President Obama's Latest Big Damn Speech About the Economy: So?:
The Rude Pundit knows, he knows, god, how he knows that he was supposed to sit in his living room and jack off while President Barack Obama gave what was his big ol' speech on "Shared Prosperity and Responsibility." He knows that he was supposed to giddily spank it as Obama went all in-yer-fookin'-gob to the GOP by evoking Teddy Roosevelt and even speaking in the same town where the Big Stick Dude gave his "New Nationalism" speech (probably not softly) back in 1910. He knows he was supposed to ejaculate all over his TV as Obama talked about the rich paying their fair share and Republicans being bags of dicks. He knows he was supposed to have a cigarette when Obama made the point about the 1% earning almost all of the economic gains of "the last few decades."

But you know what? Sorry. He can't. He'd need some high doses of Viagra to just get a fake erection.

For here's what the President actually proposed yesterday: extend the payroll tax reduction, end the Bush tax cuts and limit deductions for the wealthy, make some undefined cuts here and there in the budget, and tell the GOP to stop blocking approval of Richard Cordray for the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

That's it. Oh, sure, sure, Obama said he'd protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Oh, sure, sure, he framed everything with progressive rhetoric about the society over the individual, about the need for greater opportunity in the nation, about wealth not being an end in itself. That was great, but it wasn't that different than his speech back in April that was all about cutting the deficit.

Back then, he even used the language that would be used by Occupy Wall Street: "In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each."

Some on the left were delighted. Robert Reich, who is normally a bit more skeptical about this stuff, was way over-the-top effusive about yesterday's speech: "It lays out the basis for what could be the platform Obama will run on in 2012 — increasing taxes on the rich, investing in the rest us, requiring corporations and Wall Street banks that reap benefits from being in America create good jobs for Americans, and protecting our democracy from being corrupted by money — a new New Nationalism. Here, finally, is the Barack Obama many of us thought we had elected in 2008."

Except that's not what Obama actually said. He didn't suggest requiring jack shit of bailed-out banks. He gave them some polite advice: "At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis. They should be working to keep responsible homeowners in their home. We’re going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house. The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven’t yet benefited from historically low interest rates."

You got that? They "should" do things. But Obama is not actually proposing any kind of requirements. So if you're a banker, you can continue to do fuck-all for the economy and thank the President for his note in the suggestion box.

And conservatives are still complaining that it's class warfare. Shit, it's barely a class tickle fight. We could use some motherfuckin' warfare, like, you know, Teddy Roosevelt proposed.

Back in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came up with a radical plan: Tax the fuck out of the wealthy who earned their money not through labor or services rendered, but through "gambling in stocks." Roosevelt said, "I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective-a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." Teddy also proposed giving workers rights like minimum wage and regulations for child labor and sanitary conditions.

Look, yeah, yeah, times were different. Yeah, yeah, the President can only do what Congress will allow. But if you're going to spend time laying out a vision of what you'd like the nation to achieve, you should probably be a bit more ambitious in the scope of what you want to accomplish than a slight re-jiggering of taxes and the placement of a good bureaucrat. Howzabout new regulations with real teeth on banking and on the influence of money in politics? Howzabout a massive jobs program based on infrastructure spending and the green economy?

Or perhaps (and this is probably true) we've gotten so used our American inertia that small motions towards progress have become mighty gestures.

Newt and Callista: A Romance on Film:
Current Republican presidential nomination race leader, former Speaker of the House and entrepreneur, the plump and wretched Newt Gingrich, and his frightening wife, Callista, who is noted for her ability to play the French horn (that's true, by the way), have appeared in a series of films for their for-profit company, Gingrich Productions (which is linked to Gingrich's campaign website, Newt.org, which sounds like a fetish club for amphibianophiles). The odd thing is that in nearly every single one, no matter what the subject, the couple appear side-by-side, Newt screen left, Callista right, as if they are conjoined twins attached at the shoulder:

Here they are in We Have the Power, which is about sucking sweet oil out of the ground.


Here's the loving spouses in Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny (which is oddly not about Reagan meeting Satan for his just reward in Hell).


And here they are in Nine Days That Changed the World, about Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland where he molested Lech Walesa's kids and started the Solidarity movement. That's the Vatican in the background, so they got a vacation out of the production.


Oh, this is a serious and spooky one: America at Risk, because, Newt and Callista tell us, the terrorists are a-tryin' to kill us. That might be "Generic City Green Screen Image" behind them.


This one's from the recent City Upon a Hill, which is about how exceptional America is. We're filthy with exceptionalism.


And the Rude Pundit's favorite title: Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage. He loves that there was apparently so much more to say after part 1 that a sequel was necessary. It would have been cool to be called "The Goddening."


The point here isn't shitty production values and a for-profit way of conning conservatives out of cash. No, it's that all of these are funded by Citizens United. You know, the Citizens United that went to the Supreme Court and got corporations declared people who could spend unlimited amounts of unlimited donations from unlimited anonymous sources to created unlimited issue ads that more or less support specific candidates, like their employee, Newt Gingrich.

Well, at least Newt and Callista are camera ready. They even know their marks.

Cain in Vain:
So it was on Saturday that the Rude Pundit awoke and sat down on the couch with a bowl of cereal and a big ass mug of coffee. He turned on the TV and saw that the MSNBC was showing The House on Murder Mountain, and, really, with a title like that, it didn't matter what it was about. It could have been Care Bear furry snuff porn. He was going to watch. But, no, there would be no house, no murder, no mountain.

Instead, he was greeted by race traitor Alveda King, niece of MLK himself, talking about something worthless in front of a crowd in Atlanta. It was time, anchor Alex Witt told us, for Herman Cain to announce whether or not he was going to continue his campaign in the wake of a series of sexual allegations wherein the lobbyist and inspirational speaker either fucked or tried to fuck various women. But first we had to hear Michael D. Steele, the Army colonel who was reprimanded for giving orders that resulted in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. So, yeah. He barked at us about doing the Pledge of Allegiance like we mean it, not like we're a bunch of pussies who don't gun down unarmed civilians.

Then Cain, dragging his poor wife, Gloria, with him, walked up to the dais in shades, and, well, hell, you know what happened next. A few random observations here:

- Cain said, "The pundits would like for me to shut up, drop out, and go away." Speaking for pundits everywhere, are you fucking kidding? It's people like Herman Cain who make our jobs easier. Got nothing to write about? Huh. What crazy shit did Herman Cain say yesterday? That well is dry now.

- He also said, "[W]e know that those false and unproved allegations are not true." Umm, "unproved" means that there's a chance they could be proved. Just sayin'.

- Essentially, all Cain said was "Those women are liars and to prove it, I'm quitting my campaign. Kiss Herman Cain's ass and buy his book. Cain forever."

- One other note to all of the people who supported Cain and the "pundits" who proclaimed him the best, most authentic candidate who can beat Barack Obama, especially those made a big deal about his race: If your candidate says the word "Pokemon," not as a joke but as a source for a quote-worthy "poem," in his speech where he's quitting his campaign, he not only was never that serious a candidate, he wasn't that serious a grown-up.

Adios, Herman Cain. Your campaign was a success: You've lined up enough rubes who'll pay to see your egress to keep you rich the rest of your life.

Note: Everything you need to know about Herman Cain can be gleaned from a Godfather's Pizza commercial from 1988, when Cain was CEO, wherein a black guy tries to tell everyone he's exactly like the old white guy next to him.

The Most Elitist, Idiotic Paragraph You'll See This Week in a Major Newspaper:
Just for a quick hit of pure, sadistic glee, the Rude Pundit is sharing this one paragraph from the latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the numbingly stupid rantings of someone Glenn Beck finds credible") by oh-so-sassy, neo-Coulter S.E. Cupp in the New York Daily News:

"If you’ve spent any time in the American South (I began this week in North Carolina, incidentally), you know it’s a land where your picture is made and not taken, Auburn is a religion and not a color and there are no problems that a little sweet tea and barbecued ribs can’t solve. I will not argue the last point."

Where is this fantasy place, this South-Land amusement park? And what was the whole "column" about? Who the fuck cares? Once you've written something so unbearably patronizing and smugly elitist, like a Victorian anthropologist delighted with the time spent with the wogs, you have lost any shred of credibility on anything.

(One other thing - and, yeah, sometimes meaningless shit sticks in the Rude Pundit's craw: that last sentence, "I will not argue the last point." Sarah, Sarah, you're the one making the initial assertion. If you might argue with it, why the fuck make it in the first place? And the assumption is that if you make a point, you're not gonna dispute it immediately. Apparently, "editing" is not really something the editors at the Daily News do.)

Okay, seriously, back in a few with Cain.

Late Birthday Post Today:
The Rude Pundit is probably already drunk as he celebrates his birthday. Later, there will be ecstasy, there will be dwarves, there will be implements of various and sordid uses, there will be at least one animal sacrifice (well, at least one grilled). Back later with a few final jabs at Herman Cain.

Guest Post: On Occupy Supply by Brian Sonenstein at Firedoglake:
(Bumped to the top for the weekend)
At Firedoglake, our network of member volunteers started a project to help the Occupy Movement survive the winter. It started as a road trip with FDL Dissenter reporter Kevin Gosztola visiting different occupations across the Midwest, delivering cold weather supplies to the protesters he met along the way. We raised money for the road trip as part of a campaign we called the Occupy Supply Fund, and committed 100% of the donations to buying and delivering supplies to the protesters and occupations who needed them most.

It was an immediate success, and the occupations Kevin visited were very grateful for the help. But we knew that Kevin would never make it to enough occupations before winter to make a real impact, and our members and activists wanted very much to help. Here at The Rude Pundit, the Blanket the Earth campaign you all have organized is providing a beautiful and important structure for folks to donate their secondhand and store-bought goods to their local occupations. At FDL, we took a slightly different tact, deciding the most efficient thing we could do as a community with our time and resources was to buy as much regionally- and union-made cold weather gear as possible -- from jackets and hats to sleeping bags and generators -- and immediately ship them out to protests across the country.

We got to work. Our founder Jane Hamsher assumed what turned out to be the unfortunately Herculean task of sourcing regional, American and Union made cold weather clothing from what remains of the American textile industry. It was a truly eye-opening experience, and as Jane wrote at FDL:

"It was not an easy task to source all of these union suppliers, and it was extraordinarily depressing. The garment manufacturing industry in the United States has been decimated by NAFTA. Link after link to once thriving union shops were dead, even in the past few years. They went out of business. They were gobbled up and gutted, or the jobs went overseas. Or both.

"Which leads right back to Occupy Wall Street. As American manufacturing goes, so goes the American middle class — which was built on manufacturing jobs. 'Decline' is too delicate of a word to describe what happened. American manufacturing and the middle class economic stability that went with it were sabotaged by cooperation between leaders of both political parties."

The Occupy Supply fund is not only supporting the occupy protesters, but we’re putting our money where our mouths are, and using our purchasing power to support American manufacturing jobs, fair wages, and full benefits.

The next challenge was to develop a network to get this stuff out there, because we didn’t just want to ship boxes of supplies to the occupations -- we wanted to show up and let the protesters see some of the faces of the people who are working hard to support them. So we tapped our members to volunteer as what we call Occupy Supply Liaisons.

These Liaisons are the kind souls who visit occupations regularly, talking to and establishing relationships with protesters, keeping tabs of the size of their encampments and the issues affecting them, compiling requests for supplies and working directly with the fund to receive shipments and deliver them back at camp. Our goal is to have liaisons create lasting relationships with occupations so we can continue to help them long after the winter.

We now have Liaisons in over 40 states across the country, and in some place multiple liaisons working together at a single occupation. Our shipments have begun to arrive over the past week and my colleague Ryan Cook has been working frantically sending shipments out of Jane’s basement each day.

In just over a month, the Occupy Supply fund has raised an incredible $140,000, of which we’ve spent over $82,000 solely on supplies - and we are constantly updating our stock to meet the various needs of the protesters. We’ve bought jackets, hats, base layers, sleeping bags, tents, generators, Tiny Homes, foodstuffs, and so much more -- and all of this has been and continues to be personally delivered by dedicated, passionate FDL volunteers.

And on Monday we launched our next stage of the project to give folks another way to show their support and aid the occupations: the Occupy Supply store. For every item you buy, we’ll match it with a donation of the same item to an occupier in need. Every item in our store is Union made in the USA.

We are so pleased with the enthusiasm we have seen so far for helping this important protest against greed and inequality. I hope you will check out the Occupy Supply fund and support our efforts to prepare the protesters for winter alongside the wonderful work you are all doing here.

Photos to Remind You About That Thing Going On in Afghanistan:
SFC Benari Poulten, who you should follow on the Twitter machine, sent these pictures from Howz-e Madad, which, according to Google Earth, is approximately on the ass crack of nowhere in Afghanistan.

Poulten, who Jon Stewart dubbed "GI Jew" and who calls himself "America's most adorable soldier," said that "we helped open a new school, police station, and medical clinic." (Your objection that we need schools, police stations, and medical clinics paid for by the federal government right here in the USA is duly noted and appreciated.)


And here's your happy foreign children, with remarkably good teeth, smiling for the camera.

The Rude Pundit doesn't put this up here for any kind of "balance" or some such shit. He wants this war over now and Benari and all the troops home. It's just that reality is always complicated. And for all the bad that we've done in Afghanistan, we're still trying to do bits of good and those bits of good actually do help some of the people we've harmed.

Updates and Corrections: Dickweeds, Penises, and Jeff Sessions:
Correction: Earlier this week, the Rude Pundit said that "Herman Cain really likes to bang (or try to bang) white women." Apparently, Ginger White, with whom Cain allegedly had a 13-year affair, is, despite her deceptive name, black. So Herman Cain's penis knows no racial prejudice. He is, however, a scumsucking corporate piggy, no matter what his penis has done.

Clarification: Several sources said that Ann Coulter was bleeped on Morning Joe on MSNBC on Monday because she called John McCain a "douchebag." She has clarified that, in fact, she called him a "dickweed." What has not been clarified is why Ann Coulter, who this week wrote, for the 8 billionth time, about Bill Clinton and Paula Jones, is considered relevant in any conversation.

Update: Amendment 1274 to the National Defense Authorization Act, proposed by Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, failed last night by a 41-59 vote. The amendment said that, if you're an enemy combatant that wins some kind of lottery and actually gets a trial, your potential acquittal does not mean you will be freed. Apparently, the Senate decided that other language in the bill that says someone can be held forever covered it. The bill itself passed 93-7.

Oh, and here's the Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show:

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Other Skeevy Shit in the National Defense Authorization Act:
Oh, sure, sure, the Senate's codifying the detention and denial of habeas corpus that's been going on, with the added bonus that, in addition to killing the fuck out of Americans, the President can say, "Yeah, you're an enemy combatant. Welcome to Gitmo." To his credit, Barack Obama has said, "Umm, no," and threatened a veto, although that probably has more to do with allowing some kind of congressional involvement than anything we might think of as moral qualms.

But the NDAA is bursting with skeevy shit, in the debate and non-debate that's gone on.

There's Alabama's Jeff Sessions' Amendment 1274, still up for a vote, which says, according to Sessions, "an unlawful combatant or a combatant who is held by the U.S. military for being an enemy of the United States, a combatant against the United States, or an unlawful combatant, is not therefore entitled to be released if the U.S. military or the civilian courts choose to prosecute him and he is acquitted or after he serves his sentence but before hostilities have ended." You got that? Even if we've held someone for years in legal suspended animation, if that prisoner should actually get some kind of trial and if, with all the rules being against him, he happens to get acquitted, he'll still be stuck in custody until he dies or the war ends, which it never will. Call this the "we're such pussies in America" rule.

This led to South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, who has had a such a boner for detention without charge or trial that it's practically slapping John McCain in the face, to say, "[I]f you take the ability to hold someone as an enemy combatant off the table, you cannot interrogate them for intelligence-gathering purposes, and if you put a time limit on how long you can hold them, you defeat the purpose of gathering intelligence." You might think that someone held for a decade would have no useful intelligence left and could possibly be set free, if he's acquitted in a, you know, fair trial. But you'd be a traitor who wants the two remaining al-Qaeda members to fuck your dog and gut your daughters.

Of course, yea or nay, at least Sessions' amendment got debated. The same can't be said for Amendment 1120. That said that women in the military who get pregnant by rape can have their abortions paid for by the military. New Hampshire Democrat Janine Shaheen introduced it, and, because there were important things to be passed, like the aforementioned Christmas Tree Week, 1120 got designated as "non-germane." Apparently, a defense funding bill is not the place to discuss the funds of soldiers.

Oh, yeah, that and making sure that military chaplains don't have to perform marriage ceremonies for the gays. That passed. The House version of the NDAA specifically banned chaplains from doing the deed. The Senate version just says that it's up to the chaplain. Actually, it's kind of funny. It just says that any chaplain "who as a matter of conscience or moral principle does not wish to perform a marriage, may not be required to do so," which means that Father Mulcahy could say, "Fuck you, Klinger. I think marrying Koreans is icky." By the way, this amendment was proposed by some who-the-fuck-cares-what-his-name-is Mississippi senator, thus completing this blog post's trifecta of shitbag southern Republicans.

So a fun clusterfuck of culture wars and legal wars while still funding, without question or clarity, the war wars.

Late Post Today, But Enjoy Your Senate at Work:
This is a real thing the Senate did yesterday in-between debating whether or not you can be held without trial if the President says so until every eeevil Mooslim is daid:

"Mr. MERKLEY (for himself, Mr. Burr, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Casey, Ms. Cantwell and Ms. Collins) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to:

S. Res. 341

Whereas Christmas trees are grown in all 50 States;

Whereas Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since about 1850;

Whereas Edward Johnson, assistant to Thomas Edison, came up with the idea of electric lights for Christmas trees in 1882;

Whereas President Calvin Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923;

Whereas there are close to 15,000 farms growing Christmas trees in the United States;

Whereas there are approximately 100,000 people employed full or part-time in the Christmas tree industry;

Whereas Christmas tree farms in the United States planted approximately 35,000,000 Christmas trees in 2011 to replace those harvested in 2010; and

Whereas growing Christmas trees preserves green space and small family-owned farms, provides habitats for wildlife, and sequesters carbon dioxide: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate--

(1) designates the first full week of December in 2011 as 'National Christmas Tree Week';

(2) encourages the celebration of Christmas trees during that week;

(3) recognizes the role Christmas trees have played in the history of the United States;

(4) reaffirms the environmental benefits of Christmas tree farms and recycled Christmas trees;

(5) encourages the recycling of Christmas trees after the holiday season; and

(6) celebrates the joy Christmas trees bring to families across the United States."

You'll notice that it does not mention God. It passed without objection.

Back in a bit with more combatant rudeness.

The End of the Occupy Camps Is the Start of the Next Phase:
Last night, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the police moved in by the hundreds to clear out the Occupy encampments. In L.A., Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa used the tiredest excuse of them all: think about the children. In a city with at least 13,500 homeless kids (and that's just the ones that show up at schools), L.A. probably could have spent the money it used for the 1400 cops and 200 arrests at the City Hall camp on, say, housing some of the kids who don't want to be on the streets.

You can bet that we'll be hearing about more crackdowns as the winter progresses, until almost all the camps are gone. And to that, the Rude Pundit says, "Finally."

Don't get him wrong. He fully supports the occupiers and their colonization of urban spaces, the footholds of American renewal. He even understands why defending the camps has become so important. For some, whether fresh-faced, middle-class college student or unemployed middle-aged homeless person, the camps are a taste of what power and democracy are like. They are a small victory in a concrete swamp of constant indignity and degradation. Smelly, ugly, and full of sloppy dissent, the Rude Pundit thought they were beautiful. It's why he wanted and still wants people to donate stuff to the remaining encampments. If they're gonna stay, then he wants these hippie harbingers of the future fight to be safe and warm.

But the camps need to be seen for what they are and what they've accomplished: they had to come into being in order to show that there are large numbers of people willing to put their bodies on the line for a cause. They needed to remind us that the public square is not virtual and that civic engagement in the real world is necessary and vital for the reclamation of the country. That has been done. But right now the media is focusing too much on the camps as symbols and their eviction as a loss, with some even portraying the evictions as a victory over an ill-prepared, misguided, easily-mocked group of anarchists and leeches. Don't let the fuckers have the victory. Don't let them take back the narrative.

Of course the occupations have to be destroyed by the police. That was the point, wasn't it? Draw out the authorities. Get them to respond to your actions. Transform yourself into beings with your own agency, no longer objects to be acted upon. And how does that not bait the ones with the batons and the pepper spray and the ones who order them to attack?

The Rude Pundit doesn't mourn the end of the encampments in the same way he didn't mourn moving from teenage years to adulthood. Now we've seen that action is possible, that community is possible, that mass public support is possible. It's time to move to targeted direct action, and, no, that doesn't mean supporting candidates for election. That's bullshit co-opting and dilution of the movement. Leave that to Occupy Wall Street's sympathizers. It means direct confrontation, like the new effort to stop foreclosures from occurring. (The Rude Pundit will be out there next Tuesday.)

And it means that Adbusters had it right when it declared, in the heated environment after New York was shut down, "We will turn this winter into a training ground for precision disruptions – flashmobs, stink bombs, edgy theatrics – against the megacorps and the unrepentant 1%, a festival of resistance in the snow with, or without, an encampment that'll lay the tactical foundation for our Spring Offensive."

While we need to take care of the outdoor occupiers, we cannot cling to slivers of land when we have a nation to take back.

Late Post Today:
Shredder's got a mutant army ready to attack. Time to put on the shell and take that bastard down. Back later with more aberrant rudeness.

A Brief List of Obvious Things That Should Be Obvious:
1. Today's New York Times contains an editorial titled "Reporting Abuse" that says, in essence, "Hey, if you catch a grown-up fucking a child, you gotta tell the police." For some reason, when it comes to college coaches (or, you know, priests), this simple, obvious action has to be explained. So, to be clear, if you know someone's fucking a kid, don't tell your coach. Don't tell your administrator. Tell the cops. If you need this explained to you more than once, you should be arrested, too.

2. If you invite Ann Coulter onto your nice TV show, she will act cunty. On Morning Starbucks today, Coulter, who had been invited on by smug host Joe Scarborough over an exchange on Twitter, was bleeped out for calling John McCain a "douchebag" (he's more of a colostomy bag, so the edit's understandable). And then she called Ted Kennedy a "human pestilence," which led Team Joe to spend a great deal of time, post-cunt, praising and fluffing the reputation of Kennedy. Remember: A good 90% of Coulter's material comes from dissing Ted Kennedy.

3. Really? The right-wing psycho who killed 77 people in a Norway shooting spree is actually a psycho? Huh. Go figure.

4. Herman Cain really likes to bang (or try to bang) white women. The obvious thing here: wait, you mean a skeevy lobbyist and poisonous food hawker turned out to be a skeevy human being? How could we even think about not electing him president? Oh, and he's thinking of getting out of the campaign now. Just two days too late. Extra bonus humor points: Cain's lawyer saying that "No individual...should be questioned about his or her private sexual life." What country has he been living in?

5. If you're a cop and you're in hot pursuit of an old man on a bicycle who, at best, might be a little drunk, don't tase him. Just, you know, don't.

The sad part is how long this post could go on. Really? The Federal Reserve made secret deals with banks that allowed them to make billions of dollars with taxpayer bailout money? Really? We're gonna keep learning what an execrable scumfucker Rupert Murdoch and his employees are?

It'd be nice, every now and then, to just be pleasantly surprised that someone you wouldn't expect behaved with honor.

We Came, We Conversed, We Blanketed:
Small gestures of kindness are not worthless. Around the nation, rude readers used Black Friday (or other Thanksgiving weekend days) to avoid the pepper-spraying rioters at Wal-Mart and instead brought blankets and sweaters and hoodies and food to their local occupations in an effort called "Blanket the Earth." Here's a few of the activities and sites:


From the tireless Denise Wirtz, who organized people for Occupy Atlanta.



From Becki in Austin with Bonnie and Karen, fellow BtE activists. Don't laugh. It gets cold at night.



From Sylvia Martin, who was one of several people who dropped off items in Boston.



The Rude Pundit, Nielsen Hayden, and others dropped off clothes and more in Zuccotti Park, NYC, where we were thanked by the human mike. The items were being handed out before we even left the metal barricaded area, more a hippie zoo than a protest site now. The action is elsewhere. The city is the occupation site now.

Other people showed up throughout the weekend in DC, Sacramento, Des Moines, and elsewhere, literally coast to coast, and in Vancouver, BC. It was an international effort to give aid and comfort to the occupiers.

Thanks to everyone who brought stuff and everyone who engaged with the occupiers, even as we enter what might become a post-encampment strategy.

Newt Gingrich Is Nothing You Want Him To Be:
First off, someone oughta point out that the Manchester Union-Leader, New Hampshire's largest daily newspaper (which means it has ten readers), is a shitty conservative rag that makes the Washington Times look erudite. Today's top news includes a warning that says, no, really, "Commuters should take it slow today since New Hampshire State Police will be out in force targeting aggressive and distracted drivers during heavy commuting hours" and crimes that involve a purse-snatcher and a crack whore, not to mention the safe return of an elderly woman who wandered away from her nursing home. This is not to belittle the snow-burdened people of the...what the fuck are you? The beaver state? The Show Me state? Live Free or Suck a Dick?...whatever...but, surely, a real newspaper would report on more than randomly lost old people and how super-great right-wingers are.

Granite state, right? Yeah, that's it. Anyways...

Also today, in a way-too-symbolic article, the paper talks about an "invasion" of feral swine in the state, which dovetails nicely with its endorsement of Newt Gingrich for president.

In its editorial supporting the former Speaker of the House, the Union-Leader says, "The pigs are between 100 and 300 pounds with rough hair, tusks and rapier-sharp teeth...They are difficult to hunt, wily, and 'ornery animals you don’t want to fool with,'" and "'We are concerned about their presence' primarily for ecological reasons."

Actually, that makes more sense in discussing Gingrich than what the editors actually wrote: "A lot of candidates say they're going to improve Washington. Newt Gingrich has actually done that." That's like saying that Godzilla was responsible for a great deal of urban renewal in Tokyo. Gingrich is one of the primary reasons that Washington sucks so hard and that Congress has become a worthless clusterfuck that actually works against the good of the nation. He teed it all up.

In October 1995, Gingrich told an audience at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University that if Democrats and the President don't agree to his budget plan, "fine, they won't have any money to run the parts of the Government they like, and we'll see what happens." He wanted Medicare to "wither on the vine." He blamed liberals for everything from Columbine to Susan Smith's drowning of her children. The fucking government shut down because of him. But, hey, sure, yeah, he improved the place.

Have fun, supposedly rational, realistic conservatives who are thrilled at the Gingrich surge. Not only is he an amoral, corrupt, faux-intellectual who windbags his way around the nation, but he also believes in science and technology. He wanted more government spending on medical technology for information-sharing. He actually think science education based on, you know, science is a good thing.

When, now, he hedges on whether or not he believes in evolution, it'll be awesome when Michele Bachmann trots out this 2006 quote from a Discover magazine interview: "Evolution certainly seems to express the closest understanding we can now have [about how we came to be]." Or this one: "I believe evolution should be taught as science, and intelligent design should be taught as philosophy." Or, on another hot-button topic, "I would not seek to ban research on stem cells in fertility clinics." Or "Unlike right-wingers who would say, 'Since we don't know 100 percent for sure, we can keep carbon loading,' I'd say there is enough evidence that it's reasonable to try to move toward renewables, to try to move toward conservation, to try to move toward a hydrogen economy."

Sure, he says the opposite now. But have fun convincing the Iowa and South Carolina and, yes, New Hampshire yahoos that Gingrich is on their side.

By the way, the wild boars are not native to New Hampshire. But hunters so want to hunt them that they've been illegally imported from Tennessee and Georgia and elsewhere. The problem is that once the Southern pigs get in, they multiply and destroy everything they can get their tusks on.

Blanketing the Occupiers Today:
The Rude Pundit will be at Zuccotti Park at 2 p.m. today under the big red metal sculpture (or, you know, Joie de Vivre by Mark di Suvero). If there's a group meeting going on there, he'll be next to it. He'll have a garbage bag of sweaters and gloves and such.

Let the Rude Pundit know if you did head out today to donate cold weather gear to your local Occupy site. Some readers have already done so. And take a picture or two to send in to this blog. Some of 'em will be posted here or on Facebook.

Austin at 2 p.m. looks like it's gonna be a party of blanketeers, as will Atlanta from 3-6 p.m. Get all your info to see if there's a gathering in your town. And if you're on your own, enjoy the fall day at the occupation.

On Monday, your regularly-scheduled rudeness will return.

But for today, let's do a small, good thing for the protesters we've celebrated for the last two and a half months. Thanks to all who have worked hard so far. And to all who turn out.

Finalizing Plans for Friday's Blanket the Earth Donations (Update):
(Bumping this up to the top of the page. Let the Rude Pundit know if you're participating.)

The Rude Pundit has been getting the word out in every venue he can over your internets. This Friday, a Black one, we've been told, he wants people to head down to their local Occupy (name of your city) site, should there still be one, and donate cold weather gear (blankets, sweaters, gloves, you know, the usual things) or anything to help those encamped and those holding outdoor protests make it through the quickly coming winter. The idea has been for it to not simply be donations, but for people to go to the Occupy groups to show support.

He appreciates all those who have chimed in that they're going to do so. Some are more organized than others, as is the way with we on the left.

Here's a few definite meet-up times and places:
Atlanta: Meet at Woodruff Park (aka "Troy Davis Park") from 3-6 p.m. to gather any donated items. At 6 p.m., head over to Occupy Atlanta to make the donation. (Thanks to the awesome Denise at Pros/e/yes for her organizing.)

Austin: Meet at City Hall at 2 p.m. (Thanks to Beckinham.)

Boston: Meet a green-jacketed woman with plastic bins, in front of South Station at 9 a.m. (Thanks, Sylvia. And if anyone wants to organize a later time, let us know.)

Washington, DC: Meet at 2 p.m. at the southeast corner of Freedom Square, by 13th and Pennsylvania before heading to Occupy DC. (Thanks to also awesome Violetta.)

New York City: Meet the Rude Pundit at the red metal sculpture at the southeast corner of Zuccotti Park at 2 p.m. and, since the donation tent is no more, we'll head down to 52 Broadway, where there's a stockpile of donated goods. (Drop a line if you're gonna meet up in NYC.)

Others from Los Angeles, Chicago, Chapel Hill, Pocatello, and elsewhere have said they are heading to donate. There are even some groups doing so. If any of them are reading, come up with a time and place and send it to rudepundit_at_yahoo.com so the Rude Pundit can post it here and at the BtE Facebook page and Twitter. Remember: "organizing" can be as simple as saying, "Hey, why don't we meet here?" Do not fear it.

Let's be honest: there's a chance you may be flying solo on this in your town. That's okay. And there's a chance that the numbers will dwindle to zero at the encampments by the dead of winter (or be raided and broken up). That's okay, too. Places like Chicago, Detroit, and NYC have ongoing actions without camps. What the Rude Pundit wants to accomplish is, yes, the aid and comfort provided by some nice wool socks. But it's also a physical demonstration that the occupations are just one part of a movement that spreads far beyond the parks and lawns where protesters are camped.

Actions are loud, man. Way louder than anything we tap, tap, tap out on our laptops.

(Note: take pics of your BtE action and they'll be tossed up on the blog this weekend. Also, later today, he'll have a complete list of contacts at Facebook.)

A Dark Poem from the Conquered for Thanksgiving in Desperate Times:
A piece of the poem "[Long Time Gone]" by Leslie Marmon Silko, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe. In order to win a contest in ancient times in America about who has the greatest powers, a witch doesn't cast spells or conjure. She tells the future to witches from all the native tribes:

Okay
go ahead
laugh if you want to
but as I tell the story
it will begin to happen.

Set in motion now
set in motion by our witchery
to work for us.

Caves across the ocean
in caves of dark hills
white skin people
like the belly of a fish
covered with hair.

Then they grow away from the earth
then they grow away from the sun
then they grow away from the plants and animals.
They see no life
When they look
they see only objects.
The world is a dead thing for them
the trees and rivers are not alive
the mountains and stones are not alive.
The deer and the bear are objects
They see no life.
They fear
They fear the world.
They destroy what they fear.
They fear themselves.

The wind will blow them across the ocean
thousands of them in giant boats
swarming like larva
out of a crushed ant hill.

They will carry objects
which can shoot death
faster than the eye can see.

They will kill the things they fear
all the animals
the people will starve.

They will poison the water
they will spin the water away
and there will be drought
the people will starve.

They will fear what they find
They will fear the people
They will kill what they fear.

Entire villages will be wiped out
They will slaughter whole tribes.
Corpses for us
Blood for us
Killing killing killing killing

And those they do not kill
will die anyway
at the destruction they see
at the loss
at the loss of the children
the loss will destroy the rest.

Stolen rivers and mountains
the stolen land will eat their hearts
and jerk their mouths from the Mother.
The people will starve.

They will bring terrible diseases
the people have never known.
Entire tribes will die out
covered with festering sores...
vomiting blood.
Corpses for our work

Set in motion now
set in motion by our witchery
set in motion
to work for us

They will take this world from ocean to ocean
they will turn on each other
they will destroy each other
Up here
in these hills
they will find the rocks,
rocks with veins of green and yellow and black.
They will lay the final pattern with these rocks
they will lay it across the world
and explode everything.

Set in motion now
set in motion
To destroy
To kill
Objects to work for us
objects to act for us
Performing the witchery
for suffering
for torment
for the stillborn
the deformed
the sterile
the dead.

Whirling
Whirling
Whirling
Whirling
set into motion now
set into motion.

The Super-Duper Committee Fails to Fuck Up the Economy Even Worse:
So what the fuck was that, that congressional Supercommittee bullshit? Was it just, as Jonathan Chait says, a beard for President Obama and John Boehner so that they could maintain the appearance of being action stars to their bases while still secretly buggering Keynesians behind the Capitol? (No, that doesn't make actual sense, but it's funny, so go with it.)

It was never gonna succeed in doing anything for one simple reason and one simple reason alone: Republicans just don't give a fuck. If you believe, as Republicans do, that it's better to cut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and education and the environment and food safety than to raise taxes a little on the rich, then you don't give a fuck. If you believe that a compromise that gives you nearly every cut you want but still raises taxes just a smidgen is a capitulation to liberal/socialist/satanic goals, then you not only don't give a fuck, you are a sociopath.

So now, as it was designed, the sequestering occurs, with cuts in social programs, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and, heavens to Betsy, defense budget cuts, all because Republicans can't, can't, can't, no-way, no-how raise a fuckin' penny on revenue. The best we can say is, "Well, at least the Democrats didn't make a deal that fucks things up even worse."

(And let's not toast defense budget cuts too much, unless you've got an idea for all the jobs that'll be lost there. The Rude Pundit can't make the leap to say that the family of the guy who cleans the toilets at Raytheon should go hungry just because his work prevents weapons makers from getting e.Coli.)

That's some fuckin' pledge that Grover Norquist made with nearly every Republican; it must have been signed in blood and accompanied by a photo of each signing Congress person with Norquist's cock in their mouth, just to be safe. By the way, you wanna talk about people who don't give a fuck? The Rude Pundit's faced Norquist, talked to him even, looked into his dark eyes, and that bastard is all cold evil, through and through, totally and utterly unflappable. If a Congressman crosses him, you can bet that Norquist is gonna appear at the foot of his bed with a razor and a smile.

So the supercommittee failed. We knew that was gonna happen the second the debt ceiling deal was made. And now we can say, pretty damn assuredly, that the defense cuts won't happen. Because they won't. Because someone's gotta have some courage at some point for it to happen, and (non-Bernie Sanders) courage is in short supply as we descend into the ever-looming election season, which is now every season.

Nonviolent Protests in America Now and Then: Same as It Ever Was:



(Picture 1 from UC Davis newspaper of events on last Friday. Picture 2 from Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.)