orders.
Glenn Beck settles down to finally sleep. It had been a long day, an exhausting one, promoting his 9/12 Project, imploring people to protest the modest tax increase on the wealthy by joining in the April 15 tea parties all around the nation, calling for active but polite revolution, walking that high wire that he knows he's on as the leader of a burgeoning faux movement, balancing precariously between being a demagogic violent cult leader and a blustering buffoon, with people around him willing his fall to one side or the other or some merger of the two. Yes, after a day of that, Glenn Beck returned home for his night time routine: he smoked a little crystal meth, beat his kids for telling him not to beat them again, tied up his wife on the bed, shoved an enema up his ass and took a shit on her before jacking off in her hair, weepingly apologized while he untied her, downed a few Ambien, and headed to his office to watch burn victim porn until he could stagger over to the couch and collapse at last. It's the little things that get him through the days.
His dream is so very joyous. It is already Wednesday, and Beck senses that he's in Boston, surrounded by his followers, some merrily dressed in 18th century costumes, big titted women in bustiers and giant skirts, men with little pony tails or in white powder wigs and long coats, some imitating the founders - dressed as Thomas Paine or Ben Franklin - and others, an entire crowd, old and young, fat and skinny, holding signs praising Beck, demanding more teabags for justice, and there's Bill O'Reilly and Bill Hemmer and Sean Hannity, winking at him, telling him that it's okay that he's the star now. There's a giant banner that reads: "Teabagging for America." It had to be teabags. They're easier to carry than loose tea.
Humbled, a few tears coming down his face, he hoists a teabag into the air. It's Celestial Seasonings chamomile because, to Beck, in his dream there's something almost intolerably effete, no, faggy about it. Everyone, even the Fox people, raise their teabags. At the end of the wharf, where the original Boston Tea Party site is still being refurbished, Beck faces the water and says, "This is for you, Mister President. We teabag you in the name of the citizens of the United States," and he casts his teabag into the harbor. He turns back, ready to watch the others do the same, but when he sees the crowd again, a very, very different scene is laid out before him.
Instead of the proud 9/12ers, Glenn Beck sees dozens and dozens of people on their knees. Standing over them are ludicrously dressed men, in leather bondage gear, in perverse variations of button-down coats and breeches. There's obvious cross-dressers standing there. And all of them, every man standing, has his balls out. Not just out, but in the slurping mouths of the men and women on their knees in front of them. There's Neil Cavuto, with John Hancock's nuts bobbing in and out of his agape, lapping facehole, jacking himself off. O'Reilly's trying to tell Paul Revere how to put his balls in, but the old silversmith keeps shoving them in to shut O'Reilly up. There's Greta Van Susteren, bouncing up and down on a propped up dildo, sucking the twin orbs of a man in Betsy Ross drag. "Oh, God," Beck thinks, "oh, dear God, this is not what I meant at all." Crying now, he falls to his knees, yelling, "Please, stop the teabagging."
The sobbing Beck feels something rubbing on the top of his head and hears a voice saying, "Yef, yef, yef." Beck turns around, leans back, and sees a man in Revolutionary War-era garb with a large nose and short wig with his ballsack in his hand. He says, "Aye, Beck, your pointy hair feelf wonderful on my tefticlef. Thefe are the timef that try men'f foulf, you know."
The look, the use of "f" for "s." It dawns on Beck. "Thomas Paine?" The man bows, his nutsack swinging in front of Beck's face.
Paine gestures to his cold balls. "Fir, thif if a teabag party, if it not? Then thefe bagf are for you, fir."
"But, no, I can't..." Beck looks over and sees Sean Hannity fairly gobbling the balls of Benjamin Franklin. Catching him staring, Hannity gives Beck a thumbs up and goes back to work denuding Franklin's balls. Beck understands: this is what he has to do to make America safe.
So he gets his knees in a comfortable position and grimly, slowly, begins to lick Thomas Paine's balls. And, strangely, Beck discovers it's kind of fun, with Paine's hard cock rubbing the side of his face. Yes, yes, Glenn Beck decides that he likes teabagging. He likes the feel of patriot balls in his mouth. By god, he really loves balls. And he can feel himself getting an erection. This is great. A totally new sensation. And when Paine grabs him by his hair to make him slow his slobbering down a bit, Beck almost comes without touching himself. Indeed, this is a party now. A real teabag party. When one is concentrating on pleasuring a man's nuts, one forgets all about taxes. The only cause is seeing how hot you can get those boys.
Beck's alarm goes off. He thinks for a moment about the comfort of having a mouthful of balls. He twitches a little, having to keep the meth desire in check for the day, and decides to get moving. Reality is reality, after all, and he's got a whole nation waiting for his orders.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Photos That Allow the Rude Pundit to Go Into the Weekend With a Totally Appropriate Smirk on His Face:
That's former president George W. Bush tossing an autographed ball to a fan below the announcer's booth at Monday's Texas Rangers game. The point here is not "tee-hee, look at what Bush is doing now" because, you know, he did this kind of shit all the time when he was actually president.
The point here is that nearly everyone in their seats is looking forward, at the game, and not backward, at the man.
That's former president George W. Bush tossing an autographed ball to a fan below the announcer's booth at Monday's Texas Rangers game. The point here is not "tee-hee, look at what Bush is doing now" because, you know, he did this kind of shit all the time when he was actually president.
The point here is that nearly everyone in their seats is looking forward, at the game, and not backward, at the man.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
They've Lost Their Fucking Minds, Part 7 (Gay Marriage Edition):
One of the funnier running gags in the evangelicals’ endless comedy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Rapture, a farce in fifty acts, is the use of quotation marks around the word “marriage.” As in: “Vermont Becomes 4th State to Legalize Homosexual ‘Marriage.’” See if you get this joke, ‘cause it’s a riot: apparently, if you put it in quotation marks, it’s just a so-called marriage, not a real one, no matter what any court or legislature says. Ah, the sweet justice of snarkily-used punctuation.
These are dark times indeed for we members of the Family Research Council’s Super-Duper Prayer Team. The Rude Pundit joined the Super-Duper Prayer Team a couple of years ago under a nom de rude, and every week, he receives his pray jobs, a list of shit what is wrong that needs some holy intervention. Needless to say, at this point, things have gotten positively Job-like for a good prayer warrior. Some of us might even go late New Testament and ask why we have been forsaken.
Oh, come down from your cross already, says the suspiciously French-named Rev. Pierre Bynum, the National Prayer Director of the FRC, which is sort of like being Glenn Beck's spit-mopper. “The purpose of the weekly Prayer Targets is to facilitate ‘prayers of agreement’ that bear upon important national matters. When we pray over these Targets together, whether alone or in a prayer group of any size, we join the power not of just one or two, but of thousands of prayer warriors.”
You get that? It’s not that we expect our prayers to be answered. We just wanna be part of a big, prayer circle jerk.
So what do we pray about shit what’s already occurred? In the case of the Vermont legislature overriding the governor’s veto and allowing gay marriage (look, gang, no quotes), well, we’re pretty much gonna give the fuck up: “Give consolation, strength and courage to pro-family believers in Vermont. May other states take warning and secure marriage against usurpation by determined homosexual activists and judicial and legislative activists!” Now, you might think with a really big God on our side, we’d be able to pray up some smitin’ or levelin’ or at least a plague of scabies. Hell, couldn’t our really big God just snap his invisible fingers and make it all different. But remember: we’re not praying for God to change things. We’re not so results-oriented anymore.
Unless, you know, there’s still hope for something to change. Like in Iowa, where gay marriage will be legal until at least 2011, when a fantasy state constitutional amendment might take effect. Or in New Hampshire, where the same-sex marriage bill is currently awaiting passage in the Senate. There’s still an oh-so teetering chance, so let us pray, motherfucker, let us fucking pray: “May God move upon the New Hampshire Senate and Governor to do His will, which scripture makes absolutely clear, is not homosexual ‘marriage!’”
If the Rude Pundit could sit down with his fellow prayer warriors, he’d look ‘em straight in the eye and say, “PWs of the SDPT, it’s time to give it up on gay marriage. We lost. And frankly, we’re starting to look a little pathetic and clingy because the issue has brought us so much joy and power over the years.”
And he’d gently explain that history doesn’t go backwards. When you try to turn back the clock, you end up tearing the fabric of time and creating chaos. Like, you know, the Bush administration did.
Dear, sweet praying folk, it’s time to figure out a new reason to hate gay people. Perhaps we could go with how much better their lawns look than ours.
One of the funnier running gags in the evangelicals’ endless comedy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Rapture, a farce in fifty acts, is the use of quotation marks around the word “marriage.” As in: “Vermont Becomes 4th State to Legalize Homosexual ‘Marriage.’” See if you get this joke, ‘cause it’s a riot: apparently, if you put it in quotation marks, it’s just a so-called marriage, not a real one, no matter what any court or legislature says. Ah, the sweet justice of snarkily-used punctuation.
These are dark times indeed for we members of the Family Research Council’s Super-Duper Prayer Team. The Rude Pundit joined the Super-Duper Prayer Team a couple of years ago under a nom de rude, and every week, he receives his pray jobs, a list of shit what is wrong that needs some holy intervention. Needless to say, at this point, things have gotten positively Job-like for a good prayer warrior. Some of us might even go late New Testament and ask why we have been forsaken.
Oh, come down from your cross already, says the suspiciously French-named Rev. Pierre Bynum, the National Prayer Director of the FRC, which is sort of like being Glenn Beck's spit-mopper. “The purpose of the weekly Prayer Targets is to facilitate ‘prayers of agreement’ that bear upon important national matters. When we pray over these Targets together, whether alone or in a prayer group of any size, we join the power not of just one or two, but of thousands of prayer warriors.”
You get that? It’s not that we expect our prayers to be answered. We just wanna be part of a big, prayer circle jerk.
So what do we pray about shit what’s already occurred? In the case of the Vermont legislature overriding the governor’s veto and allowing gay marriage (look, gang, no quotes), well, we’re pretty much gonna give the fuck up: “Give consolation, strength and courage to pro-family believers in Vermont. May other states take warning and secure marriage against usurpation by determined homosexual activists and judicial and legislative activists!” Now, you might think with a really big God on our side, we’d be able to pray up some smitin’ or levelin’ or at least a plague of scabies. Hell, couldn’t our really big God just snap his invisible fingers and make it all different. But remember: we’re not praying for God to change things. We’re not so results-oriented anymore.
Unless, you know, there’s still hope for something to change. Like in Iowa, where gay marriage will be legal until at least 2011, when a fantasy state constitutional amendment might take effect. Or in New Hampshire, where the same-sex marriage bill is currently awaiting passage in the Senate. There’s still an oh-so teetering chance, so let us pray, motherfucker, let us fucking pray: “May God move upon the New Hampshire Senate and Governor to do His will, which scripture makes absolutely clear, is not homosexual ‘marriage!’”
If the Rude Pundit could sit down with his fellow prayer warriors, he’d look ‘em straight in the eye and say, “PWs of the SDPT, it’s time to give it up on gay marriage. We lost. And frankly, we’re starting to look a little pathetic and clingy because the issue has brought us so much joy and power over the years.”
And he’d gently explain that history doesn’t go backwards. When you try to turn back the clock, you end up tearing the fabric of time and creating chaos. Like, you know, the Bush administration did.
Dear, sweet praying folk, it’s time to figure out a new reason to hate gay people. Perhaps we could go with how much better their lawns look than ours.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
A Rational Nation When It Comes to Guns Would Think This a Problem:
Are you fucking kidding?
On Tuesday, Clarence Douglas Phillips shot and killed his girlfriend near Raleigh, North Carolina. He then shot and killed a detective and wounded another cop in the shootout that followed. He died of gunshot wounds later.
On Tuesday, Kevin Garner shot and killed his wife, daughter, sister, and nephew, set his house on fire and then killed himself in Priceville, Alabama. It was the third mass shooting in Alabama in the past month.
Today, outside of Los Angeles, an Asian gunman opened fire at a Korean Christian retreat, killing one person and wounding three. It was at least the seventh multiple shooting in the United States in the past week.
Are we really that goddamn gone, daddy, gone? Things come in clusters, yes, but there's a difference between a statistical anomaly and a collective shift in behavior. Yesterday, on CNN, the Rude Pundit heard some shitty little puke named Michael Guzman of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus argue for, well, the ability of students to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. He actually said, "The debate is why do we set the odds in favor of the criminal who doesn't follow the law, who doesn't follow the rules? There's a reason that we should allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves."
The fact that Guzman was not making a dry, subtle joke is evidence enough that yes, we really are that gone.
More later. The Rude Pundit is sick and tired. Physically. Sure, sure, physically. (And, no, this ain't gonna become a gun violence-centered blog.)
Are you fucking kidding?
On Tuesday, Clarence Douglas Phillips shot and killed his girlfriend near Raleigh, North Carolina. He then shot and killed a detective and wounded another cop in the shootout that followed. He died of gunshot wounds later.
On Tuesday, Kevin Garner shot and killed his wife, daughter, sister, and nephew, set his house on fire and then killed himself in Priceville, Alabama. It was the third mass shooting in Alabama in the past month.
Today, outside of Los Angeles, an Asian gunman opened fire at a Korean Christian retreat, killing one person and wounding three. It was at least the seventh multiple shooting in the United States in the past week.
Are we really that goddamn gone, daddy, gone? Things come in clusters, yes, but there's a difference between a statistical anomaly and a collective shift in behavior. Yesterday, on CNN, the Rude Pundit heard some shitty little puke named Michael Guzman of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus argue for, well, the ability of students to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. He actually said, "The debate is why do we set the odds in favor of the criminal who doesn't follow the law, who doesn't follow the rules? There's a reason that we should allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves."
The fact that Guzman was not making a dry, subtle joke is evidence enough that yes, we really are that gone.
More later. The Rude Pundit is sick and tired. Physically. Sure, sure, physically. (And, no, this ain't gonna become a gun violence-centered blog.)
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
New Polls Reveal That Republicans Are Worthless Bags of Douche:
Sure, sure, you could look at the Pew Research Center poll that shows President Barack Obama has an 88% approval rating among Democrats and 27% among Republicans and go all apeshit like the Guardian's Ed Pilkington, who writes, "Barack Obama's promise to overcome partisan political divisions and reunite the United States has so far failed to materialize" (spelling Americanized because the Guardian Anglicized the last word in Pew Research Center to "Centre," which is just annoyingly colonialist). Yep, you could do that, essentially blaming Obama. Or you could add in a third number in the poll that Pilkington ignores: independents give Obama a 57% approval rating, which is higher than for any president at the same time in his administration since Ronald Reagan.
You could also look at a New York Times/CBS News poll that had Obama's approval rating overall at 66%, up a few points since February, and approval for Republicans at 31%, "the lowest in the 25 years the question has been asked in New York Times/CBS News polls." Yeah, it's down a few points. Approval for Democrats? 56%.
By the way, other festive shit in that NYT/CBS polls includes:
2% of respondents who think that Barack Obama's administration is to blame for the state of the economy. 33% blame George W. Bush's. 21% blame Wall Street.
63% trust Obama on his decisions on the economy. 20% trust Republicans in Congress. 61% trust Obama on his decisions on national security. 27% trust Republicans in Congress.
57% think that the Democratic Party is more concerned with their lives, compared to 22% who think the same about the Republican Party (which is also the lowest number for them in 25 years).
And 74% think that raising taxes on people making over 250 grand a year is a "good idea," with 65% thinking that the tax code needs to be changed so that middle and lower class people pay less taxes while the wealthy pay more.
Let's toss in a demographic view or two so no one can say this poll is just horribly skewed for one or another reason: 43% said they voted for Obama, 25% for McCain, 24% didn't vote. 23% consider themselves Republican, 39% Democrat, and 30% independent, with 23% calling themselves liberal, 39% moderate, and 31% conservative.
In other words, a charitable reading of this poll and the Pew poll is that Americans are actually pretty goddamn unified on one thing: they support the President. A less charitable reading is that Americans think that Republicans are fucking worthless piles of shit. But that's a unifying belief, too. Indeed, if you were casting around for who to blame for the failure of the dinner party, you'd be utterly wrong to say it's the guy who set the table. Nope. It's the fault of the invited guests who decided to blow it off.
A final note here: apparently the vast majority of Americans are socialist by the nutzoid right wing's degraded standards for that appellation. It's gonna be a mighty lonely revolution for 'em.
Sure, sure, you could look at the Pew Research Center poll that shows President Barack Obama has an 88% approval rating among Democrats and 27% among Republicans and go all apeshit like the Guardian's Ed Pilkington, who writes, "Barack Obama's promise to overcome partisan political divisions and reunite the United States has so far failed to materialize" (spelling Americanized because the Guardian Anglicized the last word in Pew Research Center to "Centre," which is just annoyingly colonialist). Yep, you could do that, essentially blaming Obama. Or you could add in a third number in the poll that Pilkington ignores: independents give Obama a 57% approval rating, which is higher than for any president at the same time in his administration since Ronald Reagan.
You could also look at a New York Times/CBS News poll that had Obama's approval rating overall at 66%, up a few points since February, and approval for Republicans at 31%, "the lowest in the 25 years the question has been asked in New York Times/CBS News polls." Yeah, it's down a few points. Approval for Democrats? 56%.
By the way, other festive shit in that NYT/CBS polls includes:
2% of respondents who think that Barack Obama's administration is to blame for the state of the economy. 33% blame George W. Bush's. 21% blame Wall Street.
63% trust Obama on his decisions on the economy. 20% trust Republicans in Congress. 61% trust Obama on his decisions on national security. 27% trust Republicans in Congress.
57% think that the Democratic Party is more concerned with their lives, compared to 22% who think the same about the Republican Party (which is also the lowest number for them in 25 years).
And 74% think that raising taxes on people making over 250 grand a year is a "good idea," with 65% thinking that the tax code needs to be changed so that middle and lower class people pay less taxes while the wealthy pay more.
Let's toss in a demographic view or two so no one can say this poll is just horribly skewed for one or another reason: 43% said they voted for Obama, 25% for McCain, 24% didn't vote. 23% consider themselves Republican, 39% Democrat, and 30% independent, with 23% calling themselves liberal, 39% moderate, and 31% conservative.
In other words, a charitable reading of this poll and the Pew poll is that Americans are actually pretty goddamn unified on one thing: they support the President. A less charitable reading is that Americans think that Republicans are fucking worthless piles of shit. But that's a unifying belief, too. Indeed, if you were casting around for who to blame for the failure of the dinner party, you'd be utterly wrong to say it's the guy who set the table. Nope. It's the fault of the invited guests who decided to blow it off.
A final note here: apparently the vast majority of Americans are socialist by the nutzoid right wing's degraded standards for that appellation. It's gonna be a mighty lonely revolution for 'em.
Monday, April 06, 2009
In Brief: Massacre-o-rama in April in America:
So the Rude Pundit just wants to get this past weekend right:
Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people and himself in Binghamton, New York. He had recently lost his job in November 2008 when his plant shut down, and he was tired of being mocked for his poor English. His two handguns were perfectly legal.
Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers before being arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He legally owned an assault weapon and two handguns, despite being booted from the Marines for being too violent. He was afraid, said a friend, that the Obama administration would take his guns. He had been laid off from his job at a glass factory.
James Harrison shot and killed his five children and himself in Graham, Washington. He used a rifle. He was afraid his wife was going to leave him.
In all three states, you can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. It's harder in New York; it's easier in Washington.
Conservatives are running scared because the left is seeing a connection, especially with Poplawski, between the violent, apocalyptic rhetoric of the right.
Jesus Christ, nut up, right wingers. You can't say that we're heading towards revolution and that gun laws are harming America, but, hey, we don't want violence. No, you can't walk around naked with a raging hard-on, but then say you don't wanna fuck something. There's times when you don't get to decide what your words actually mean; there's times when others take your words and actions to logical conclusions whether you meant it or not. Toss in a depr/recession and a touch of crazy and, well, boom. So at least admit that you squirted a little lighter fluid onto the fire.
But, hey, at least they pried Wong's gun from his cold, dead hands.
So the Rude Pundit just wants to get this past weekend right:
Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people and himself in Binghamton, New York. He had recently lost his job in November 2008 when his plant shut down, and he was tired of being mocked for his poor English. His two handguns were perfectly legal.
Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers before being arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He legally owned an assault weapon and two handguns, despite being booted from the Marines for being too violent. He was afraid, said a friend, that the Obama administration would take his guns. He had been laid off from his job at a glass factory.
James Harrison shot and killed his five children and himself in Graham, Washington. He used a rifle. He was afraid his wife was going to leave him.
In all three states, you can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. It's harder in New York; it's easier in Washington.
Conservatives are running scared because the left is seeing a connection, especially with Poplawski, between the violent, apocalyptic rhetoric of the right.
Jesus Christ, nut up, right wingers. You can't say that we're heading towards revolution and that gun laws are harming America, but, hey, we don't want violence. No, you can't walk around naked with a raging hard-on, but then say you don't wanna fuck something. There's times when you don't get to decide what your words actually mean; there's times when others take your words and actions to logical conclusions whether you meant it or not. Toss in a depr/recession and a touch of crazy and, well, boom. So at least admit that you squirted a little lighter fluid onto the fire.
But, hey, at least they pried Wong's gun from his cold, dead hands.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Glenn Beck Puts Barack Obama in a Nazi Uniform in His Magazine:
At this point, we all know that Fox "news" host Glenn Beck is like a hundred pounds of crazy shit shoved in a fifty-pound bag. You get that by watching two minutes of his show, where he throws around words like "socialist" and "fascist" without having the least understanding of what they mean. Really, it's like listening to a 911 call from a brain damaged shut-in who can't figure out the can opener. And that the toaster won't stop screaming at him.
A visit to his website yields a whole new level of bugfuckery. Watch the recent video he posted titled "Sarah Palin Bikini Video," where he chastises people for searching for cheesecake photos and videos of the conservative dream date. Beck snorts and stomps that such things don't exist (except, dear right-wing masturbators, a shot of Palin in shorts conveniently sucking a straw), twitching like the weasels in his mind just took another bite of his medulla oblongata. Seriously, if the Rude Pundit was approached by someone acting like that in a bar, he'd break a beer bottle over the fucker's head and declare that he had saved everyone's life.
Even more festive is the fact that Beck is the "Editor-in-Chief" of a magazine, Glenn Beck's Fusion, an amalgam of shit available for free elsewhere by people like Bernard "Man, This Nutzoid Conservative Thing Is Making Me Shitloads of Money" Goldberg and Ron Paul. And little factoids, really, about where you can eat big piles of food (most ripped off from the TV show Man vs. Food). The Rude Pundit sucked it up and purchased the latest as a download.
This month's issue has a delightful cover. Titled "Springtime for Bailouts," it's a mock-up of a photo from The Producers where the chorus line of Nazis performs "Springtime for Hitler." Check out part of it:
In case you can't make it out, that's Alan Greenspan in the dress, Ben Bernanke in the gold suit, and Barney Frank, Tim Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Chistopher Dodd, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama dressed as Nazis and saluting. The Rude Pundit can't figure out the armband symbol. Again, this is the April 2009 issue of Glenn Beck's Fusion.
In case that didn't quite sink in, look at the close-up:
The punchline is that there's no actual article in the issue about the bailout or how these people are like Nazis. And the Rude Pundit hasn't figured out how the cultural reference, to the show that was supposed to fail but became a hit in The Producers, makes any sense in the context. No, the only conclusion here is that Beck saw this as the only way to put the President and others in Nazi outfits with plausible deniability that that's what he was doing. And this is on top of his mad discussion of Obama's budget while playing a newsreel of Nazi parades behind him on his Fox show.
The point here is not that Beck is not allowed to do this. The point here is that all's fair in rhetorical devices. How batshit did the right go when any blog commenter made a mild comparison between the Bush administration and Nazis? But now it's cool for a mainstream TV host to just photoshop Barack Obama in a Nazi uniform? What's good for the goose, motherfuckers, what's good for the goose.
In other words, Fox "news," one of your hosts approved this and made its publication possible, even proudly displaying it in an ad for the magazine. Do you think that perhaps an O'Reilly producer should hunt him down and demand an explanation?
Update: Rude reader RM has helpfully pointed out that the symbol on the armband is that of the Federal Reserve seal. Ahhh, yeah, now it all makes perfect sense.
At this point, we all know that Fox "news" host Glenn Beck is like a hundred pounds of crazy shit shoved in a fifty-pound bag. You get that by watching two minutes of his show, where he throws around words like "socialist" and "fascist" without having the least understanding of what they mean. Really, it's like listening to a 911 call from a brain damaged shut-in who can't figure out the can opener. And that the toaster won't stop screaming at him.
A visit to his website yields a whole new level of bugfuckery. Watch the recent video he posted titled "Sarah Palin Bikini Video," where he chastises people for searching for cheesecake photos and videos of the conservative dream date. Beck snorts and stomps that such things don't exist (except, dear right-wing masturbators, a shot of Palin in shorts conveniently sucking a straw), twitching like the weasels in his mind just took another bite of his medulla oblongata. Seriously, if the Rude Pundit was approached by someone acting like that in a bar, he'd break a beer bottle over the fucker's head and declare that he had saved everyone's life.
Even more festive is the fact that Beck is the "Editor-in-Chief" of a magazine, Glenn Beck's Fusion, an amalgam of shit available for free elsewhere by people like Bernard "Man, This Nutzoid Conservative Thing Is Making Me Shitloads of Money" Goldberg and Ron Paul. And little factoids, really, about where you can eat big piles of food (most ripped off from the TV show Man vs. Food). The Rude Pundit sucked it up and purchased the latest as a download.
This month's issue has a delightful cover. Titled "Springtime for Bailouts," it's a mock-up of a photo from The Producers where the chorus line of Nazis performs "Springtime for Hitler." Check out part of it:
In case you can't make it out, that's Alan Greenspan in the dress, Ben Bernanke in the gold suit, and Barney Frank, Tim Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Chistopher Dodd, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama dressed as Nazis and saluting. The Rude Pundit can't figure out the armband symbol. Again, this is the April 2009 issue of Glenn Beck's Fusion.
In case that didn't quite sink in, look at the close-up:
The punchline is that there's no actual article in the issue about the bailout or how these people are like Nazis. And the Rude Pundit hasn't figured out how the cultural reference, to the show that was supposed to fail but became a hit in The Producers, makes any sense in the context. No, the only conclusion here is that Beck saw this as the only way to put the President and others in Nazi outfits with plausible deniability that that's what he was doing. And this is on top of his mad discussion of Obama's budget while playing a newsreel of Nazi parades behind him on his Fox show.
The point here is not that Beck is not allowed to do this. The point here is that all's fair in rhetorical devices. How batshit did the right go when any blog commenter made a mild comparison between the Bush administration and Nazis? But now it's cool for a mainstream TV host to just photoshop Barack Obama in a Nazi uniform? What's good for the goose, motherfuckers, what's good for the goose.
In other words, Fox "news," one of your hosts approved this and made its publication possible, even proudly displaying it in an ad for the magazine. Do you think that perhaps an O'Reilly producer should hunt him down and demand an explanation?
Update: Rude reader RM has helpfully pointed out that the symbol on the armband is that of the Federal Reserve seal. Ahhh, yeah, now it all makes perfect sense.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
A Failure of Imagination:
If nothing else, you gotta almost admire Republicans for sticking to what they know. It's almost touchingly pathetic. The budget proposal put forth by Republicans is like watching a middle-aged married couple that's long since given up on fucking because of the kids, the bills, the jobs, the mortgage, the declining retirement investments, the increasing waistline, and the drugs they take just so they can get up in the morning without killing themselves. You look at them and think, "C'mon, go crazy. Rip off your clothes and ball each other like spider monkeys on ecstasy. Sweet Jesus, give him a blow job. For fuck's sake, go down on her like her pussy's made of candy." And if it's all too, too far gone, you wanna say, "Get some fucking balls and set each other free before you just end up sneaking around and fucking the babysitter or the neighbor's husband, before you destroy yourselves." But mostly, you just gotta shake your head and think, "There but for the grace of God (or Allah or Buddha or whoever or nobody) go I."
The fact that Republican Congressman Paul Ryan can say, "Our budget does not raise taxes, and makes permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. In fact, we cut taxes and reform the tax system" and that spending should be frozen or cut and he does it without killing himself shortly after is probably a sign that he has no soul and that we should all be very afraid. By the way, those "tax laws" used to be known as the "Bush tax cuts." As Ryan himself writes in the Wall Street Journal (motto: "Proudly enabling the destruction of civilization"), "In the recent past, the Republican Party failed to offer the nation an inspiring vision and a concrete plan to tackle our problems with innovative and principled solutions." Why not say his name? Do you think we forgot about him already? In other words, Bush fucked it up with our help, but, hey, you can trust us to fix it. What's that definition of insanity?
(Bonus points: Ryan voted for the Medicare prescription drug boondoggle. Bonuser points: In the editorial, Ryan says, "We hope the administration and Democratic leaders in Congress do not distort and preach fear about our Republican plan" just a few paragraphs after saying that Obama's plan would "debase our currency and reduce the living standards of the American people.")
There's a couple of things that Republicans (and, really, most Democrats, including the President) need to realize about the public right now. First off, we want some fuckin' blood. It's time to purge some motherfuckers, time to fuck up the lives of some rich bastards. Back when Enron crumbled, the only thing that stopped riots in the streets of Houston was the fact that Ken Lay was being chased like a plague rat. Firing the CEO of GM was a start. Now, as a condition of bailouts, there needs to be more public pantsing of other top execs (not low-level lackeys) in all the collapsing industries that are dragging us down into the big suck they've created. If we can frog walk a couple of 'em, all the better. Everyone from Joes that are real plumbers to Mary Janes that stock the shelves at Wal-Mart know that if you fuck up, you get fired. So it should be for Wall Street, so it should be for GM and Chrysler. You wanna restore some faith in the American economy? Consequences for actions are easy steps to take.
The other thing is that Americans, for the most part, are ready for something transformatively new, some new idea, some theory that tells us where we came from and where we're gonna go and how we might get there. Everything the administration is doing right now seems like so many pieces held together by scotch tape, chewing gum, and a prayer. While people trust Obama in an almost surreal way, the President's got to offer a controlling concept to his plans. If he has one beyond, "Holy fuck, we gotta do something," he has yet to articulate it.
For instance, what is to be done about Detroit, eh? At what point do we actually give up on the old paradigms and say, "Fine, you fucked one of the old manufacturing stalwarts of America. Now it's time to move on"? When do we take the billions being loaned and given away and instead invest it in job retraining, housing or housing assistance, maybe even actual jobs? That would be a moment of reckoning, of admitting that we are willing to move beyond rescuing what cannot be saved and into a new form for our economic relationship with each other and with the world. If you need to call it "socialism," then fine.
(This doesn't even get us into the opportunity on health care, the cost of which is, as you may know, one of the strongest chains holding back small businesses from fulfilling the entrepreneurial spirit Republicans seem so fucking proud of.)
There's a great line in the 1995 play Slavs! by Tony Kushner. It's when the world's oldest Bolshevik, speaking in 1985 about the coming collapse of the Soviet Union, says, "Change? Yes, we must change, only show me the Theory, and I will be at the barricades, show me the book of the next Beautiful Theory, and I promise you these blind eyes will see again, just to read it, to devour that text. Show me the word that will reorder the world, or else keep silent." The Rude Pundit quotes this not to condemn Obama's ideas (or to support the USSR), but to ask for the ideology beyond the notions of "change" that excited us and got us here.
With their budget, Republicans demonstrated that they have abandoned any hope beyond holding place until what they foresee as the inevitable collapse of the nation under Obama. The President ran on making us understand that the ground was crumbling under our feet. Now he needs to show us not how to fill in the holes, but how to create a new foundation.
If nothing else, you gotta almost admire Republicans for sticking to what they know. It's almost touchingly pathetic. The budget proposal put forth by Republicans is like watching a middle-aged married couple that's long since given up on fucking because of the kids, the bills, the jobs, the mortgage, the declining retirement investments, the increasing waistline, and the drugs they take just so they can get up in the morning without killing themselves. You look at them and think, "C'mon, go crazy. Rip off your clothes and ball each other like spider monkeys on ecstasy. Sweet Jesus, give him a blow job. For fuck's sake, go down on her like her pussy's made of candy." And if it's all too, too far gone, you wanna say, "Get some fucking balls and set each other free before you just end up sneaking around and fucking the babysitter or the neighbor's husband, before you destroy yourselves." But mostly, you just gotta shake your head and think, "There but for the grace of God (or Allah or Buddha or whoever or nobody) go I."
The fact that Republican Congressman Paul Ryan can say, "Our budget does not raise taxes, and makes permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. In fact, we cut taxes and reform the tax system" and that spending should be frozen or cut and he does it without killing himself shortly after is probably a sign that he has no soul and that we should all be very afraid. By the way, those "tax laws" used to be known as the "Bush tax cuts." As Ryan himself writes in the Wall Street Journal (motto: "Proudly enabling the destruction of civilization"), "In the recent past, the Republican Party failed to offer the nation an inspiring vision and a concrete plan to tackle our problems with innovative and principled solutions." Why not say his name? Do you think we forgot about him already? In other words, Bush fucked it up with our help, but, hey, you can trust us to fix it. What's that definition of insanity?
(Bonus points: Ryan voted for the Medicare prescription drug boondoggle. Bonuser points: In the editorial, Ryan says, "We hope the administration and Democratic leaders in Congress do not distort and preach fear about our Republican plan" just a few paragraphs after saying that Obama's plan would "debase our currency and reduce the living standards of the American people.")
There's a couple of things that Republicans (and, really, most Democrats, including the President) need to realize about the public right now. First off, we want some fuckin' blood. It's time to purge some motherfuckers, time to fuck up the lives of some rich bastards. Back when Enron crumbled, the only thing that stopped riots in the streets of Houston was the fact that Ken Lay was being chased like a plague rat. Firing the CEO of GM was a start. Now, as a condition of bailouts, there needs to be more public pantsing of other top execs (not low-level lackeys) in all the collapsing industries that are dragging us down into the big suck they've created. If we can frog walk a couple of 'em, all the better. Everyone from Joes that are real plumbers to Mary Janes that stock the shelves at Wal-Mart know that if you fuck up, you get fired. So it should be for Wall Street, so it should be for GM and Chrysler. You wanna restore some faith in the American economy? Consequences for actions are easy steps to take.
The other thing is that Americans, for the most part, are ready for something transformatively new, some new idea, some theory that tells us where we came from and where we're gonna go and how we might get there. Everything the administration is doing right now seems like so many pieces held together by scotch tape, chewing gum, and a prayer. While people trust Obama in an almost surreal way, the President's got to offer a controlling concept to his plans. If he has one beyond, "Holy fuck, we gotta do something," he has yet to articulate it.
For instance, what is to be done about Detroit, eh? At what point do we actually give up on the old paradigms and say, "Fine, you fucked one of the old manufacturing stalwarts of America. Now it's time to move on"? When do we take the billions being loaned and given away and instead invest it in job retraining, housing or housing assistance, maybe even actual jobs? That would be a moment of reckoning, of admitting that we are willing to move beyond rescuing what cannot be saved and into a new form for our economic relationship with each other and with the world. If you need to call it "socialism," then fine.
(This doesn't even get us into the opportunity on health care, the cost of which is, as you may know, one of the strongest chains holding back small businesses from fulfilling the entrepreneurial spirit Republicans seem so fucking proud of.)
There's a great line in the 1995 play Slavs! by Tony Kushner. It's when the world's oldest Bolshevik, speaking in 1985 about the coming collapse of the Soviet Union, says, "Change? Yes, we must change, only show me the Theory, and I will be at the barricades, show me the book of the next Beautiful Theory, and I promise you these blind eyes will see again, just to read it, to devour that text. Show me the word that will reorder the world, or else keep silent." The Rude Pundit quotes this not to condemn Obama's ideas (or to support the USSR), but to ask for the ideology beyond the notions of "change" that excited us and got us here.
With their budget, Republicans demonstrated that they have abandoned any hope beyond holding place until what they foresee as the inevitable collapse of the nation under Obama. The President ran on making us understand that the ground was crumbling under our feet. Now he needs to show us not how to fill in the holes, but how to create a new foundation.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
In Brief: Fox "news" Stalks and Ambushes Professor:
This morning on Fox and Friends, the morning show the Fox "news" network, host and resident cumbucket Steve Doocy had on "news" producer Griff Jenkins, a guy who should be beaten like a wild dog just for having the first name "Griff," to show his latest "reporting." Seems like someone discovered that a much-used American history textbook by Columbia Professor and Provost Alan Brinkley dared to not say that 3000 people died on September 11, 2001, and that it might contain (quel horreur) mildly outdated information. One might imagine there's actual news to cover out there, but if you're at Fox, you are the motherfuckin' news.
Any rational reporter might email Brinkley. Not Griff, who stalked after Brinkley like a rabid raccoon running after a particularly tasty-looking garbage truck. He followed Brinkley from the streets to a campus building. Brinkley refused to speak at all after saying he wouldn't comment. Jenkins, who you know makes all the one-legged tranny whores call him "the Griffster" before they use dildos on his asshole, kept pointing at the book, outraged - outraged, goddamnit - that Brinkley would dare dis the dead in volume 2 of The Unfinished Nation.
Why, on page 549, talking about 9/11, here's what this obviously traitorous motherfucker infects our children with: "Americans responded to the tragedies with acts of courage and generosity, large and small, and with a sense of national unity and commitment that seemed, at least for a time, like the unity and commitment at the start of World War II." Then the bastard talks about "the firefighters and rescue workers" who risked their lives and the many who died on 9/11. The old commie seditionist praises the volunteer efforts from around the nation and world, as well as the money donated to charity. He mentions how people had "open and unembarrassed displays of patriotism and national pride." But, true, he doesn't mention that specifically that 3000 people died.
In other words, as ever with the Fox stalker bullshit, there's no damn story except "Boy, isn't it funny when people look like they're running from reporters?" It's a punk ass tactic to create an aura of evil where none exists, or the opposite of a meeting with Roger Ailes. Here's some advice: if a Fox "news" person is ever in your face, curse nonstop into the microphone, talking about all the ways you think he or she should be fucked. Talk about cocks and cunts. Make it so that, if they even try to use it, it's nothing but nonstop beeps.
By the way, the Rude Pundit's been a big fan of Alan Brinkley's work for years now. An even-handed, analytical guy like him shouldn't be treated like Bill Ayers on a bender (and, of course, neither should Bill Ayers).
This morning on Fox and Friends, the morning show the Fox "news" network, host and resident cumbucket Steve Doocy had on "news" producer Griff Jenkins, a guy who should be beaten like a wild dog just for having the first name "Griff," to show his latest "reporting." Seems like someone discovered that a much-used American history textbook by Columbia Professor and Provost Alan Brinkley dared to not say that 3000 people died on September 11, 2001, and that it might contain (quel horreur) mildly outdated information. One might imagine there's actual news to cover out there, but if you're at Fox, you are the motherfuckin' news.
Any rational reporter might email Brinkley. Not Griff, who stalked after Brinkley like a rabid raccoon running after a particularly tasty-looking garbage truck. He followed Brinkley from the streets to a campus building. Brinkley refused to speak at all after saying he wouldn't comment. Jenkins, who you know makes all the one-legged tranny whores call him "the Griffster" before they use dildos on his asshole, kept pointing at the book, outraged - outraged, goddamnit - that Brinkley would dare dis the dead in volume 2 of The Unfinished Nation.
Why, on page 549, talking about 9/11, here's what this obviously traitorous motherfucker infects our children with: "Americans responded to the tragedies with acts of courage and generosity, large and small, and with a sense of national unity and commitment that seemed, at least for a time, like the unity and commitment at the start of World War II." Then the bastard talks about "the firefighters and rescue workers" who risked their lives and the many who died on 9/11. The old commie seditionist praises the volunteer efforts from around the nation and world, as well as the money donated to charity. He mentions how people had "open and unembarrassed displays of patriotism and national pride." But, true, he doesn't mention that specifically that 3000 people died.
In other words, as ever with the Fox stalker bullshit, there's no damn story except "Boy, isn't it funny when people look like they're running from reporters?" It's a punk ass tactic to create an aura of evil where none exists, or the opposite of a meeting with Roger Ailes. Here's some advice: if a Fox "news" person is ever in your face, curse nonstop into the microphone, talking about all the ways you think he or she should be fucked. Talk about cocks and cunts. Make it so that, if they even try to use it, it's nothing but nonstop beeps.
By the way, the Rude Pundit's been a big fan of Alan Brinkley's work for years now. An even-handed, analytical guy like him shouldn't be treated like Bill Ayers on a bender (and, of course, neither should Bill Ayers).
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Six Times That Bill O'Reilly Stated as Fact That Abu Zubaydah's Torture Worked:
Now that multiple sources have confirmed for the Washington Post what Ron Suskind, the Red Cross, and others had been saying all along, that Gitmo detainee Abu Zubaydah gave up shit confessions because of his waterboarding and other tortures, it's time to play that amazing game of "Who Was a Fucking Asshole About This?" And, while we could go with any number of people, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, let's use Fox "news" barbarian inside the gate Bill O'Reilly as an example of how easily a deluded media could justify any act.
"If you can read then you read this article and according to the article the government official unnamed, I will admit, we don't like unnamed sources, said that they broke Zubaydah and Zubaydah gave them up all the names that they need to get to prevent further terror attacks. Now I'm going to believe that unless you can prove it differently and you can't." - Bill O'Reilly to Human Rights Watch's Katherine Newell-Bierman, September 12 2006. This was, by the way, even before we had it confirmed by the President that Zubaydah was waterboarded.
"You have the guy in the New York Times, and he's an unnamed source -- I mean, we don't have a name on this guy -- saying, 'Look, we broke Zubaydah. This is how we broke him. We made it so uncomfortable for him that he didn't want this any more, and he told us what we need to know.' Then you open Newsweek magazine. You've got Ron Suskind. OK. Now, he's a partisan, doesn't like Bush. He says that's bull. Zubaydah didn't know anything, and he didn't give them anything...What I'm trying to tell you is the average American sitting at home is not engaged on a daily basis like we are...Doesn't know what the truth is. Doesn't know." - September 13, 2006, while talking to Laura Ingraham. The ellipses are there to edit out what Ingraham says because, you know, who fucking cares? In about 24 hours, O'Reilly went from vaguely accepting the story to blind faith in it.
Prior to that discussion, O'Reilly had stated that "At first Zubaydah was defiant and evasive until the approved procedures were used. He soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks."
"There is no question the CIA roughed up Zubaydah. We already knew that. ABC's Brian Ross reported that Zubaydah was waterboarded for less than 30 seconds before he gave it up. The information he then provided led to the capture of major al Qaeda terrorists. So maybe the agency did abuse the man. But I believe most Americans would understand that. Zubaydah is an evil guy, who knew plenty about the murderous activities of al Qaeda." - December 7, 2007
"Last night on ABC News, the CIA agent who supervised the waterboarding of al Qaeda bigshot Abu Zubaydah said the interrogation method broke him...And that means the waterboarding saved lives, perhaps thousands of lives...Let's stop the nonsense here. America's not a bad country because it waterboarded Zubaydah. The Bush administration has done its job. We haven't been attacked since 9/11. The liberal press, politicians, the ACLU can't stop any wrongdoing. They're all lost in a fog of misguided indignation, crazy with hatred for Bush, but we the people must take a stand here. This isn't a game. This is life and death." - December 11, 2007
"You're opposed to waterboarding. And I disagree with you on that. I think the president of the United States should have -- just the president -- should have the legal authority to order waterboarding in extraordinary circumstances. Now, according to Tenet and to President Bush, used three times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Nashiri, and Abu Zubaydah. All three times the men broke when they were waterboarded, and they gave out information, according to the Bush administration, that saved thousands of lives...These people gave up very good information." - May 9, 2008, in an interview with John McCain where O'Reilly used Zubaydah to counter McCain's anti-torture beliefs.
Abu Zubaydah, say the several officials interviewed by the Post, was not an al-Qaeda bigshot. And his torture saved no one. Not a good guy, by a longshot, but certainly not a major player in al-Qaeda. Jack Bauer would be disgusted.
By the way, one more quote here. It's from John McCain on Meet the Press this past weekend: "One other thing we need, we do need a select committee in Congress to look at what happened so people can--this train hit them without any knowledge. They still don't know what happened. Why did it happen? So then they would have some more confidence on, in what actions we might take in the future to prevent it from happening again." A congressional committee to investigate why it happened to prevent it from happening in the future. It's a great idea. McCain is, of course, not referring to anything to do with detainee treatment, torture, or anything having to do with Bush's "wars." It's about the economic crisis.
Now that multiple sources have confirmed for the Washington Post what Ron Suskind, the Red Cross, and others had been saying all along, that Gitmo detainee Abu Zubaydah gave up shit confessions because of his waterboarding and other tortures, it's time to play that amazing game of "Who Was a Fucking Asshole About This?" And, while we could go with any number of people, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, let's use Fox "news" barbarian inside the gate Bill O'Reilly as an example of how easily a deluded media could justify any act.
"If you can read then you read this article and according to the article the government official unnamed, I will admit, we don't like unnamed sources, said that they broke Zubaydah and Zubaydah gave them up all the names that they need to get to prevent further terror attacks. Now I'm going to believe that unless you can prove it differently and you can't." - Bill O'Reilly to Human Rights Watch's Katherine Newell-Bierman, September 12 2006. This was, by the way, even before we had it confirmed by the President that Zubaydah was waterboarded.
"You have the guy in the New York Times, and he's an unnamed source -- I mean, we don't have a name on this guy -- saying, 'Look, we broke Zubaydah. This is how we broke him. We made it so uncomfortable for him that he didn't want this any more, and he told us what we need to know.' Then you open Newsweek magazine. You've got Ron Suskind. OK. Now, he's a partisan, doesn't like Bush. He says that's bull. Zubaydah didn't know anything, and he didn't give them anything...What I'm trying to tell you is the average American sitting at home is not engaged on a daily basis like we are...Doesn't know what the truth is. Doesn't know." - September 13, 2006, while talking to Laura Ingraham. The ellipses are there to edit out what Ingraham says because, you know, who fucking cares? In about 24 hours, O'Reilly went from vaguely accepting the story to blind faith in it.
Prior to that discussion, O'Reilly had stated that "At first Zubaydah was defiant and evasive until the approved procedures were used. He soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks."
"There is no question the CIA roughed up Zubaydah. We already knew that. ABC's Brian Ross reported that Zubaydah was waterboarded for less than 30 seconds before he gave it up. The information he then provided led to the capture of major al Qaeda terrorists. So maybe the agency did abuse the man. But I believe most Americans would understand that. Zubaydah is an evil guy, who knew plenty about the murderous activities of al Qaeda." - December 7, 2007
"Last night on ABC News, the CIA agent who supervised the waterboarding of al Qaeda bigshot Abu Zubaydah said the interrogation method broke him...And that means the waterboarding saved lives, perhaps thousands of lives...Let's stop the nonsense here. America's not a bad country because it waterboarded Zubaydah. The Bush administration has done its job. We haven't been attacked since 9/11. The liberal press, politicians, the ACLU can't stop any wrongdoing. They're all lost in a fog of misguided indignation, crazy with hatred for Bush, but we the people must take a stand here. This isn't a game. This is life and death." - December 11, 2007
"You're opposed to waterboarding. And I disagree with you on that. I think the president of the United States should have -- just the president -- should have the legal authority to order waterboarding in extraordinary circumstances. Now, according to Tenet and to President Bush, used three times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Nashiri, and Abu Zubaydah. All three times the men broke when they were waterboarded, and they gave out information, according to the Bush administration, that saved thousands of lives...These people gave up very good information." - May 9, 2008, in an interview with John McCain where O'Reilly used Zubaydah to counter McCain's anti-torture beliefs.
Abu Zubaydah, say the several officials interviewed by the Post, was not an al-Qaeda bigshot. And his torture saved no one. Not a good guy, by a longshot, but certainly not a major player in al-Qaeda. Jack Bauer would be disgusted.
By the way, one more quote here. It's from John McCain on Meet the Press this past weekend: "One other thing we need, we do need a select committee in Congress to look at what happened so people can--this train hit them without any knowledge. They still don't know what happened. Why did it happen? So then they would have some more confidence on, in what actions we might take in the future to prevent it from happening again." A congressional committee to investigate why it happened to prevent it from happening in the future. It's a great idea. McCain is, of course, not referring to anything to do with detainee treatment, torture, or anything having to do with Bush's "wars." It's about the economic crisis.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Pictures That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Down a Handful of Klonopin with a Twelve-Pack of Bell's:
That's two former employees of Wayland Chevrolet in Wayland, Michigan, brawling outside their former place of business. 30 people lost their jobs when the dealership closed. They found out this past Friday. Said one of the brawlers, "Does it matter how hard you work, because there is somebody a little bit above you that has the right to control every decision and every effort you put forward, don't you have a right to be a little bit mad when somebody says hey we're all done?" And thus another socialist is born, whether he realizes it or not. Or at least another potential union member. Because if you believe in unregulated capitalism, then, yes, Jason Stanton, somebody a little bit above you does have all that control over you. Sucks, doesn't it?
Today President Obama announced the resignation (or, to put it more properly, "firing") of GM CEO Rick Wagoner. And that GM would only be funded for 60 days more to come up with a business plan that is recognizable as a plan for business. More on that tomorrow.
You know, between the fights and the urban coyote attacks, maybe we do need to be building bunkers and wearing Snuggie blankets, the cult robes of the new apocalypse.
That's two former employees of Wayland Chevrolet in Wayland, Michigan, brawling outside their former place of business. 30 people lost their jobs when the dealership closed. They found out this past Friday. Said one of the brawlers, "Does it matter how hard you work, because there is somebody a little bit above you that has the right to control every decision and every effort you put forward, don't you have a right to be a little bit mad when somebody says hey we're all done?" And thus another socialist is born, whether he realizes it or not. Or at least another potential union member. Because if you believe in unregulated capitalism, then, yes, Jason Stanton, somebody a little bit above you does have all that control over you. Sucks, doesn't it?
Today President Obama announced the resignation (or, to put it more properly, "firing") of GM CEO Rick Wagoner. And that GM would only be funded for 60 days more to come up with a business plan that is recognizable as a plan for business. More on that tomorrow.
You know, between the fights and the urban coyote attacks, maybe we do need to be building bunkers and wearing Snuggie blankets, the cult robes of the new apocalypse.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Why Michelle Malkin Ought to Be Caged Like a Rabid Shih-Tzu (Rank Hypocrisy Edition):
So let's just get this straight: back in 2006, Michelle Malkin, blogger, syndicated columnist, and an attention whore with appetites so huge that, if she were a sex-selling whore (and the Rude Pundit has no direct knowledge that she is not), she'd be in front of an audience of cheering old drunks, giving handjobs to hobos while getting fucked in the ass by the bartender's pit bull, which is pretty much what happens when you appear on Fox "news," posts to her blog the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of three UC Santa Cruz students who led a protest against military recruiters on their campus. When the students get pounded by threats of violence, Malkin washes her hands of it, saying that it's up to individuals how they respond to the information she has made public.
And in 2007, Michelle Malkin, who, if she were a sex-selling whore (and, while the Rude Pundit cannot confirm anything, he's pretty sure she's swapping blow jobs for appearances on Glenn Beck's nightly crazoidfest), she'd be the type of hooker who tells you all the crazy shit she could do to your dick if she hadn't sprained her back, but if you double the price, she'll work through the pain, stalked the family of a twelve year-old boy who almost died in a car wreck. even going to their home. Her point? That they owned things and thus didn't need SCHIP.
So this is the Michelle Malkin we're talking about. She's the same one who in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the sound of a bag of drowning cats") is outraged, nay, megaoutraged at the idea that people would be angry enough to threaten violence or suggest punishments for AIG executives. Scrawls Malkin, "[T]he radical ACORN mob and its corporate shakedown allies chartered a bus — with twice as many outrage-stoking MSM photographers in tow — to menace AIG executives in their homes." Imagine. Going to harass people you think are evil at their homes. Malkin also cites "the families who received [death] threats through AIG’s website." It must give her the vapors.
The point here is not about AIG's employees or mob rule. The point is that if you yourself have whipped the mob into a frenzy and been lead torch carrier when it suits your purposes, then you've probably lost the moral high ground on the issue. Or maybe it's just that if you're a whore with three cocks in various orifices, you really can't preach abstinence.
So let's just get this straight: back in 2006, Michelle Malkin, blogger, syndicated columnist, and an attention whore with appetites so huge that, if she were a sex-selling whore (and the Rude Pundit has no direct knowledge that she is not), she'd be in front of an audience of cheering old drunks, giving handjobs to hobos while getting fucked in the ass by the bartender's pit bull, which is pretty much what happens when you appear on Fox "news," posts to her blog the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of three UC Santa Cruz students who led a protest against military recruiters on their campus. When the students get pounded by threats of violence, Malkin washes her hands of it, saying that it's up to individuals how they respond to the information she has made public.
And in 2007, Michelle Malkin, who, if she were a sex-selling whore (and, while the Rude Pundit cannot confirm anything, he's pretty sure she's swapping blow jobs for appearances on Glenn Beck's nightly crazoidfest), she'd be the type of hooker who tells you all the crazy shit she could do to your dick if she hadn't sprained her back, but if you double the price, she'll work through the pain, stalked the family of a twelve year-old boy who almost died in a car wreck. even going to their home. Her point? That they owned things and thus didn't need SCHIP.
So this is the Michelle Malkin we're talking about. She's the same one who in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the sound of a bag of drowning cats") is outraged, nay, megaoutraged at the idea that people would be angry enough to threaten violence or suggest punishments for AIG executives. Scrawls Malkin, "[T]he radical ACORN mob and its corporate shakedown allies chartered a bus — with twice as many outrage-stoking MSM photographers in tow — to menace AIG executives in their homes." Imagine. Going to harass people you think are evil at their homes. Malkin also cites "the families who received [death] threats through AIG’s website." It must give her the vapors.
The point here is not about AIG's employees or mob rule. The point is that if you yourself have whipped the mob into a frenzy and been lead torch carrier when it suits your purposes, then you've probably lost the moral high ground on the issue. Or maybe it's just that if you're a whore with three cocks in various orifices, you really can't preach abstinence.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Dear Ex-AIG Guy:
The Rude Pundit responds to the resignation letter from Jake DeSantis, AIG's executive vice president of the financial products unit, published in yesterday's New York Times:
"Dear (soon-to-be) ex-AIG Guy,
"I read your letter with a great deal of interest. See, even though I'm just a member of the middle of the middle class who generally believes that vast sums of accumulated wealth are demonstrable proof of the corruption of the people who hold the wealth, I had your back, at least as far as your right to privacy and even, to an extent, as regards your contracted compensation. I believed that contracts could be renegotiated, sure, but barring that or anything actually illegal shown, that we just had to suck it up. And while I still believe that, lemme just say that your self-aggrandizing, whiny little bitch moan of a letter makes me wish whatever ill that comes your way is compounded by the number of times you lapped the average American worker in yearly compensation. If it's your karmic punishment to have to shovel shit in a stable for eternity, I hope it's got a hundred times as many animals shitting a hundred times as many turds for you to toss. In other words, and since my job is not to obfuscate to the point of denying comprehension, fuck you, you cockgobbling bag of fuck.
"Taking you down point by point would be a waste of time, especially since it's been done quite well by others. You want to come out of this clean. You want to be blameless. But even if you were the guy who filed food requisitions for the guards at Dachau, you still worked for the Nazis. Actually, to be more precise and only slightly hyperbolic, you're like the guy who cleaned floors for SPECTRE, the evil organization that James Bond was fighting. At the end of the day, you could look at where you mopped and say, 'Goddamn, that's one shiny motherfucker of a floor,' while behind you Ernst Blofeld is watching a giant fucking screen showing the launch of a nuke at London. When the British agents arrived, your ass would still get mowed down.
"Your life has been a lie. You have worked for a corporation that, when all is said and done, will have been responsible for as much harm to the average worker in this nation as those closed steel mills in the places you were raised. You're a glorified gambler. No, fuck that. Gamblers are more honest about what they are than you. You made bets in order for rich fucks to get richer, and you tried to convince yourself that it was a noble pursuit.
"You sanctimonious bastard. You want to pat yourself on the back because you took only a dollar in salary? The only fuckers who do that are the ones who can afford to. It's not like it caused you any suffering at all - did your kids have to go to public school? Did you have to give up the summer house in the Hamptons? Seriously, AIG guy, unless you're sucking Teamster cock for quarters to make ends meet, just don't talk in public about your sacrifices.
"I'll bet everyone you know is so fucking proud of you for saying what you said. I'll bet your lover fucked you so hard last night that you thought your balls were gonna send you their resignation. I'll bet your schoolteacher parents thought, 'What a good son' over your announcement that you were giving your 'payment from AIG amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes' to 'charity.' If you're so fucking right about being owed the money, then why are you giving it away? Because you can. And that was the problem to begin with. Hell, I'm guessing that along with your resignation will be a nice severance package, a golden parachute, and an antique umbrella stand to make sure your refinished floors don't get wet on rainy days. It's gonna make that three-quarter mill seem like a drop in a piss bucket.
"I don't get it. Who did you write this for? Why did you write it? For sympathy? So that someone living in a tent can read it as they arrange it as their blanket? No. You wrote it and made it public because you are just another useless fuck who looked in the mirror one day and thought, 'Oh, shit, I make sure the floors are shiny for terrorists, I file papers for mass-murderers.' You wrote it because you were afraid of the pitchforks and fire, yes, but not from angry Americans, but from the demons licking their gnarled lips in anticipation of your tasty soul's arrival. And you wanted someone to hold you and tell you it's okay. Cuddle your cold cash, motherfucker, and tell yourself, as the wreckage appears more and more vast, like the ruins of a bombed city finally being seen at dawn, that you were just trying to make it right.
"Fuck you, finally, at last, you pedantic, deluded, groveling worm. You think you're making some point that you and your ilk are people, too, when what you're revealing is that the world you occupy has no relation to the real one. Tell you what: give it all up, all the money, get the others in your division to do it, too, and go work for the people served by those organizations into whose pot you're gonna toss your change. Look into their eyes until you can say you're one of them. That's called redemption. Your letter? It's just pathetic for what it says about AIG, for what it says about us, but, mostly, for what it says about you.
"The Rude Pundit"
The Rude Pundit responds to the resignation letter from Jake DeSantis, AIG's executive vice president of the financial products unit, published in yesterday's New York Times:
"Dear (soon-to-be) ex-AIG Guy,
"I read your letter with a great deal of interest. See, even though I'm just a member of the middle of the middle class who generally believes that vast sums of accumulated wealth are demonstrable proof of the corruption of the people who hold the wealth, I had your back, at least as far as your right to privacy and even, to an extent, as regards your contracted compensation. I believed that contracts could be renegotiated, sure, but barring that or anything actually illegal shown, that we just had to suck it up. And while I still believe that, lemme just say that your self-aggrandizing, whiny little bitch moan of a letter makes me wish whatever ill that comes your way is compounded by the number of times you lapped the average American worker in yearly compensation. If it's your karmic punishment to have to shovel shit in a stable for eternity, I hope it's got a hundred times as many animals shitting a hundred times as many turds for you to toss. In other words, and since my job is not to obfuscate to the point of denying comprehension, fuck you, you cockgobbling bag of fuck.
"Taking you down point by point would be a waste of time, especially since it's been done quite well by others. You want to come out of this clean. You want to be blameless. But even if you were the guy who filed food requisitions for the guards at Dachau, you still worked for the Nazis. Actually, to be more precise and only slightly hyperbolic, you're like the guy who cleaned floors for SPECTRE, the evil organization that James Bond was fighting. At the end of the day, you could look at where you mopped and say, 'Goddamn, that's one shiny motherfucker of a floor,' while behind you Ernst Blofeld is watching a giant fucking screen showing the launch of a nuke at London. When the British agents arrived, your ass would still get mowed down.
"Your life has been a lie. You have worked for a corporation that, when all is said and done, will have been responsible for as much harm to the average worker in this nation as those closed steel mills in the places you were raised. You're a glorified gambler. No, fuck that. Gamblers are more honest about what they are than you. You made bets in order for rich fucks to get richer, and you tried to convince yourself that it was a noble pursuit.
"You sanctimonious bastard. You want to pat yourself on the back because you took only a dollar in salary? The only fuckers who do that are the ones who can afford to. It's not like it caused you any suffering at all - did your kids have to go to public school? Did you have to give up the summer house in the Hamptons? Seriously, AIG guy, unless you're sucking Teamster cock for quarters to make ends meet, just don't talk in public about your sacrifices.
"I'll bet everyone you know is so fucking proud of you for saying what you said. I'll bet your lover fucked you so hard last night that you thought your balls were gonna send you their resignation. I'll bet your schoolteacher parents thought, 'What a good son' over your announcement that you were giving your 'payment from AIG amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes' to 'charity.' If you're so fucking right about being owed the money, then why are you giving it away? Because you can. And that was the problem to begin with. Hell, I'm guessing that along with your resignation will be a nice severance package, a golden parachute, and an antique umbrella stand to make sure your refinished floors don't get wet on rainy days. It's gonna make that three-quarter mill seem like a drop in a piss bucket.
"I don't get it. Who did you write this for? Why did you write it? For sympathy? So that someone living in a tent can read it as they arrange it as their blanket? No. You wrote it and made it public because you are just another useless fuck who looked in the mirror one day and thought, 'Oh, shit, I make sure the floors are shiny for terrorists, I file papers for mass-murderers.' You wrote it because you were afraid of the pitchforks and fire, yes, but not from angry Americans, but from the demons licking their gnarled lips in anticipation of your tasty soul's arrival. And you wanted someone to hold you and tell you it's okay. Cuddle your cold cash, motherfucker, and tell yourself, as the wreckage appears more and more vast, like the ruins of a bombed city finally being seen at dawn, that you were just trying to make it right.
"Fuck you, finally, at last, you pedantic, deluded, groveling worm. You think you're making some point that you and your ilk are people, too, when what you're revealing is that the world you occupy has no relation to the real one. Tell you what: give it all up, all the money, get the others in your division to do it, too, and go work for the people served by those organizations into whose pot you're gonna toss your change. Look into their eyes until you can say you're one of them. That's called redemption. Your letter? It's just pathetic for what it says about AIG, for what it says about us, but, mostly, for what it says about you.
"The Rude Pundit"
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Welcome Back to the Hard Times:
At last night's news conference, Kevin Chappell of Ebony magazine asked President Barack Obama, "A recent report found that as a result of the economic downturn, one in 50 children are now homeless in America. With shelters at full capacity, tent cities are sprouting up across the country. In passing your stimulus package, you said that help was on the way. But what would you say to these families, especially children, who are sleeping under bridges in tents across the country?"
Obama's answer, a combination of sorrow for the poverty and restatement of his budget proposals as they relate to jobs and veterans, was pretty much what you'd expect, the non-committal commitment of a politician trying to negotiate this savage landscape in and out of Washington. Of course, there's a reality behind this that makes the seemingly exaggerated question appear that it's understating the case.
This is Nickelsville in Seattle:
That's the Reno skyline in the background (this could have been a Vegas photo, too):
This orderly set-up is in Pinellas Park, Florida:
And here's the place made famous by Oprah, Sacramento's Tent City:
One imagines that as the weather warms up, the flutter of cloth homes will be as prevalent around the nation as the sounds of the flag in the breeze.
At last night's news conference, Kevin Chappell of Ebony magazine asked President Barack Obama, "A recent report found that as a result of the economic downturn, one in 50 children are now homeless in America. With shelters at full capacity, tent cities are sprouting up across the country. In passing your stimulus package, you said that help was on the way. But what would you say to these families, especially children, who are sleeping under bridges in tents across the country?"
Obama's answer, a combination of sorrow for the poverty and restatement of his budget proposals as they relate to jobs and veterans, was pretty much what you'd expect, the non-committal commitment of a politician trying to negotiate this savage landscape in and out of Washington. Of course, there's a reality behind this that makes the seemingly exaggerated question appear that it's understating the case.
This is Nickelsville in Seattle:
That's the Reno skyline in the background (this could have been a Vegas photo, too):
This orderly set-up is in Pinellas Park, Florida:
And here's the place made famous by Oprah, Sacramento's Tent City:
One imagines that as the weather warms up, the flutter of cloth homes will be as prevalent around the nation as the sounds of the flag in the breeze.
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