Random Observations Regarding How Very Fucked We Are in Our Politics Right Now

Random Observations Regarding How Very Fucked We Are in Our Politics Right Now:
1. This is a headline from the right-wing outhouse known as It is like The Daily Caller or The Blaze, but even stupider. To wit:

The idea that it would be a "surprise" to anyone that the public would mostly blame Republicans for a shutdown demonstrates a level of delusional thinking that you ordinarily see in people who talk to lampposts and shit in alleyways. It also shows that there is a dangerous lack of understanding of history: when Newt Gingrich took his great stand against a budget deal and shut down the government twice, Americans blamed the guy who refused to compromise.

If this is what right-wingers believe, that it's shocking that Americans aren't standing in lockstep with them, we are well and truly fucked beyond fucked.

2. As Greg Sargent and Kevin Drum point out, Republicans seem to have forgotten the actual meaning of the word "compromise." Let's explain this with another playlet, a sequel of sorts to last week's:

Crazy Person: Okay, let's compromise. If you want to borrow my car to go to the store, you don't have to punch yourself in the balls until you vomit. You only have to punch yourself in the balls until you double over in pain.

Sane Person: But I still have to punch myself in the balls. I don't see how that's a compromise.

Crazy Person: I gave a little. See? You used to have to punch until you vomited. Now just until you nearly collapse. So we're agreed, right? You can use my car and get us some food.

Sane Person: But all I get out of the deal is a bit less ball-punching.

Crazy Person: That's right. I compromised. Why won't you agree? You also get to buy some food.

Sane Person: But you'll eat the food, too.

Crazy Person: Exactly. So we both win. See? Compromise.

3. As we travel into the depths of Tea Party depravity, even as Senate Republicans keep trying to convince alleged GOP "moderates" that Ted Cruz is leading the House into an electoral pit of angry sodomy with sharp objects, the lowest of the low responses might be from Marc Thiessen, the torture advocate and Lumpy Space Princess of the Washington Post opinions page. In his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the inane babblings of a faux insider who would still be picked last for the company softball team"), Thiessen chides House Republicans for threatening a shutdown over Obamacare. Why? Because it's wrong? Because it's harmful to everyone? Because it's unprecedented to try to get a law overturned through this method?

Oh, no. It's because this fight fucks up the next one, the one over the debt ceiling. Yeah, Thiessen says that the House should have kept its powder dry and forced Obama and the Senate to capitulate over raising the debt ceiling: "If Republicans had taken their stand on the debt ceiling instead, there would be no weeks of bad news coverage — because the Democrats would be capitulating instead of celebrating."

In other words, this fight isn't bugfuck insane enough for Thiessen. If crashing the economy isn't on the table, it's all a waste of time.

4. Gotta say: we're kind of in uncharted territory here for the next couple of weeks.  It's kind of scary. In another age, this would be civil war-igniting shit (although, luckily, Americans are too fat and lazy to bother fighting anywhere but on anonymous comment threads). Barack Obama has been holding the line so far, but, if necessary, he needs to take it further, perhaps to that 14th Amendment solution he has adamantly opposed using. Listen to Bill Clinton, who said he would do it "without hesitation and force the courts to stop me."

Obama needs to push the right-wing radicals over the edge, to get them to completely lose their shit so their flesh dissolves and they can be revealed for the monsters they actually are.

Today Is the 10th Blogiversary of The Rude Pundit:

Today Is the 10th Blogiversary of The Rude Pundit: Giving Himself the Gift of Naval-Gazing Self-Indulgence:
Ten years ago this very day, almost to the minute, the Rude Pundit started this here blog thing. It was a heady time, 2003, before YouTube, before iPhones, before Huffington Post, before An Inconvenient Truth, before the Tea Party, before most of us knew who Barack Obama was. It wasn't a more innocent time, oh, no, and, indeed, we wondered if things could get any more insane than watching the nation happily march into war while we Cassandras who waved our arms and said it was based on lies were just ignored. We had just an inkling that the country might actually enter a murder-suicide pact, not realizing that the tipping point would be electing a black man president, that the racists and fascists would align to put that gun to America's head and say, "Kneel or die."

Honestly, the Rude Pundit had hoped he would end this thing before now. He thought that, perhaps, maybe, some sanity would prevail when the Bush administration was gone, that we would realize what we had done to the nation and want to work together to heal, like some goddamned happy ending in a shitty movie that you watch on a hungover Sunday, too tired to change the channel, caught up in the sentiment despite your better judgment. The Rude Pundit would have happily receded into the miasma of the internet swamp if he thought he was leaving a better place behind.

But there are bastards to be defeated. And if the Rude Pundit contributes, even in a small way, to giving people the vocabulary and metaphors to call out the motherfuckers for fucking our mothers, then the great work continues. As will the sodomy jokes.

So he's thrown himself this fundraiser, a bit of a paycheck for a new computer and some whiskey, the good stuff, shit that doesn't fit into the regular household expenses. He thanks everyone who has contributed and everyone who thought they'd like to contribute but couldn't fit it into their budgets in this savage time in which we find ourselves. After today, unmolested scout's honor, no hustling for cash from you for a while.

If you want to throw some money away on a semi-worthy cause, click the button down there or on the side:

He thanks everyone who bought The Rude Pundit's Almanack (still available, still relevant), who bought the CD (still available for digital download, a bit dated), and came to the shows. He thanks Stephanie Miller and her crew for the weekly radio orgy sessions. He thanks regular and irregular readers. And, if you're someone who glances at the blog and thinks, "Fuck that guy," well, he thanks you, too. Your intolerance and ignorance has given him plenty to write about over the years.

The Rude Pundit doesn't know if he's got another ten years in him. But he's here now, fighting the good fight with bad words.

John Boehner Will Not Compromise, But You Must Compromise

John Boehner Will Not Compromise, But You Must Compromise:
Here's the entire strange, ominous, and enraging place we find ourselves in our politics right now, boiled down to a simple conversation, a playlet, if you will:

Sane Person: We need food. Can I use your car to go to the store?

Crazy Person: We do need food. However, you can use my car only if you punch yourself in the balls until you vomit.

Sane Person: That's ridiculous. One thing has nothing to do with the other. How would that accomplish anything?

Crazy Person: It's what I want.

Sane Person: Well, I guess we'll just starve.

Crazy Person: Yes, but remember that if we starve, it will be your fault because you didn't punch yourself in the balls until you vomit.


Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner said of the coming battle over raising the debt ceiling, "Now the president says, 'I'm not going to negotiate.' Well, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way." The House Republicans had just released a conservative wet dream about the stuff that Obama needs to agree to or the debt ceiling won't be raised. It's an odd strategy, considering that not hiking the debt ceiling will fuck up things for everyone, not just Democrats.

That list of shit what'll pleasure teabaggers? If you thought the GOP was filled with motherfuckers before, now it's just a bunch of motherfelchers. They want it all: like approving the Keystone XL pipeline, tax "reform" a la Paul Ryan, gutting every regulation on everything, delay that Affordable Care Act, stripping the president of the power to make rules know what? It's the whole thing. In other words, it's calling on Obama to surrender his presidency to the Tea Party (pretty close to the kind of ante-upping that a certain blog-based pundit predicted a mere week ago).

So Obama has proclaimed he will not negotiate on any debt ceiling deal. He said, "This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles."

Oh, wait. That quote wasn't from President Obama. No, that was from House Speaker John Boehner, vowing to never negotiate on repealing Obamacare back in October 2010. Apparently, it does work that way when Boehner says so.

Barack Obama has compromised and compromised on every piece of legislation, on every appointment, on everything. And all it has gotten him is to a point where his opponents think he will fold again. At some point, he's gotta look in the mirror and say, "I don't have to win any reelections. Time to let Republicans hang themselves and laugh while they twist in the wind."

10th Anniversary Hobo Hat Fundraiser Continues

10th Anniversary Hobo Hat Fundraiser Continues:
Yes, the Rude Pundit has been hacking away at the conservative weeds for a full decade. And so he's put out the bowler hat to collect enough money from readers to buy a new laptop and some excellent whiskey. So far, the response has been fuckin' amazing, from $1 to $250, dozens and dozens of awesome rudesters have tossed in some coins into the saxophone case on the sidewalk to make him play even sweeter. If you wanna show some love, just click the shit out this button:

The kingdom of the rude is not limited to bloggery. There's, of course, the Twitter, the Facebook page (where people argue, kvetch, and sometimes love), and, yeah, even YouTube, which started with this simple video about a certain columnist.

Yes, it's been a great ride so far.

Oh, and he's answering questions from readers this week, like Dan, who asks, "WTF? Am I right?" Yes, Dan, you are right. WTF indeed.

Family Research Council: Pray for the Death of the Affordable Care Act

Family Research Council: Pray for the Death of the Affordable Care Act:
Oh, shit, Obamacare lovers. You're fucked beyond fucked now because you've got a powerful enemy. According to the evangelical Christian Family Research Council (motto: "Remember: It's okay for laws to be based on religion as long as it's ours"), God hisself is agin' it, which must mean God, Jr. (or, you know, Jesus) ain't too happy about providing health care for the needy, which you might think is completely the opposite of what the "Bible" says, but that's because you're reading it with your thinking brain and your beating heart and not with your ass, heathen bitches.

How does the Rude Pundit know what the Lord wants? Well, that's because for the better part of the last ten years, he's been a member of the FRC's Super-Duper Prayer Team, a Justice League for people who look terrible in tights and who fight crimes not by confronting them directly but by asking an Invisible Sky Wizard to beat up the bullies for them. Every week, the Rude Pundit receives, through the magic of the email, his autoerotic prayphyxiation orders, listing things for which he needs to get on his knees and work that holy crank until Jesus blows his holy load all over the nation, nay, the world. Usually it has to do with the gays and the abortions, but this week, oh, praise him, we have been called to pray away the Obamacare.

Why is making health insurance affordable for millions of people, along with allowing people under 26 to stay on their parents' insurance and not discriminating because of pre-existing conditions, against God's will? Well, "Progressive activists have long taught socialized medicine is the first major step toward their goal to transform America into a socialist state." Oh, and "Add to all this abortion and the violation of religious conscience!" Yeah, 'cause obviously giving help to the helpless and comfort to the poor are clear violations of every religious belief of the Family Research Council.

Besides, the FRC's got facts that would be correct if they weren't totally wrong. For instance, "The IRS suggests that the average annual cost for a family of five in 2016 will be $20,000." That's expensive and shit-yourself scary-sounding, even if it's a total lie. Lies aren't evil if they're spoken to do God's will, motherfuckers, like all those fake family planning "clinics."

So we gots to, gots to, gots to pray: "Help Lord! Give the American people the knowledge, inspiration and determination to urge the demise of Obamacare." God's gotta inspire people to use their smart phones for more than sinfully crushing helpless candy: "May Americans make the Senate phone lines ring off-the-hook from now until Obamacare is defunded. Please change the hearts and minds of those who are intimidated, afraid to take a stand for what is right or who are simply deceived. May they fear God and not man!"

In case you don't take the FRC's word for it, Bible verses are helpfully provided to back up your prayers. Like Hosea 4:6, where God puts down some whoop-ass: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Fuck, yeah, atheist bitches. Get some knowledge. What's the rest? "Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

Whoa, wait, that last part there seems to say that the religious leaders are the ones leading the people astray. What's it say further down, at 4:8? "They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity." This member of the SDPT is confused. He doesn't want to listen to these sin-eating frauds. He doesn't want his heart set on iniquity. He's not even sure what that means. Whatever can he pray for?

In his timewaster of a speech yesterday (and, shit, Tuesday), blithering cockknob Ted Cruz offered, "We have talk radio. God bless talk radio."

Oh, right.
10th Anniversary Collection Plate Still Being Passed (and More Questions Answered):
Yup, this week marks 10 years of this here blog, The Rude Pundit. It's almost entirely a solo operation, but, as we trip down memory lane, let's remember the weeks of guest writers, like in 2006, when a group of female bloggers took over the joint (including a couple who are now writing for big-time things like The Guardian and Slate). This was followed by weeks of African-American bloggers, LGBT bloggers, New Orleans bloggers, and bloggers with disabilities. This is not to mention theme weeks from writers getting rude about the workplace and about abortion rights. The Rude Pundit is truly grateful for them all (and especially for Pam Spaulding, who was featured several times because she contains multitudes - much love, Pam).

Mostly, though, it was and is just a one-rude-man show. And so he's putting out the collection plate, like a church full of buskers, angling for the funding for a new laptop and some quality booze, looking to make a little scratch for all the years of free, free rudeness. You can join the dozens of people (damn, thanks) who have already donated and show your love and affection at the PayPal:

And he's answering your questions (which require no donation to ask - he's not a total dick). Like this one from Chris in, well, shit, Illinois, same state as yesterday: "Your site came to life just before the much-missed site ceased postings. Did you ever have any contact with the mysterious creator(s) of MWO?"

The Rude Pundit was well aware of and also much misses Media Whores Online, one of the earliest incarnations of blogging impoliteness. While he had no affiliation with the writers of MWO, they were definitely an influence on getting into this crazy-ass game of online masturbation for the joy of millions. Other early blogs that piqued the Rude Pundit's interest and drew him like a siren to the interwebs were Billmon's The Whiskey Bar, the great absurdist Fafblog, The Daily Howler, and Atrios's Eschaton, which started a year or so before the Rude Pundit. He blames them all.

There's a history here, people. And the Rude Pundit is goddamn proud to be a part of it.

(Note: This was bumped up from earlier. Scroll down to read mean things about Ted Cruz.)

The Huckster Filibuster

The Huckster Filibuster:
So the latest Republican huckster, Republican Senator Ted Cruz from Texas (motto: "Believe us, many of us here are really, really sorry that Ted Cruz is in the Senate"), who is essentially Sarah Palin with a dick and some Ivy League sheepskin, took to the floor of his workplace and yammered on for 21 hours about how terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad Obamacare is going to eat your children's souls before performing analingus on your wife. He received an occasional assist from desperate-to-be-relevant-again Marco Rubio, Floyd-the-barber-voiced Jeff Sessions, and the corpse of James Inhofe, among others. But it was the Ted Show (or, ha, ha, "Ted Talk"), a chance for Cruz to drop his pants and jack it in front of the fat faces of his slack-jawed teabagging worshippers so they could fight to the death to get a chance to gobble his righteous ejaculate. Rand Paul wept.

It wasn't a filibuster, oh, no, despite what some have said. A filibuster disrupts things. A filibuster causes bills to fail, like Wendy Davis's in, hey, look, Texas, even temporarily. No, Young Ted Cruz got his permission slip signed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who allowed him to make his mighty stand of mighty nothingness. Why? Either so Reid wouldn't have to listen to Cruz whine about being silenced or because Reid is a sadistic motherfucker who wanted to put Cruz through his paces.

And what a speech it was. You've heard, perhaps, about his reading Green Eggs and Ham to put his kids to sleep (no worries about that). Or perhaps his Star Wars and Ashton Kutcher references (not in the same breath). But that's the blatantly crazy shit. There was so very much more that was actually on-topic that sank like rhetorical turds in a toilet of Cruz's own making.

Here he is positing what TV pundits would have said about the American Revolution: "I guarantee that all of the pundits we see going on TV and intoning in deep baritone voices: This cannot be done–if we were back in the 18th century, they would be writing messages in dark ink and sending it by carrier pigeon, saying: This cannot be done. You can’t stand up to the British Army. It can’t be done. It is impossible. Accept your subjugation. Accept your taxation without representation. Accept that this is impossible."

You know, the Rude Pundit just got his degrees from public universities, but he's pretty sure that political pundits and analysts have been around since, oh, some dude first told everyone in the cave that Ug-Ug's monetary plan of rocks and twigs was not going be enough to stimulate the Neanderthal economy. There were newspapers in the 1770s. They didn't have to use pigeons. They did have editorials. And some of them were pro-revolution and some of them were royalist.

And Cruz is proud of his friendship with Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas (district motto: "Suck on our Gohmert, Umerka"): "Congressman Gohmert is a very close friend of mine. We have been together on a lot of things. I was visiting with him. He is in the Chamber right now and would like to share some of the things that are happening in his district, which is eastern Texas." Yes, the people of Rape a Raccoon, Texas are so fucking wise that they sent Louis Gohmert to DC.

The peak of Cruz's construction of Horseshit Hill was not that he didn't even come close to his pledge to speak until he could no longer stand up. No, it was his constant drum-beating that "the people" are against the Affordable Care Act. As far as Cruz is concerned, unheeded millions are crying out to him: "I want to stand and fight for the more than 1.6 million Americans who signed a national petition against ObamaCare and to the millions more who did not because they were told by a politician it is not possible–don’t even try to fight because it is not possible."

So Senator Ted Cruz wants to change the law of the land because he believes a majority of people want it changed? And where was he when polls showed that 90% of people, including a vast majority of Republicans and gun owners, wanted expanded background checks on gun purchases? Was he trying to get his fellow Republicans in the Senate to go along? Was he telling Louis Gohmert to pause while sodomizing a donkey in order to vote for such a bill?

Nope. Motherfucker was attempting to filibuster it. When Sean Hannity asked Cruz about it on Fox "news," Cruz didn't say, "Obviously, few issues have unified the country as much as universal background checks, so obviously I will be for it." No, instead he was dick: " I think it's wrong that politicians try to take advantage of their [the families of Newtown's victims'] suffering not to actually fix the problem, but instead to push the same anti-gun agenda they had before this tragedy." Or, in other words, fuck what everyone wants.

Apparently, it doesn't matter that the Affordable Care Act was debated and passed by the House and Senate. It doesn't matter that Republicans couldn't defeat Barack Obama in 2012 despite so many people being so very against the care that bears his name. It doesn't matter that the ACA was almost entirely upheld by the Supreme Court. No, what matters is what Young Ted Cruz wants. Now it's his push to deny people access to health insurance, desperately trying to stop the achievement that will render his party and his beliefs irrelevant.

Within a couple of hours of Cruz finishing his wanking, the Senate voted to go ahead with discussion of the continuing resolution the House sent over, as if Cruz hadn't sucked in a breath.

Walter White Is a Monster and So Are Congressional Republicans

Walter White Is a Monster and So Are Congressional Republicans:
(Yeah, spoilers)
Something that has bugged the Rude Pundit lately about the TV show no one can shut the fuck up about (including the Rude Pundit), Breaking Bad, is not really about Breaking Bad itself but about the way in which people react to the show and, especially, the protagonist, Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned meth-making kingpin turned retired drug kingpin turned on-the-lam outlaw. Too many analyses of the show argue over whether or not Walt is an antihero (a protagonist who we root for even though he has awful qualities) or a villain. Indeed, for many, they just accept that he's an antihero and justify his actions. And even when someone is asserting that he's not one, that he's become the villain, it's done by telling you about all the terrible events we've seen on the show: the murder of Gale, the manipulation of Jesse, the lying to his family, the inaction while Jane died, the poisoning of Brock.

What this leaves out is a huge, glaring part of Walter's crimes (and Jesse's, too). Their absence is a constant presence, in the best postmodern sense, but their existence makes it perfectly clear that Walter White is a monster. He cooks meth, highly pure, highly addictive methamphetamine. That meth is sold by various people throughout the series, even going international in the last season. And then people use it. And it fucks up their lives and the lives of their families and loved ones. At this point, we are more than likely up to thousands of people who have been ruined in some way by Heisenberg's blue meth. Whatever you think about Walter White (and, yeah, the Rude Pundit has rooted for him against Tuco, against Gus, even now against the neo-Nazi bastards), you cannot divorce it from this fact.

Just like David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, always knew that Tony Soprano was a sociopath, so does Vince Gilligan know that Walter's a very bad guy. It's why it's so refreshing that, when confronted by his father's crimes, Walter Jr. does what any sane person with a shred of morality would do. He doesn't try to justify them. He doesn't hesitate. He calls the cops. Because that's what you do when the monster comes into your house.

See, it's the victims you don't see that always should haunt the actions of those who harmed them. What they hope is that you won't think about those victims, that they will just be abstract, a faceless statistic. It's easier that way. It was easier for Walter White because he never had to sell a meth packet to a tweaking addict. So the House of Representatives, on a mostly party-line vote, voted last Friday to cut funding to the food stamps program. The food stamp cuts would push at least 3.8 million people off the program at a time when more people than ever are relying on it and on food banks. Of course, since most of this happens in places most politicians never visit, the suffering remains mostly invisible, the better to hurt people more.

The House GOP's reasoning on food stamps, in part, was that it would "put us on a path to fiscal responsibility." Walter White justified all of his actions because he was going to make enough money for his family to be taken care of when he dies of lung cancer. In theory, both of these are perfectly acceptable justifications. In practice, so many people must suffer in service to an objective that it makes the justifications into so much bullshit, a crutch to fall back on while cruel people do more and more harm.

It's chilling, isn't it? The way that terrible people are supported by so many when, in the end, what they deserve is a karmic comeuppance.

But not before he kills Todd and sets Jesse free.

10th Anniversary Guilt Trip Shakedown Continues

10th Anniversary Guilt Trip Shakedown Continues:
The Rude Pundit will be back later with a real post (it might even make some damn analogy between Breaking Bad and congressional Republicans), but for now he's gonna answer the first reader question.

This blog and this writer are celebrating 10 - that's right - 10 goddamn years of melting his brain by calling out evil where he sees it. And he's doing so by asking you to throw some money his way. Yeah, all bloggers try to figure out the way to monetize their very free content or some such shit. The Rude Pundit does so by throwing a fundraiser every coupla years. You can do your part by getting all clicky up in this joint on the PayPal button:

And he's answering questions from readers that you can send through the email. Like this one from reader CM of Illinois: "Yesterday, you mentioned Karl Rove's leather slave. Will we faithful readers ever see him again?"

CM is referring to a much-abused man who has made about ten appearances on here over the years. Oh, the many things that Karl Rove has inserted into his anus. Oh, the horrors he had to witness, like a weeping Ari Fleischer masturbating while whipping himself. Oh, at last, he got his freedom.

So, will he return? That would be up to America. If the nation wishes to ties him up in the White House basement again, perhaps by electing Chris Christie president, so it must be. But rest assured: he is currently living in a cul-de-sac in Peoria, keeping a low profile, and never letting Rove know where he is.

Send other questions to "rudepundit-at-yahoo-dot-com".

The Rude Pundit's 10th Anniversary...Wait, What? Ten Years?

The Rude Pundit's 10th Anniversary...Wait, What? Ten Years?:
Ah, it seems like 100 years ago, the Rude Pundit started a-bloggin' at this here joint. What memories we all have, huh? From the heady days of gay couple Ron and Dave to Karl Rove's leather slave to all the terrible, terrible things that have been wished on Ann Coulter, from the end of the year haiku to Columbus Day reports on issues affecting Native Americans to all the ways that Martin Luther King would still fuck your shit up, for two administrations, too many Congresses, Democratic majorities, Republican majorities, and more media and political figures than anyone should ever have to pay attention to in three lifetimes, oh, yes, the Rude Pundit has scribbled on it all. A book, a CD, two stage shows, TV appearances, and a couple of million words here, for ten years this week, the Rude Pundit has proudly, yes, proudly offered aid and comfort to weary liberals looking for a reacharound in this filthy ass ream of a century.

Since this is pretty much a free labor enterprise (the ads pay for about a beer a week), as he does every once in a while (and it's been a couple of years), the Rude Pundit's puttin' out the hat, and asking for donations. It's a fundraiser, motherfuckers. He wants to restock the bar and get a newfangled computer machine.

You can throw your coins and bills in at the Paypal:

or, if you're so inclined, click on the button on the side there.

If you need an address for large suitcases of cash (congratulations on the marriage, George Soros), email him and he'll give you one.

And, hey, it's been a long time since the Rude Pundit has entertained questions from readers, so send 'em on to "rudepundit-at-blogspot-dot-com". He'll pick out a couple a day for the next week and do some extra posting. Ask whatever you want, political or nonpolitical, personal or pop-cultural. Let's have some fun. (And, no, you don't need to donate to get your question answered. This place ain't run by assholes.)

Ted Cruz: The Senator as Dickhead

Ted Cruz: The Senator as Dickhead:
Ted Cruz is a cartoon character, a cynical, manipulative bastard, like a combination of Li'l Abner's Senator Jack S. Phogbound and J. Colossal McGenius, the former the engorged-on-power Congressman who tries to act like one of the people of Dogpatch, the latter a bloviating liar who charged top dollar for his burps of "wisdom." (And, really, Cruz looks like a thinner version of Phogbound.) The junior senator from Texas preens and prances around, proudly provoking many of his fellow Republicans, who despise him because he's arrogant, because he gets headlines, because he's pushing them into battles they don't want to have, and, mostly, because he doesn't owe them shit. If you listen to him speak, he sounds like George W. Bush fucked Grover Norquist who then shit out baby Ted while proud grandparents Tom DeLay and Jesse Helms looked on approvingly. He is this generation's vile embarrassment, a craven opportunist who is Ivy-League educated, the better to make the rhetorical turds he spits out shine like golden eggs to the desperate yahoos who believe in him.

In the end, Ted Cruz is all about the greater glorification of Ted Cruz.

In an editorial for Real Clear Politics, Cruz lays out his destructive game plan for his quest to defund the Affordable Care Act. It goes something like this: "We'll filibuster the bill I support. We'll succeed in this by pointing a gun at the heads of red state Democrats. That'll end it unless I'm betrayed by cocksuckers in my own party. I'm threatening them, too, with supporting primary opponents because 'a vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare.' Oh, and if I fail, 'Regardless, the House should stand its ground, and if Reid kills this Continuing Resolution then the House should pass smaller CRs one at a time, starting with the military. Dare Reid to keep voting to shut down the government.'"

Isn't that last part fucking brilliant? In the wake of a failed filibuster of the House bill, a bill that Cruz supports, he wants the House to pass a military budget that defunds the ACA. Or a budget for, say, Homeland Security that defunds the ACA. That way it's all up to Reid and Obama. Except for the part that nobody but the people who masturbate to Cruz's Fox "news" appearances is buying that the President and Harry Reid would be responsible for a government shutdown.

That's what the old hands in the GOP know. Why do they know that? Because they fucking went through it when a power-crazed Newt Gingrich did it in 1995 and 1996. People weren't saying, "Oh, well, Bill Clinton didn't compromise enough with Republicans." No, they said, "Wow, Newt Gingrich is an egotistical, bloated fucksack. Screw that guy." And Clinton's popularity surged, helping him with his reelection. If Cruz really believes that Americans will wake up to a government shutdown and say, "I suppose President Obama and the Democrats should have defunded that law they worked so hard on" instead of "What the fuck is wrong with Republicans?" then he truly is crazy and needs to be treated like a crazy person.

And a blatant hypocrite, too. He writes, "We know the Democratic leadership wants to fund Obamacare, and it’s certain Leader Reid will use every gimmick, obscure parliamentary trick, and sweetheart deal to do it. After all, that’s how he passed Obamacare in the first place." Those "tricks" are the rules of the Senate. They may have been used in a way Cruz thinks is bastardly, but the rules are the rules. Frankly, a Republican who is all about filibustering everything the President wants should probably not talk about torquing the rulebook. And if that Republican is digging deep into the rulebook to see what he can get away with in this battle, yeah, he should just shut the fuck up.

By the way, you know how to get the rules changed? Get a majority in the Senate. That's also the way to overturn legislation you don't like.

Cruz ends his mighty stand of mightiness by declaring victory shall be his. And what is winning? "Now, we’re poised to win our biggest victory for the American people yet: defunding Obamacare. All we have to do is have the will to fight." You got that? The best possible outcome is not getting rid of a health care plan and replacing it with something else that would get insurance to millions of Americans. No, it's just denying it to them just because. Republicans win by stopping something, not by creating anything.

The Rude Pundit was listening last week to an interview with Jeff Guinn, author of a new book about Charles Manson. See, Manson wanted fame. First, he wanted it through his music. He sort of stumbled into the murder spree, according to this author, but, hey, then he embraced the infamy it brought him. The other thing was that Manson was desperate to keep his cult followers believing that he was some kind of prophet. When his music dreams were shot down, he had to get the Family to still have faith in his message. So murdering people and pinning it on the Black Panthers to try to start a race war was his next step. In other words, a Manson who was chastened by the music industry didn't give up. He just went in a far more destructive direction.

Cruz, who has ambitions beyond the Senate, will not be stopped by losing the Obamacare battle. He has a cult to feed. We should dread what comes next.

The Next Step in Budget Blackmail: Forced Resignation?

The Next Step in Budget Blackmail: Forced Resignation?:
Let us say, and why not, that back sometime in mid-2007, when President George W. Bush's approval rating was consistently below 35%, heading to sporadically below 30% in 2008, the Democratic-led House of Representatives decided that, since they couldn't get enough votes to impeach and convict Bush on, let's say, war crimes, they would allow the government to continue operating with a continuing resolution only if Bush and Cheney resigned from office. Indeed, at nearly the same time as the continuing resolution was passed, so was a hike in the debt ceiling, which was expected to be hit in October 2007. So, yes, they could have even said they'd allow the U.S. to default if Bush and Cheney didn't step down.

And let us say, and, indeed, why not, that Democrats said that it would be Bush and Cheney's fault if the government shutdown or defaulted. After all, what was more important? The last year of their term or the full faith and credit of the United States of America? What if Nancy Pelosi said, "The people don't want a shutdown and they don't want to be led by George Bush and Dick Cheney anymore"? (A side question: how many of us in Left Blogsylvania would have supported such a move? How many would have written posts about how brave this was?)

It's ludicrous, no? Obviously, the Constitution sets out how to get rid of a president. Obviously, a Congress that wished to do so should follow that route. Obviously, the idea of blackmailing the president and vice-president, with a gun at the head of the economy, would be outrageous.

But, honestly, how far are we from that now? The House of Representatives has voted for a continuing budget resolution that defunds the Affordable Care Act instead of using a regular legislative process and elections to overturn the Supreme Court-approved ACA. In their fantasy world, if they get what they want, if President Obama were to even delay the law (yes, law) from being fully implemented, where does it end? What happens in December, when another continuing resolution would be needed? What laws or programs need to be done away with in order to appease the mad GOP?

In 2010, he gave in and extended the Bush tax cuts when the GOP was willing to let benefits run out for the unemployed. In 2011, we had the debt ceiling fight that led to the awful sequester.

There's a reason leaders say that they do not negotiate with terrorists. It's because that when the terrorists win, they think they can get more next time, and, yeah, there will be a next time. You take down terrorists, arresting them if you can, shooting them in the head if you have to, and defuse the bomb.

The Republican Party is run by the terrorists. You think they're stopping here? If they get to kill Obamacare, they're gonna go after Obama's head next.

The Epically Stupid, Rapey Place We Now Find Ourselves in Our Politics

The Epically Stupid, Rapey Place We Now Find Ourselves in Our Politics:
If the Rude Pundit was a citizen of Greece right now, he'd be laughing in disbelief at the idiocy of the American debates over funding the government and the debt ceiling. "Wait, wait, wait," he'd say in a sultry Greek accent that gets all the ladies and men wet and hard with desire, "you mean that the USA doesn't have to go through our nightmare but might anyways?" And then, thinking about his own country's crisis which was precipitated in part by a downgrading of its credit rating related to its inability to pay its debt, he'd make some charming gesture of confusion and say, in Greek, "My god, what fucking dunces." Then he'd probably eat some olives, drink some ouzo, fuck a satyr, whatever the hell Greeks do.

You want to know how stupid it's gotten out there? We now have ads from an anti-Obamacare group with the name "Generation Opportunity" (which is hilarious, since the goal of the group is to cut off opportunities). It's targeting college kids, and it's funded by Koch brother-funded groups, so you know it's got street cred with the kids. It's got a couple of ads that show, quite literally, Uncle Sam about to sodomize a woman with a speculum and a man with his fingers to represent the government "interfering" with health care. No, really.

In one respect, the Rude Pundit totally respects the balls-to-the-wall approach here. He's advocated for liberals to do similar things to, you know, stop the wars. But only conservatives could get away with shitting on the image of Uncle Sam, the Greatest Generation's military pimp, by turning him into a horror movie rapist. Imagine if liberals from well-connected organizations had produced an ad in 2004 that showed Uncle Sam totally fucking the shit out of Americans while a terror alert was going on. Fox "news" would have exploded from cranking the outrage machine up to 11. Members of Congress of both parties would have condemned it and apologies would have been made to Wolf Blitzer. For, truly, this makes "Petraeus/Betray Us" look quaint.

(Note: You know that nutzoid conservatives now use that line on Petraeus over Benghazi and his fucking a writer?)

Grinning Uncle Sam Rape-Eyes is just one stupid, embarrassing aspect of this entire stupid, embarrassing debate, which comes down to these two propositions: 1. Either deny millions of people access to health care or the government gets shut down. 2. If #1 doesn't occur, either deny millions of people access to health care or the U.S. defaults on its debts, sending its credit rating into the shitter and the zombie apocalypse can finally begin.

We don't know what House Speaker John Boehner's endgame is on the budget or debt ceiling battles. Is he just buying time in order to come up with some way to hand job the Tea Party terrorists in his caucus? Or is he so craven about clinging to power that he'll give in to their demands if only they let him keep his precious gavel?

Aren't we all sick of it? The threats, the brinksmanship, the unending warnings about consequences? Maybe that's why a recent poll shows that a majority of Republicans know that a debt default will hurt the economy but want to do it anyways. They don't care. At some point, you gotta push the red button that says "Don't Push" just to find out what the fuck it does.

So, fine, let's go there. Let's shut down the government. But remember: it ain't just the poors who are affected. Let's let the farmers in Steve King's district see how they do. Let's let the USDA and other government offices that directly affect farmers in Iowa, including ones that cover things like loans and pest control, put up the "Closed" sign. Hey, Rep. Paul Gosar of a wildfire-fucked district in Arizona, let's see how your constituents like it when you help cause the Forest Service to shut down.Oh, and, hey, college students tempted by Generation...oh, fuck, who cares...your student loans and Pell Grants would probably have a hard time being processed for the spring semester.

When a shutdown or debt default happens, if Democrats aren't able to wreck the Republican Party over it, well, let's just say that Grinning Uncle Sam Rape-Eyes can appear anywhere.

(Another note: Let's not even contemplate what happens if President Obama compromises and delays implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That way lies irrelevancy, betrayal, and legacy destruction.)

Correction: An earlier version of this said that old people wouldn't get their Social Security checks during a shutdown. This was wrong. So it's gone now, replaced with pure and utter rightness.

How Republicans Are Motherfuckers Where Democrats Are Not

How Republicans Are Motherfuckers Where Democrats Are Not:
Let's have some fun with legislative history:

In March 2006, the Republican-led Senate voted 52-48 to raise the debt ceiling. The nation had seen the budget surpluses left by Bill Clinton turned into deficits almost overnight by the destructive policies of the Bush administration. Minority Leader Harry Reid, who was viciously angry at how "fiscally irresponsible" Republicans were, could have easily turned those 48 votes, including 3 Republicans, into a filibuster and voted against cloture on the legislation. It would have been a stand against the useless wars and the even more useless tax cuts for the wealthy that were quickly bringing us to our near financial doom. But Democrats didn't do that. Because, while their "no" votes took a stand, they didn't want to tank the U.S. economy. Let's not even get into which Republican motherfuckers are consistent (Tom Coburn) and which are hypocritical weasels (Chuck Grassley) when it comes to the debt ceiling now.

In November 2003, a Republican Congress voted for George W. Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. It won by one vote in the House (through bullying, bribes, and extraordinary procedural hinkiness by Majority Leader Tom DeLay) and sailed through the Senate. Still, many Democrats, especially in House, opposed the law. In November 2006, Americans had had enough of GOP fuckery and voted in a Democratic Congress. You know what that new Congress didn't do? They didn't try to torpedo the MPDIMA. They didn't have masturbatory show votes to demonstrate to their constituents that they really, truly could suck their own cocks or lick their own clits. You know what they tried to do? Acknowledging that it was the law of the land, they tried to improve it.

Yeah, in January 2007, shortly after leadership changed parties, the now-Democratic-led House voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act, 255-170. See, the Democrats wanted Medicare to be able to negotiate drug prices with the extortionists in the pharmaceutical industry. They wanted to make the MPDIMA more cost-effective, not just take it out back and put three bullets in its skull. It would have passed the Senate, except the now-in-the-minority Republicans filibustered it, every single fucking one of them (with one abstention). Why? Because that's how a bunch of assholes rolls.

The impotence of the GOP today to take down the Affordable Care Act is making them frustrated beyond belief and, rather than sit down and say, "Okay, it's the law now. Maybe we can change some things in it, though," they keep grabbing at their flaccid pricks, willing them to get hard. And if they can't, well, someone's gonna fuckin' pay. So they're threatening to add defunding of Obamacare to any continuing spending bill, which, with no chance of passage in the Senate and an Obama veto, would have the net result of causing a government shutdown. And, failing that, they're threatening to hold the debt ceiling hostage to repealing the law.

(Note: They keep calling it the "failed health care legislation." What the fuck? How do you know it's a failure unless you let it be fully implemented?)

At this point, the Republicans threatening to default on the debt are like an idiot friend who keeps talking about how much he wants to try heroin. At some point, he's gotta just shoot that shit into his arm to find out what happens or he'll never shut up about it. And if the next thing that happens is addiction or an overdose? Well, at least he discovered what happens when you get stupidly high, no matter what price he had to pay in the end.

Seriously, NRA, Go Blow a Grizzly Bear Unless You're Willing to Do Something Positive

Seriously, NRA, Go Blow a Grizzly Bear Unless You're Willing to Do Something Positive:

In case you can't read it, up there is a waving American flag with the words "We grieve and pray for those who lost their lives and for those hurt at the Washington Navy Yard." It's a grab from the homepage of the National Rifle Association's website. At this point in our ludicrous gun debate and our ongoing mass shootings crisis, it's a little like if the military said that they were sad about all the dead kids in Hiroshima and then still went ahead and nuked Nagasaki. Hey, NRA twats, your fuckin' expression of sympathy is bullshit if it's not backed up with any action.

Oh, sure, we're gonna hear the same tune over and over: "Washington, DC, has strict gun laws, but see what happened? Ergo, your laws don't work" is the most easily destroyed example. Ask anyone who says that if they want every single road into DC blocked so that all cars and pedestrians could be checked for guns from Virginia or, hell, most other places in the nation. All it proves is that we need national laws, not the patchwork of contradictions that we have now.

There's no need to recapitulate all the ways in which the NRA's monomaniacal focus on liberating guns from all that pesky oversight has helped to make this nation into a violent joke. We know them, of course, since the Newtown massacre happened such a short time ago. And we also know that Congress is comprised primarily of cowards, whores, whorish cowards, and cowardly whores, and they are not going to cross the NRA for fear of whatever pimpish reprisals the organization might bring about, even if it's on things that 90% of Americans want, like universal background checks.

Instead, let's put aside gun control for a moment. Let's for just a moment take the NRA at its word, post-Newtown, that it really believes that the nation needs to do more to help the mentally ill, as surely Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was.

The NRA leadership and the organization itself took a strong stand on addressing mental health issues, saying, "The NRA will support any reasonable step to fix America’s broken mental health system without intruding on the constitutional rights of Americans." You can bet we'll hear the same sort of shit now. Of course, it depends how you interpret such an "intrusion." The NRA seems to like this Supreme Court, which has loosened gun laws, and it's also upheld the Affordable Care Act as constitutional.

So here's the batshit crazy idea: Ask the NRA if it's willing to go all in on supporting Obamacare. After all, the ACA expands mental health coverage, especially when it comes to treatment. Hell, if the mentally ill get treated, they can perhaps become qualified to be gun owners and not just NRA members.

Put the fuck up or shut the fuck up. If the NRA believes, as it said back in 1966, that "the time is at hand to seek means by which society can identify, treat and temporarily isolate such individuals," then the NRA should support the most likely way this can be accomplished. Hell, the NRA should have been lobbying states to accept funds to expand Medicaid so that goal is achieved.

And the added bonus is that more people will have insurance when they shoot themselves or get shot by others. Win-win, you know.

Late Post Today

Late Post Today:
Apparently Baron Mordo is up to no good again. Gotta put on the cloak and get to spell-casting.

Back later with more strange rudeness.

Happiness May Be a Warm Gun, But Joy Is Shitting Your Pants

Happiness May Be a Warm Gun, But Joy Is Shitting Your Pants:
The Rude Pundit's favorite piece of news from the world of guntards is the NRA is joining with the ACLU to oppose the NSA's collection of metadata on Americans. Why? Because it "can be used as a 'backdoor' to construct a national gun registry." You got that? No backdoor action for the NRA. And it's cool with all other kinds of surveillance, but they'll be goddamned if you're gonna collect information on firearms sales. In a brief filed in court, the NRA says, "Under the programs revealed so far, the government may already possess information about everyone who has called the NRA by phone, emailed the NRA or visited the NRA’s website."

Frankly, it's easy to be of two minds here: First, one might think, "Hey, welcome to the party, bitches. Some of us don't like it when the NSA is monitoring our phone calls to our moms, let alone the NRA." And then one might think, "Well, shit, why don't we have a national registry for guns? They're more likely to cause violence than our moms. Fuck the backdoor. Front door that shit."

Oh, how the National Rifle Association danced a little jig of grotesque glee last week when, in Colorado (which has way, way more to worry about now than what the NRA is doing), it was able to get the scalps of two state senators who had voted to close the gun show background check loophole and limit magazines to 15 shots, which pretty much means al-Qaeda wins and America has to go Sharia. Let's give credit where it's due. The guntards won that one fair and square. They made clear that no possibly queer, definitely Jew mayor from New York City was gonna tell gun owners that they might have to wait a few minutes to buy an AR-15 at the annual Gunpalooza in Colorado Springs.

After all, a staggering 15-16% of all registered voters in two counties said that Democrats Angela Giron and John Morse had to go. That's like a tidal wave in a kiddie pool. Of course, Democrats still control the Senate there. And, of course, the laws are still on the books. But, hey, moral victory, motherfuckers, so well done.

The NRA's go-to stance is the panicked squat. That's because any time anything happens that might make people think poorly of guns, they first must shit their pants and then react as if they are being forced to walk around with shit-filed pants. They're already squatting in anticipation of the reaction to today's shooting at the Washington, DC, Navy Yard, especially since it seems like the shooter (or one of the shooters) used an AR-15 to off a dozen or more people. (Note: If your argument is that DC has gun control laws and look what happened, then you must want all the roads into DC lined with inspection stations to make sure no one brings in a gun from the outside.)

The think is that, unlike a baby with a filled diaper, the NRA loves it when it gets to shit itself. Like David Vitter on a visit to a hooker, the NRA gets off on shitting itself. Then it gets to act like the aggrieved victim of mean, mean liberals and irrational politicians merely "using" a tragedy to advance an "agenda." Because, see, it's an "agenda" if you want to ban certain kinds of guns, like after Newtown, but it's just common sense if you want to arm teachers. That's not an agenda at all. And when the NRA can get its squirrely membership all paranoid, you can bet that the money rolls in. Wayne LaPierre's hair ain't gonna combover itself.

The funny thing is that the NRA shitting itself over the NSA may actually work to get Congress to revisit broad surveillance powers. No less a dickless motherfucker than Grover Norquist believes it to be true. Calling the NRA's paranoia a "game-changer," Norquist bearded, "It will solidify conservative and Republican opposition to the program, without endangering the left-of-center opposition."

If you can't sometimes use evil to get to a greater good, then you don't know how to play the game.

Smear Campaign: A Short Film with a Huge Agenda

Smear Campaign: A Short Film with a Huge Agenda:







A Nasty Word Is Used About Ann Coulter When You Click

Ann Coulter Is Still a Cunt (Historical Revisionism Edition):
(Note: Yes, "cunt." Now let's move along here...)

One may wonder why, oh, why, in the long sunset of her career of befouling the airwaves with the wretched perfume of racism, fascism, semen breath, and cigarettes, it's even relevant to take down Ann Coulter, the once-proud banner waver of complete bugfuckery on the right. Wielding her fake intellect like a blunt dildo that she writhes on until she's rendered her clit numb, Coulter is not only long past her due date, she's been dropping into the bottomless pit of irrelevancy for a few years as she sees herself eclipsed by the Cupps and Loesches and whatever other shiny dipshits they can shove in front of a camera to say vile things.

Here's the deal, sweet liberals: What she says is still often a bellwether for the blathering you'll hear from the nutzoid mutants running around in Congress now.

So, in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "An unending stream of vomit fed into the mouths of insatiable idiots"), Coulter revises the last 50 or 60 years of American history in order to blame Democrats and/or liberals for every bad foreign policy decision the country has bumblefucked into. Now, the Rude Pundit could go through it and offer factual rebuttals or nuance to her dull cudgel of cherry-picked information. Like, say, when Coulter offers, "Nixon came in and honorably ended the Democrats' disastrous handling of the Vietnam War by signing the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973." Now, one might ask, "If Nixon was so hot to end the war, why did it take him four years to do it?" Or perhaps one might mention that the protests against the war had a mighty effect. Or maybe one could bring up the illegal attack on Cambodia.

But that's playing on her field. And you're never gonna win when you've got an opponent who lives on gin and chewing gum.

Instead, let's use a picture to show what a fucking liar this fucking cunt is. Coulter scrawls about Iran, "By giving Islamic fanatics their first nation-state, [Jimmy] Carter produced the global Islamofascist movement we're still dealing with today." And then she blows Reagan's corpse because he "destroyed the Soviet Union."

To that, the Rude Pundit offers this:

That's Saint Reagan meeting with what he and the right wingers referred to as Afghan "freedom fighters," the Mujahideen. Jimmy Carter used the CIA to help arm them just before their war with the Soviet Union started in 1979. Then Reagan upped the amount of aid for a proxy war with the Soviets, all part of the "Reagan Doctrine" of hating on the USSR.

Oh, the Mujahideen? After the war was over, some of them became terrorists known as "al-Qaeda." And, boy, did they have some cool weapons to play with. The kindest interpretation you can give is that Reagan used Afghanistan in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union. But even under that fantasy, you'd be hard-pressed to deny that 9/11 happened because of Ronald Reagan.

Coulter wants history to be so fucking easy. Attack Clinton over Somalia but leave out Kosovo. Say that Obama withdrew the troops from Iraq on his own when, really, the Iraqi government kicked us out. We on the left read Coulter and scoff and humph and wonder who the fuck could be so fucking stupid as to believe this bullshit that's as obvious as actual shit from a bull in the middle of your dining room.

But the truth is that too many Americans want to walk up to Coulter and take a deep whiff of her ass leavings because, really, if they don't, then they'd have to face reality, that their deepest held beliefs about the innate evil of the left and the innate greatness of the right are just the greatest joke ever played on them.

(Note again: If any of you poor, poor dears are offended by the use of the word "cunt," here is how Coulter concludes about the Iraq war: "The Iraq War turned every Middle Eastern despot into President Bush's bitch. But now Obama is their bitch. " What word would you use for her?)

Late Post Today

Late Post Today:
Oh, man, Revolver Ocelot is shooting shit up. Gotta get Snake and head out to stop that old bastard.

Back later with some, well, rude things to say about Ann Coulter.

9/11 Can't Ever Atone for the Sins of Others

9/11 Can't Ever Atone for the Sins of Others:
It's funny, 9/11 thinks. She feels weary, worn-out this morning, and it's strange because she believed that she would feel so much stronger than usual. After all, the new building is nearly done and, truth be told, it's so much better than the steel and concrete monstrosities that were leveled a dozen years ago. But, of course, one doesn't wish to do urban renovation through disaster and death.

She looks in a mirror and says to herself, "You think you'd be happy, at least a little." After all, while the candidates for mayor in New York City invoked her name more times than they needed to, including Bill de Blasio in his speech last night, she isn't tossed around as casually. She's been mostly absent from the discussion of bombing Syria. She was used to being paraded around, plastered with makeup, made a whore by Giuliani and Bush, imprisoned and roughly fucked by Cheney and Rumsfeld, burned with cigarettes and pissed on by Karl Rove, who jacked off into her hair after. Most of that ended a few years ago, of course, of course, although she pities her Libyan namesake who is little more than a fuck doll for conservatives who love having exotic tongue on their dicks and clits.

"You don't have it so bad anymore," 9/11 tells her reflection, although she doesn't really believe it.

Outside her window, she can see light reflecting off One World Trade Center, the thing that everyone will keep calling "the Freedom Tower" as surely as they'll call Citi Field "Shea Stadium." She runs around lower Manhattan, in the now relatively clean air, keeping herself in shape. There's always an election around the corner, after all, and she will have to entertain again. She can handle that - after all, John McCain wasn't exactly the liveliest lover and Mitt Romney wept copiously after each time he did her in the missionary position.  One thing she'll say, though: After she has sex with Barack Obama, a fairly rare occasion, she doesn't hate herself quite as much in the morning.

She stares back at the mirror. She can see herself. She's sure of that. "I'm not a ghost," she says. "Not yet."

She realizes, though, that she feels as if she is haunting the debate about Syria. She may not be called on by politicians or even many pundits to justify a new pseudo-war, a war lite, if you will. But she's sure that they've been ringing her door buzzer and running away. All of the terrible things done in her name - the Iraq nightmare, the Afghanistan slog, the breaking down of rights big and small, the drone attacks, the torture and indefinite detention, the surveillance state - hang there. She didn't want her existence to change so many things, but they did change. She didn't do it herself, but others say she caused them to do it. That's why, exhausted and used-up as she is, 9/11 feels it is her just punishment to take all who visit into her bed. Or, in the case of Rove, over the radiator, on the bathroom floor, or hanging in the closet.

There are those who tell 9/11 that she's suffered enough, that whatever implied sins she wishes to atone for have been fucked clean. They have it wrong, though. 9/11 says to them that it's not her sins that must be forgiven. It's that she is taking on the sins of others and trying to redeem them. She's just failed. She's failed, but she keeps trying.

Even as the cries of "Never forget" echo through the canyons of Manhattan, through the monuments of DC, 9/11 wants to be forgotten. Because it would be better to be forgotten than to be remembered in this way for all history.

Photos That Make the Syrian War Even More Complicated

Photos That Make the Syrian War Even More Complicated:

Yeah, that photo up there is exactly what it looks like. That's a ten year-old boy, Issa, working in a weapons factory, making mortar shells and fixing launchers, for the rebels in the Free Syrian Army. Issa works 70 hours a week. The photos seem to show him working alone most of the time.

Syria's official army allegedly murders kids, sometimes with chemicals. The rebels use kids for soldiers and building their arms. Remember when we were all so upset about Uganda's Joseph Kony last year? Remember when that was a cause of the month most everyone forgot about? One of the things we were pissed about was his use of child soldiers. Of course, you could say the kids in Syria want to help in the fight against Bashar al Assad, but that's a mighty fine red line you're walking.

The point here is that who has done what in Syria is way more complicated than the bombing advocates are letting on. No, there's no case to support Assad, a bureaucratic, emotionless war criminal who lacks lips and sports a moustache that only Hitler could love. But, as the Rude Pundit has said before in too many cases, if you're picking the lesser of two evils, you're still picking evil.

(Programming note: The Rude Pundit will be doing the live-tweet thing this evening when President Obama makes his case. It ought to be interesting, especially in light of Syria's acceptance of Russia's offer on turning over the chemical weapons. That is a big fucking deal. Expect at least some victory lapping about the threat of bombing being leverage against Syria, although one might wonder why Obama wants to postpone any congressional authorization vote since that would make his hand even stronger, unless, you know, he was gonna lose.)

John Kerry Declares His Penis Is "Unbelievably Small"

John Kerry Declares His Penis Is "Unbelievably Small":
In an article published this morning in The Guardian, John Kerry is quoted saying that any attack on Syria would be "unbelievably small." Frankly, at that point, Kerry may as well have said to the press, "I want to assure you that should I decide to fuck Syria, in its ass or perhaps in its vagina, should it have one, I will not create any sustained damage to the fucked orifice. Indeed, my penis is unbelievably small, and while I will get all the pleasure I can out of fucking Syria, it will barely feel it. Oh, yes, Syria will know that I have fucked it because of the bit of ejaculate left behind. It will be so little because my balls are also undersized. Yes, it is true, I will be able to brag to everyone that I did fuck Syria, which, in case you haven't figured it out, is really the point. I know that everyone is worried about the unintended consequences of me fucking Syria, like diseases, for example. However, I am assuring the world that I am disease free and nothing of the sort will happen. If everything goes as planned, Syria will learn that it can't get away with that sort of behavior because of the power of my penis, which, let me reiterate, is unbelievably small."

Seriously, this shit is getting embarrassing. Between Kerry reassuring our allies that we only wanna bomb a little bit, pretty please, and Vladimir "Behold My Totally Not-Gay Nipples" Putin, for fuck's sake, seeking to play the role of diplomat by saying that Syria needs to place its chemical weapons under "international control," we are really in some kind of bizarro world where nothing makes sense anymore. And, hey, let's throw into the mix Kerry's State Department, channeling Condi and Colin, actually saying about Bashar al Assad, "[T]his brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That's why the world faces this moment."

(No, really. On March 9, 2003, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos's Hair, then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice called Saddam Hussein a "dictator" who "plays games" with weapons inspectors and "you have to ask yourself, are you willing to trust this regime once inspectors are gone?")

It's all fucked up out there. The Obama administration hasn't released any definitive proof of the Syrian government's role in the chemical weapons attack and seems to be playing fast and loose with the number of dead. Republicans and conservative talkbots, who, strangely, last opposed a war when Bill Clinton was in office, are praising Putin. There's a couple of million refugees that really need help, living in camps where the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid would probably do more to turn hearts and minds than minimal bombing in Damascus, which crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat Assad told Charlie Rose would cause possible terrorist attacks in response. Fuck everyone involved in this, man.

Man, somewhere you know that George W. Bush is laughing his miserable bony ass off, calling Dick Cheney to giggle it up about how they have the world tied in knots, how they've made things that may, in fact, be true sound like lies because their lies sounded like the truth to so many people. How they have made the world a skittish place for even the consideration of action. And how they left behind a tangled pile of live wires and a dare to try to figure it out before you get electrocuted.

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Down a Fistful of Oxycontin with a Case of Coors Light


You know, any normal person would probably freak out if they received a flyer that said, "The KKK Wants You!" with someone in ghost drag pointing at them. "Oh, fuck," they might think. "Did someone see me buy the new Kanye CD at the Wal-Mart?" Yeah, there's a good chance that they'd take it as a threat and not an Uncle Sam-like invitation to come on over to the local donkey fucking barn and join up with the Ku Klux Klan.

All over Cookeville, Tennessee, this week, people woke up to find flyers in their mailboxes and, charmingly, in plastic baggies on their lawns. The baggies also had stones in them, presumably to give them some heft so they don't fly away. Yep, the KKK was driving around town, tossing rocks at people's houses.

The flyer reads, "Are you having your rights and freedoms as an American citizen taken away by our Communist Government? If so, we want you to contact us today!!!" Putting three exclamation points means they're super-serious, ya'll. The group calls itself "The Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan," which differentiates it from the Radical Mexican Conquistador division of el KKK. "We are fighting today for your tomorrow!" the Klan promises.

If nothing else, you gotta give the flyer creator props for not mentioning at all that promoting white power is pretty much the KKK's raison d'etre. No, see, if you use Tea Party rhetoric instead of the words "nigger President," it's easier to get people on your side and under your sheets. Even the cops are impressed at how articulate it is. In response to complaints, the Cookeville PD said, "Right now, we do not see it as a threat to the safety and welfare of our community." And with no "threatening or inflammatory language," it's just littering. So, fine, hey, free speech. You gotta wonder if they'd be so blase' about Black Panther recruitment posters showing up everywhere, but let's them take them at their word. To their credit, many white people in Cookeville are pissed off and scared about the KKK scraping around for new racist scum in their town.

Of course, of course, the website that the flyer says you should check out is not quite so mellow. Before it gets to the teabagger shit, like constitutional "originalism" and tossing out the U.N., the Knights are for "The White Race: the irreplaceable hub of our Nation, our Christian Faith, and the highest standards of western culture and technology." And, of course, a burning cross GIF is on the front page because, well, fuck, it's the KKK.

The only reason this is worth discussing is because of how blatantly the goals of the Tea Party and the KKK intersect and how blatantly racist and anti-American those goals are shown to be because of that intersection. There's the crap about the threat of Sharia law, which the KKK now makes clear is anti-Islam and not just fear of a Mullah invasion. There's the 2nd Amendment absolutist garbage, which, associated with the KKK, is obviously out of nutzoid fear of other races. There's the anti-immigrant nonsense, but, you know, that's racist no matter who is spouting it. And let's not even get into the weirdness of a bunch of men in white dresses complaining about gay people.

What's wild is that, even thought they wear hoods, the KKK is actually revealing the true face of the Tea Party.
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