The Awesomest Picture of Larry Craig and George W. Bush:

No, those aren't shirt-wearing dick dolls the President of the United States is holding. Those are the even gayer Spuddy Buddies. That's the absolutely, positively not gay Senator Larry Craig there on the left. With oddly named Senator Mike Crapo and lesbian cartoon character-named Congressman Butch Otter, along with Congressman Mike Simpson. It's a picture from 2005 at Tamarack Resort in Idaho.

Pop quiz: who looks gayest?

And As Long As We're Posting Fun Larry Craig Pictures:

That's from July 4 of this year. The ironically named (for Craig) "Independence Day," where, as Craig writes on his Senate website, "American soldiers have been sacrificing to bring the freedoms we celebrate on this special day to millions of people who have known nothing but oppression and fear." Yep, freedom for everyone except homosexuals, especially those who are so self-loathing that they gotta try to get action in a public shithouse.

Still, two soldiers and no smell of piss and Lysol? Larry Craig's bestest day ever? The Rude Pundit just reports.

Katrina Plus Two Years: Bush Goes to the Chocolate City, Upset Not to Find Willie Wonka:
George W. Bush is a terrible human being, and the world would have been better off if he had died in a drunk driving accident back in the 1970s. The Rude Pundit knows, he knows, fuck, how he knows, how fashionable it is to love the sinner but hate the sin, how people talk about what a good guy Bush is when he's not fucking up the country, the kind of guy you'd like to have a near-beer with. Fuck that. Relativism is for pussies. Bush is the kind of man who would finger fuck a man's wife and then giggle when he gives that man a shake with his unwashed hand.

Which is more or less what he did on his day-and-a-half tour of New Orleans and the Katrina coast.

Of all the stupid fucking things Bush said on his southern jaunt (and they were legion), this one had to be scraping bottom: "There's nothing more hopeful than to be with somebody who says, welcome to my home, particularly given the fact that these mixed-use housing projects have replaced old-style low-income housing projects that, frankly, didn't work. In other words, the storm came, created a lot of heartbreak and heartache, but people took a different look at how best to help people in their homes." Bush was talking to "new homeowners" at River Garden, a mixed-income housing complex, which is shorthand for "less poor negroes per square foot."

Look at what Bush said: we knew that the shitty hellholes we created for the negroes were shitty hellholes, so good thing the city got wrecked, 'cause we sure as fuck weren't gonna do anything unless we could steal the property back. Rents for a two-bedroom at River Garden start at $1200 a month, unless you're in one of the low-income subsidized housing that comprises 30% of River Garden. This'll work out just fine. Aren't conservatives supposed to be against social experimentation? Or maybe they just think this is some kind of reality show they can watch from a distance. This kind of shit is hard to do when you've got things like an economic base and a functioning infrastructure. But in a situation like New Orleans?

That's par for the course, eh? Unless the negroes are rioting or bobbing face down in sewage-filled floodwater, then just keep 'em controlled. But post-Katrina, oh, shit, they had to pay attention. When Bush was at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School, giving his only longer than a couple of seconds speech in New Orleans, he spent more time talking about what he sees as a good education than he did telling the kids that all the trashed, destroyed buildings they have to pass everyday will be replaced, that the neighborhood, the Lower Ninth Ward, will be safe from floodwaters despite the fact that the Lower 9 is still just as vulnerable as it was August 29, 2005. No, no, let's show he's a teachin' president: "I'll never forget, one time when I was governor of Texas, a woman looked at me and she said, 'Reading is the new civil right.' It had a profound impact on the policies that we have pursued since I've been in public office, and Laura has pursued as a lifelong reader. And that person was right."

The man was staring at a group of black children and parents and others whose homes were fucked up piles of mold, who lost almost everything they had, and he was telling them about how cool it is to read. Well, shit, at least he didn't read them any goat stories, a sure sign, as we know, of the apocalypse.

And then the motherfucker went to Mississippi and made a backhanded swipe at Louisiana: "The American people have written a check -- written checks for $114 billion to help the people on the coast...Now, of that $114 billion, about 80 percent has been obligated. Mississippi has taken the obligated money and is spending it wisely." Compare that to what he said in Louisiana: "Of the $114 billion spent so far -- and resources allocated so far, about 80 percent of the funds have been disbursed or available. And, of course, Don [Powell, the czar] and I will try to work through the bureaucracy in Washington, just like folks down here are trying to work through the bureaucracy to make sure that there are adequate plans for the money." Yes, Mississippians got the big beat down from Katrina, but, again and again, it needs to be pointed out: they didn't have to rebuild the state's largest city, they didn't have to deal with the damage caused by man-made incompetence, they didn't have to deal with the intractable poverty compounded by the storm. And who, exactly, put all that bureaucracy in place?

Fuck it. As long as Bush is in office, as long as this soulless approximation of a human being keeps running around and making feints at care, New Orleans is fucked. Bush came down to the quarters this week, and he danced a little with the negroes, but when he heads back to the White House, they've still gotta toil in the heat.

By the way, the Rude Pundit's eaten at Dookie Chase's, the same restaurant Bush patronized this week. He's right. The food's delicious. Huzzah for small favors.

By the way, go to When the Saints to do some good. And click over to their links to do more good. As the people of New Orleans know, despite the sight of Bush and Laura and Karl Rove eating fried catfish, we're on our own.

Katrina Plus Two Years: This Is Not a Home (Random Thoughts on an Anniversary):
Jean has had it. He's done with New Orleans. Most recently, he wrote to the Rude Pundit to say that things had become "very disheartening" for him and his family. He fought for two years to try to re-make his life into something like it was pre-Katrina, but he's done. As of now, he's decided to stay one more year to get his affairs in order, as they say, and then get the hell out of the fallen city. "Had enough...There is no plan, no mayor, black people fighting, no federal money...they can keep this cesspool."

Yeah, Jean is angry, that kind of palpable anger that spills over and infects even your most righteous feelings and open-mindedness. He writes, "I am fucking tired of the black people shooting each other...when their lazy asses get out of bed, then the productive black people getting stomped on by their 'brothers.'" You may look at that and you'd be perfectly justified to read it as latent racism spilling out, with your offended liberal sentiments pointing to how Jean stereotypes (at least some) blacks as "lazy." The Rude Pundit reads it as disappointment, disillusionment, and disgust, as the emotional response to unending betrayal; he reads it as sad. And the truth of the matter is that a majority of the crime in New Orleans is committed by African Americans, as befits a majority black city. And the truth is that black-on-black violent crime is one of the main eruptions of the plague of criminality in New Orleans. And the truth is that more than likely you haven't lived in the heat and trash and fetidness of New Orleans for two years. In other words, get fuckin' real.

To be poor and black in New Orleans was always to exist in a world of crime and rotting housing projects, and the murder rate was rising even before the storm. The Rude Pundit knows people, white and black, who were beaten, mugged, and shot in New Orleans long before Katrina roared up to the city. But you add a couple of years of mostly abandoned, unlit neighborhoods; rents spiraling out of control; churches, schools, hospitals, community centers, and massive amounts social services disappeared; a decimated police force; toss in guns, drugs, and corruption, and, well, fuck, you do the math. It ain't exactly trig. What it is is a murder rate that's nearly 50% higher than the second city in that list of damnation, Gary, Indiana. The kind of investment in schools, in jobs, in housing, that was needed before Katrina wasn't there. Now it's a joke to think it'll be there.

Jean can't take it anymore. He's lived in New Orleans for over a decade and a half, and he's seen all other sorts of highs and lows. To live in Louisiana is to accept that even the best political leaders are the ones that do no harm, that corruption is preferable to incompetence, and that those who try to change things will eventually be chewed up and spit out by the long-standing system, like a legislature that actually spent time this year debating and passing a partial birth abortion ban. Guess all those Katrina and Rita problems could wait. So the fucktardery of Louisiana politics is something you accept. Except when you actually need the government to do something. Then the status quo is bullshit, and it's like waking up with a hangover, covered in blood, knife in your hand, next to a live goat and a dead fat guy who's been cut from belly to Adam's apple. And we're talking Democratic and Republican administrations. Since the pirate Jean Lafitte to the oil companies to the casinos, Louisiana has existed to be plundered.

So Jean lists the frustration of trying to get anything done: "The same groups of scuzzbuckets that stole money in the past still want the government contracts...the lack of infrastructure...the slow time to get anything done..." Yeah, one thing that angers the Rude Pundit as much as anything else whenever he goes to New Orleans is that the streets aren't swarming with construction and clean-up crews. You'd expect the allegedly most powerful nation on Earth to re-flood New Orleans with men and women rebuilding the city. Yes, there is more construction going on, but New Orleans demonstrates the failure of the privatization of the American government. Instead of the government just goddamn hiring people, everything has to be contracted, subcontracted, filtered, and diffused through idiotic, incompetent agencies like the Road Home, as well as corporations and companies who each want a taste as the money dribbles through. And now the federal government isn't even organized to do anything of the scale of, say, the TVA.

Hell, people are fuckin' thrilled that most of the original debris from the storm has been picked up at last. Hell, at least you can go to a bar for a beer and some blues, and that's something, right?

This was a city in America that was left to fend for itself after the largest natural disaster in U.S. history, with money tossed at it like it was a sidewalk drunk with a cup. It is part of America. You fail New Orleans, you fail the nation. And while Mayor Nagin and President Bush talk about people returning, Jean says, "We are moving...I'm tired."

Tomorrow: Bush in the Big Easy.

Katrina Plus Two Years: Two White People, Still Two Cities of New Orleans:
The lawyer and the small business owner are both white. They live in different areas of metro New Orleans. They had different experiences of Katrina. And they have had different experiences of its recovery, although some things remain the same.

The lawyer and her family evacuated to Florida before the storm and ended up living in an apartment in Baton Rouge for a few months, paid for by the law firm, before finally returning to their large Garden District home, with its stone patio and pool. They had to clear tree limbs and other detritus, but mostly everything at home was fine. Their first year was rough, as it was for everyone living in the ruins of the city.

The small business owner lived on the Metairie side of the 17th Street canal levee, the one that broke and destroyed the middle-class neighborhood of Lakeview. Still, her house flooded, the walls infested with mold, many of her possessions wrecked. Her New Orleans souvenir and decoration store in the Riverwalk was looted (although, poignantly, the looters took mostly t-shirts and other clothes, leaving a great deal of valuable merchandise). She ended up living with family in Lafayette for nearly six months before buying a house there. For the next year or so, she went back and forth to New Orleans weekly, cleaning her home, debating whether or not to sell it or repair it. She tried to run her business on the web, in smaller spaces in the smaller city.

Now, two years after the storm, the lawyer says, things are returning to a semblance of normalcy. The mail is regular. There's more restaurants and clubs. Her kids were going to go to private school anyway, so that hasn't changed. Friends of hers who had left, even taking jobs elsewhere, are starting to return. "They realized that Dallas, say, is not like New Orleans," she said. And that's hard to argue with. Especially when you're drinking a homemade mojito lounging on a lawn chair next to a slate-stepped swimming pool.

A couple of blocks near her New Orleans home, the small business owner pointed out, is the fissure at the bottom of the levee on her side of the canal. "It looks like the San Andreas Fault," she said. The canal walls won't hold in another storm, the Army Corps of Engineers knows. Erosion like what the small business owner pointed out is taking care of any other semblance of security, and assurances by the Corps that that particular weakness is no problem don't really alleviate the feeling that more water may flood the streets again.

You can't understand that anxiety when a storm makes its way into the Gulf of Mexico, she said, when a hurricane of any sort appears in the tropics. This was before Dean. Essentially, the people of New Orleans, of the Gulf Coast, are suffering the kind of post-traumatic stress associated with soldiers. Instead of hearing bombs, they hear wind. And it doesn't help that the nation doesn't seem to want to help ease the suffering.

But the small business owner is easing herself back into her now cleaned and restored ranch home. She is making tentative steps to restoring her old life as best as she can. She's lived in New Orleans her entire life. Hell, her 95-year old mother lived there her whole life until Katrina put her in a California assisted-living home, and she wants to return.

People yearn to come back to New Orleans. Like a lover that's betrayed them, they ache for the city's embrace even though they know the wounds will never heal.

Bush on Gonzales: Hot Man on Man Action:
Bush's pissy little statement bears little discussion, other than it was made with maximum contempt for those who would dare question his judgment. The President looked like a man who was told he'd need to take horse suppositories for the next six months to save his failed presidency. And if Alberto Gonzales is a "good man," then the Rude Pundit is one of the finest Americans ever to have trod our purple mountains majesty.

Live Champagne Blogging the Alberto Gonzales Resignation Announcement and Coverage:
10:31: Why did Gonzales do it now? What confluence of evidence, expediency, and soul-sickness led him to either be released from his blood oath or to tell Bush to "fuck off" at last? Was it the loss of the musk of Karl Rove around the Oval Office? Such manly moments are to be missed in these dank end days of the swampy DC summer.

10:32: He's got a quite the prissy little demi-man gait to his walk up to the podium. That is not a happy man, not the usual skipping cocky stride of the dude who's gotten his jollies sending people to death and torture.

10:34: Gonzales says life in a suit is better than picking fruit in a field, he gives Bush a gentle kiss on the balls, and, whoa, he's outta there. That is someone who just did something he was ordered to do, but in the most "kiss my ass, motherfuckers" way possible.

Let's see what's up at Fox "news": This Jim Angle fucker thinks that Republicans are upset that Gonzales didn't "defend" himself more in hearings. He says that there's no "proof" that Gonzales lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, disparaging Democrats, giving a thumb to the walnut-like prostate of Orrin Hatch for the Utah Senator's wisdom in defending Gonzales.

Boo-yah- it's 10:37 and Fox is off to Michael Vick.

Over to CNN: They're talking to fired U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins, who sounds weary of the whole goddamn thing. Says Gonzales failed to insulate the U.S. attorneys from politics. Cummins says of Gonzales, "He earned this, he said and did some things that are unforgivable" and "he threw some of my colleagues under the bus." That's not unakin to stopping Gonzales at the doorway and kicking him in the nuts on the way out. Comically so.

Emory University counsel and former USA Kent Alexander says that Gonzales should have been more independent and able to stand up to the President. And he makes the obvious statement that Bush shouldn't nominate a friend.

CNN's John King tells us that Gonzales is still gonna be called to testify in hearings. He also compares Bush's support for Gonzales to his vow to stand by Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court and his opposition to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. King sees this as Bush getting rid of "his pinatas" to position himself better politically, which is not unlike a crack whore pulling off a few herpes scabs to make herself look less diseased to the drunks she's blowing.

And the dead dogs win at CNN at 10:47. And MSNBC is also in the ring with the pit bull corpses. Ah, well, time to shut off the TV, finish this bottle of Moet, and enjoy the slightly brighter sunshine.

Back later with the President's statement, in which he'll criticize Gonzales for withdrawing early and that, like what happened after Vietnam, there'll be killing fields all over Capitol Hill.

One Fun Thing About Alberto Gonzales's Resignation:
It's nowhere near ironic that the White House and the Justice Department spent the weekend outright lying about his Friday phone call to the President saying, "Adios."

More after Gonzales's press conference, which oughta be fun in that "badger gnaws its trapped foot off" kind of way.

The Family Research Council's Back To School Kit (No, Really):
Hey, kids, you wanna show you're the coolest Christian with a capital "CHRIST" at your school? Then kick it Perkins-style by ordering the Family Research Council's Back To School Resource Kit for you and your parents. Now your square old parents can get the down-low on what's really up at the satanic centers of secularism they send you to (unless you're home-schooled, yo).

You can show your Moms and Dads wassup with "The Internet Guide For Parents" pamphlet, which disabuses them of the idea that pornography started and ended with Betty Grable's ass: "Most people think of Internet pornography as naked, airbrushed women or 'pin-up girls.' This view is hopelessly naive." You bet it is. According to the FRC, "In addition to graphic sex between two adults, every imaginable sexual deviation is displayed, involving violence, animals, excrement, and group sex, to name a few." Yeah, and that's not even getting into watching dudes get fucked in the ass by dildoes and other tubular objects, but that's not telling you anything you didn't know, eh, playas? Oops, though. The FRC recommends that your parents install spyware on your computer to find out what you're masturbating to, boys: "Online activities can also be monitored by a host of downloadable programs which track sites viewed." It's just like Jesus would do, if his kids were actually stupider than him about computer security.

Oh, and girls, if you're nervous about getting that HPV vaccine that'll prevent you from getting most forms of cervical cancer, the Back To School Resource Kit has a pamphlet for you: "Gardasil: What Every Parent Should Know about the HPV Vaccine." It's actually vaguely informative and shows how to turn disease prevention lemons into abstinent lemonade by encouraging your parents to use the shot as a way to talk about you not fucking.

The most awesomest part of the whole kit, though, is the pamphlet "Homosexuality in Your Child's School." It's a concise, thorough look at all the ways you might be forced to go down on your best friend in a locker room while all the gay teachers applaud your open-mindedness. It's crazy out there in the queer-loving world of public education: "Pro-homosexual activists... promote policies that forbid 'discrimination' against students or teachers on the basis of 'sexual orientation.'" Why all the quotation marks? It's because the gays aren't born that way: race, sex, and other stuff is "inborn, involuntary, immutable, and innocuous" (feel free to make your own "inborn" joke here), but not the homosexuality.

So if high school boy Jimmy has chosen to blow cock, there should be no problem with calling him a "faggot," 'cause he's choosing to be such. Using the FRC's "logic," one can assume that the FRC would have no problem with, say, a junior Rude Pundit calling the fundamentalist Christian kids, "Backward ass fucks with Jesus shoved so far up their asses they can feel a crown of thorns tickling their uvulas." 'Cause, you know, being Christian is a choice, no?

Most of the pamphlet is filled with horror stories of homosexuals being allowed to teach in schools or form clubs or of anti-pro-homosexuals being mistreated for their desire to discriminate against the rampant sodomy that'll infest the schools should gays and lesbians be treated equally.

Really, there's rarely as much fun reading FRC shit as when you come across lines like this: "Perhaps the most notorious one-day event was GLSEN’s annual conference in Massachusetts in 2000—now commonly known as the 'Fistgate' conference." The GLSEN is the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. A report on the event, which will make you wet or get wood, describes a seminar where teenagers asked frank questions about sex, including, well, fisting, and the masturbation-inducing "Do lesbians rub their clits together?" (to which the Rude Pundit can only respond, "Aaah, prom night"). Frankly, we're all better human beings because some people actually call an event "Fistgate."

By the way, the author of the pamphlet is by Peter Sprigg, whose bio states that, prior to becoming a big deal at the FRC, he "had previously served as a pastor, a professional actor, and a congressional aide." And all of his books are about how evil homosexuals are? Uh-huh.

Yep, kids, the FRC's got you ready for the big scary world of the first day of school. Hell, the kit even includes How to Raise an American by Myrna Blyth, "an outstanding book on teaching such old-fashioned virtues as patriotism, decorum, and a work ethic," as well as five Ten Commandments book covers you can use to wrap your evolution-spouting science books. That'll teach those homosexuals who want you to be educated to live in the real world a thing or two.

Full Metal Jack-Off:
The night before his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President George W. Bush needed some inspiration for the words he was going to speak. Yes, he knew he was taking a risk in revising the conventional wisdom on the Vietnam War, that it was a war that should have never been fought, that Americans should have withdrawn long before we were neck deep in the Big Muddy. Hell, he himself had spoken with those well-worn notions as a backdrop. But his presidency, he knew, had been about nothing else but turning all conventional wisdom on its head, to say that those things the nation believed were true, those rights Americans believed were dear, those ideas of equality they thought were foundations, to say that all that supposed "truth" was actually lies.

Determinedly, his administration, like a pack of plague rats seeking a garbage dump, had gnawed away at it all, the liberties, the laws, the separation of powers, telling Americans they had been fed lies all along. Bush knows he's not so much a visionary as a revisionary, showing America how the last half century of its existence was premised not on liberation and progress, but on the existential crises that too much freedom precipitates, how history is actually a vindication for American triumphalism. And that, like the God he believes in, people just need a strong hand to guide them to his promised land. If only the faithful weren't so hard to convince.

He had the Secret Service bring around a small car for him Monday night. Weary from his trip back from Canada, Bush still knew he needed to commune with the dead in order to feel fully confident in his words. "The Memorial," he told them. And at first they headed over to the giant, seated Lincoln they had taken him to many times before on these late night jaunts. "No. 'Nam." One of the agents flinched, unnoticed. He hated it when the President called that war "'Nam," for his father had lost a leg over there, and the agent had been taught that only those who went could call it that.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the wall, you know, Bush walked along it, his fingers skipping over the engraved names. The Secret Service established a perimeter, getting any homeless people or lingerers to move on. They rolled their eyes to each other, knowing what was about to happen. It had happened to marble Lincoln so often. And Jefferson a bit less.

Bush pressed his face against the black granite. "Cold, like dead grandpa," he said to an agent, whose back was turned. Eventually, he traced his way to the center of the memorial, the bottom of the V built into the earth. "Like a hard pussy," he thought, and he leaned in and licked the cleavage between the walls. "Tastes dry, like Laura," he muttered, laughing to himself, then he announced to the agents, "Ya'll keep your backs turned, ya hear?" They knew the drill.

Unzipping his pants, President Bush took out his half-tumescent cock and rubbed it on the wall. "Yeah," he said as he became fully rigid. To him, the wall at that moment was just a pair of spread-eagled legs, like the legs of a slave girl, the haunches of a rotting corpse in the jungle, held open, just calling for a fucking. Propping himself awkwardly in the cleft, hands pressed against the sides, he began thrusting away, fucking right into the heart of the names of those who, to him, lost the war and disgraced America, yeah, they just had to lay there and take it, 'cause this goddamn wall should be twice as fuckin' large so that we could have taken down Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol...

"Shee-it," he exclaimed as a surge in his cock yielded only a dribble of cum, but, still, at least it was something. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped himself off, put his limp, scraped dick away, and tossed the dirty hankie to an agent. "Take me back home, boys," he said. "I got a speech to practice."

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Down a Handful of Xanax with a Fifth of Gentleman Jack:


This is from President Bush's visit to the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis on August 4. He's fucking waving at people. With the bridge in the background. With bodies still in the river at that point. He's fucking waving.

His speech today at the VFW where he said we should have kept fighting in Vietnam? It's pretty much the same thing as this image. In fact, so is his entire presidency: the crumbling nation is just the backdrop for his goofball, man o' the people bullshit antics.

(Since Blogger was fucked for most of the morning, more tomorrow on the VFW speech.)

Townhall's Douglas MacKinnon Is Scared, Crazy:
In the realms of bugfuck insanity in the right-wing punditry, there's few that have come close to the taint self-licking paranoia and outright shitting oneself in public that Douglas MacKinnon's column achieved last week at Townhall.com (motto: "Proudly shitting ourselves in public for nearly a decade"). Titled "The Two Things You Need to Know Before Your City Is Nuked by Terrorists," MacKinnon lowers the bar on what passes for commentary to a level not even worms could squirm under. After speaking to a "former high level intelligence operative of our government" (which is broad enough to include both George Tenet and a spook who staked out Marshall Tito back in the day), MacKinnon is convinced, goddamn convinced that "Tragically, horrifyingly, but quite predictably, it’s going to happen. The only question being which American city or cities?"

Yep, that's the first things you need to know: that, like a first strike by the Soviet Union in the 1950s we all remember, it's going to happen. And why is that so? Well, when MacKinnon, not a willing tool, asked the former official that question, "his anger boiled out." Oooh, what's it gonna be? The Iraq war diverting our military and intelligence capacity from actually, you know, preventing such a thing from happening? Oh, no, little realist. Buckle your seatbelts and behold the rage of an old spy looking on our failed nation: "He pointed the finger squarely at our politicians and our politically correct, left-leaning media, who, in his opinion, have 'sealed our fate.' He spoke of politicians from both sides of the aisle who consider border security nothing more than a cheap tool to be used for their reelection and enrichment. He despaired about a media that not only gleefully leaks our nation’s most trusted secrets for partisan gain, but then willingly acts as a propaganda tool for the very terrorists intent on our total destruction."

God, how we've damned ourselves. Dear God, how Wolf Blitzer has failed us all.

But what to do? MacKinnon's advice is something not unakin to "Kiss your ass good-bye": "When said attack comes, you and your family are on your own. Period. My friend stressed that 'our government won’t be there to help us. It is broken beyond repair and incapable of assisting those most affected by the blast.' He talked of critical infrastructures like water, electricity, fuel, banks, our food supply, medical services, police and firefighters, being unavailable for weeks or months. He warned of the blind panic that would follow such an explosion. Of the looting, of neighbor turning on neighbor to take what they don’t have for their own survival. Of our economy suffering an economic loss in the trillions of dollars."

Man, we haven't seen craziness like this since before the Berlin Wall fell. MacKinnon may as well be taking out Joseph McCarthy's skull, sneering at it, calling the dead Senator a "pussy" before fucking its eyehole. This is the kind of nutzoid shit that all those conservative Chicken Littles have been praying for since the end of the Soviet Union so they can dust off their whips of nuclear holocaust and smack all our complacent asses with them. No wonder they want another 9/11. It'll give 'em a chance to say, "Told you so" to the hoped-for thousands of dead and injured people.

MacKinnon confronts us all at the end with these oh-so stark questions: " Knowing this, are you prepared? Can you and your family ride out the frighteningly unpredictable weeks or months following the loss of an American city and its inhabitants? If you are not in the city hit, can you survive?" Well, can you, motherfucker?

Maybe the answer is found in MacKinnon's recent novel, America's Last Days, wherein "A conservative president, say President Bush, is getting ready to be replaced by a liberal, say Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, after a crisis like something worse than 9/11. The nation's national security team is worried that the nation is going to pot." Man, a terrorist attack would send his sales through the roof.

Beelzebub Meets the Sunday Press:
The Testament of Solomon is a fascinating early Jewish text from, possibly, the first or fourth century. In it, King Solomon uses a magical ring to meet and talk to a bunch of demons, thus giving Goth kids and oh-so-spooky devil worshipers a template for their masturbatory maunderings. One of the demons Solomon interviews is Beelzebub, who describes his activities in an amazingly honest fashion for an angel who fell with Lucifer: "I said to him, 'What are your activities?' He replied, 'I bring destruction by means of tyrants; I cause the demons to be worshiped alongside men; and I arouse desire in holy men and select priests. I bring about jealousies and murders in a country, and I instigate wars.'" Oh, for the days of such forthright evil beings.

For when Karl Rove appeared on three of the Sunday morning gabfests, he was nothing if not the Prince of Lies, deflecting every accusation as mere piffle to his bloodstained truth. When David Gregory, on Meet the Press, asked Rove about his involvement in the Valerie Plame case or the U.S. attorney firings, he may as well have sliced open a goat and read its entrails in order to get to the truth. The ghastly ceremony that summoned Rove to NBC involved the kidneys of Mexican children, the anus of a warthog, and a call to an assistant.

Strangely, the only interviewer who got under Rove's pustulent skin was Chris "Why Won't My Father Hug Me?" Wallace on Fox "news." Indeed, in that one can read the entrails of the interview, Wallace's treatment of Rove was as good an indicator as any that the "news" network is done with the Bush administration. Every time Wallace would frame a question in a way that seemed to demand a definitive answer, Rove, smirking like an Abu Ghraib guard at the scared, shriveled penis of an Iraqi prisoner, would say, "Nice try," as when Wallace asked, in good "gotcha" fashion, "Why did you push to fire some U.S. attorneys in the president's second term?"

Yes, Wallace was irritating the shit out of Rove, and finally, the flesh mask melted away for a moment, revealing the voracious, scabby visage that'd make Medusa say, "Goddamn, wrap a scarf around that shit or something." When Wallace pushed on the attorney firings, Rove's contempt for all those who would question him leaped to the fore: "I know you don't understand you're being an agent of Congress when you ask me that question, but you are." Got that? Chris Wallace of Fox "news" is just a tool of those fuckers in Congress who would dare question the White House.

Wallace, in a line that would be laughable in most other contexts replied, "I like to think I'm an agent of the public, not the Congress." Rove would not back down, saying to Wallace, "Well, in this instance, you're an agent of Senator Leahy and Congressman Waxman." So to even question the notion of executive privilege is to be named an enemy of the administration. And you see that language - "an agent," doing their "bidding." Man, nobody can demonize like a demon. See, Rove's argument is that he's protecting the Constitution by giving advice to the President. Rasputin doesn't have to fuckin' tell you what he advised the Czar to do.

Remember: Rove's purposes in being are to protect George W. Bush and to make sure that his kind of Republicans have power. That's the filter through which to view his disparaging comments against Hillary Clinton, calling her an "incompetent, traitorous cunt with teeth who everyone hates and whose very existence poisons the country," or words to that effect. Also, remember that Karl Rove plays the long game and he only has a few well-worn tricks. So the obvious answer is that he's seeking to drive up Clinton's negatives among Republicans under the idea that she's gonna be the nominee.

But here's the twist in Rove's twisted mind: Rove wants Clinton to be the nominee, not just because he thinks she's the major candidate who's most easily defeated in a general election, not just because it gives him a chance to pull out all stops on his vile smear machine, but because he wants to defeat a Clinton. Right now one of the most damaging things to George W. Bush's legacy, which Rove is responsible for, is that it's making the Clinton legacy so much brighter. (Remember: we're thinking like Rove here, not like human beings.) To tarnish the Clinton legacy, and to secure his own, he needs the head of a Clinton on his wall.

Beelzebub will not be denied.

Just Askin': How Long Was Rudy Mayor After 9/11?:
After reading former New York City mayor, presidential candidate, and bald man Rudy Giuliani's manifesto on America's place in the world in Foreign Affairs, the Rude Pundit was left with a few questions, a strong desire to drink straight rye whiskey, and a stomachache that felt like he had been stomped by jack-booted thugs. Because while Giuliani spouts on and on about how theworldchangedafter9/11, someone needs to ask this glowing essence of terrorist fighting light a simple question: How exactly did you help New York City recover from 9/11?

'Cause, using a magical calendar, it's pretty easy to determine that Giuliani was only the mayor of New York (not "America's Mayor," which is more honorific or exploitable) for four months after the World Trade Center was destroyed. And then he spent the next few years making shitloads of money from speaker's fees and Giuliani Partners (financially benefiting enormously from hyping the terrorist threat so that corporations and others would use the services of his "security consulting" firm), fighting Hillary Clinton, fighting cancer, and banging his new wife. And basking in the glow left behind after he was buffed clean of the dust of the Twin Towers.

'Cause, see, New York City's recovery after the end of 2001 had nothing to do with Rudy Giuliani. Mike Bloomberg took over in January 2002 (after an election that Giuliani tried to postpone). All Giuliani did, the sum total of his 9/11 experience, is that he held some hands and was a cheerleader, along with cooperating with the feds. Giuliani's just the skeevy fucker at an accident scene who makes sure he gets in front of the TV cameras, ready to thank God that no one else was hurt or to say anything it takes to keep that red light burning in his direction.

So when you read Giuliani's Foreign Affairs screed (and it is a screed just gussied up for a more prestigious publication than, say, Newsmax), you're getting the opinion of a man whose credentials are: doing little to protect New York City after the 1993 bombing (other than making a really cool love nest/war room that blew up real good on 9/11), leaving office (by law) while the World Trade Center hole was still warm, and massively profiting off the very wars he wishes to foster. Anyone wanna talk some more about Barack Obama's lack of experience?

And you oughta read the thing. As others have pointed out, it's some insane and dangerous shit. It's also hilarious, the kind of hyperbole that seems like it was written in a backwoods shack by a bugfuck nutzoid hermit tweaking on homemade meth, thinking he's surrounded by man-eating bears and scrotum-gnawing weasels. In other words, very Republican.

"We are all members of the 9/11 generation," writes Giuliani at the outset, which is like being part of the Woodstock generation, but with less fucking. Yep, it's a new age, says Rudy, "when old ideas have to be rethought and new ideas have to be devised to meet new challenges." Prior to 9/11, no one ever thought to devise new ideas to meet new challenges - it's why we still fire muskets at incoming RPGs.

Then he goes completely unhinged, like rhino-tranq-that-motherfucker-before-he-kills-again crazed. See, Rudy says we have to try to create a "realistic peace... Achieving a realistic peace means balancing realism and idealism in our foreign policy...realism must help us recognize the road we must travel to achieve them." But watch out - "A realistic peace is not a peace to be achieved by embracing the 'realist' school of foreign policy thought." So we must be realistic with our realism but not be realists. Aw, fuck, that was just like a punch to the temple.

Most of the rest of the essay is like George W. Bush without the nuance, the kind of Manichaeism that'd make Mani go, "Whoa, dude, back the fuck off." It's filled with the "no shit" broad generalizations that mark the idiots' dictums of the neocon movement: "America is a nation that loves peace and hates war...The world is a dangerous place." The kind of bullshit that politicians laugh about later that they put another one over on us yahoos.

But if you want scary funny, the kind of "oh, he can't really mean that" progression of logic, let's just throw two lines up together. Early in the piece, Giuliani says, "At the core of all Americans is the belief that all human beings have certain inalienable rights that proceed from God but must be protected by the state." Later, talking about "Extending the International System's Benefits," he writes, "Securing the rights of men, women, and children everywhere should be a core commitment of any country that counts itself as part of the civilized world." So rights that are gifts from a God, where both "rights" and "God" are defined by Americans (but are never defined by Rudy in this essay, for specifics are the tools of the effete), must be secured for all people of the Earth. Now, how are Muslim nations supposed to feel safe in Rudyworld? Or maybe that's the point - they're not. Either way, the second you introduce the big sky wizard into the argument, you're gonna lose.

Oh, what fun it would be to pick apart the entire thing, a rant disguised as reason, a way to make dumb people feel smart, to justify every past mistake (don't you get it? We really almost won the Vietnam war. Hippies were wrong). He praises events like Van Cliburn playing in the Soviet Union as helping bring down the Berlin Wall, but says of a post-Fidel Cuba, we must "resist any step that allows a decrepit, corrupt regime from consolidating its power under Raúl Castro." Although, again, what those steps might be beyond letting Hannah Montana play Havana are never defined.

In other words, there's nothing this power-hungry motherfucker won't say to pump up his street cred, making him seem like a bad-ass, when, really, he's just another whiny rich dick who wants to take credit for shit he didn't do and out tough guy the other tough guys. It's just amazing, in a Barnum-like way, that people still give a damn about what he has to say.

The "Petraeus Report" and More Smoke and Mirrors:
Often, watching the Bush administration in action is a little like watching a magician opening for strippers named Bodacious Ta-tas Lorraine or Lady Kitty Cockswallow at a no-cover bar at a Boise truck stop in the 1960s. The magician, maybe named "the Great Ballini" or something equally clever, isn't very good, his card forces a little too forced, his coins and hankies too obviously tucked away, his sleight of hand clumsy, his hidden compartments clunky. But, still and all, to half-drunk truck drivers wanting feathered boobies and sequined cooters thrust in their faces on a cold Idaho night on the road, it's distracting as long as you don't pay too much attention. The problem, of course, is that once you know the tricks, the magic dissipates and all you've got is a loser desperately trying to entertain you with dirty-puns and a suit that needed to be cleaned last month.

So, while there's been an uproar over how the Petraeus report is not the Petraeus report, but actually the White House report, well, the idea that General Petraeus was ever going to write the report is just so many ripped dollar bills magically mended with a wave of the hand. According to the actual legislation, "The President, having consulted with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command, will prepare the report and submit the report to Congress" and "The President shall submit a second report to the Congress, not later than September 15, 2007" and "Prior to the submission of the President's second report on September 15, 2007, and at a time to be agreed upon by the leadership of the Congress and the Administration, the United States Ambassador to Iraq and the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq will be made available to testify in open and closed sessions before the relevant committees of the Congress."

So, while everyone and his Cheney was talking about the great and mighty "General Petraeus's report" or some such shit, that was just spin, spin that the Democrats got tricked into using. And while Democrats were right to balk at the idea that Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker would give only closed-door testimony, well, fuck, read the goddamn bill. Remember: the Bush White House parses every letter of every word to see how to manipulate things in their favor, or they just issue a signing statement that says, in so many words, "Kiss my chicken-fried ass."

Smoke and mirrors. Push-up bras or socks in the crotch. Nothing is ever what it seems in this mad age with these madmen. Take Gitmo. Even as candidates like crazed robot Mitt Romney talk about doubling its size or Republicans and their foul lackeys in the media say things like, "We don't want them strange-talkin' people we tortured on our soil," the Bush administration approached Canada about taking over a dozen Chinese Gitmo detainees who have been determined, through long years of nut vices and forced nudity, to have no connection to the eeevil people of the world (or at least those that we deem eeevil). But, it seems, we can't just return them to China because, well, shit, seems they were captured by Pakistani bounty hunters because they were fleeing persecution in China. Lucky thing they were turned over to the USA. For cash.

Oh, China wants 'em back. Wants 'em back bad. We even let Chinese officials "interview" them. That must have been waterboardtastic. And China has "pressured" other countries into not taking the men, who, despite being no threat to America, live in cells for 22 hours a day. Remember how it used to be really cool when Soviets or Chinese would defect? Remember political asylum? Goddamn, how wonderful America seemed back then.

Now we beg Canada to take them because our toy-poisoning Chinese masters have told us to keep our filthy freedom-loving hands off them. Canada, though, said, in so many words, "Kiss our Canuck asses. Hard."

Or, like that pathetic magician whose pigeons have flown off and are now shitting all over the club, "Clean up your own fucking mess."

George Bush Is Easily Amazed:
So, on Monday, just before announcing that Karl Rove was heading out to befoul the nation at large, George W. Bush visited with the war wounded at the DC Veteran Affairs Medical Center. Dragging Bob Dole and Donna Shalala along with him with the promise of implementing their report that said, more or less, the medical care system for vets is a combination of incompetence, feces-sitting, and cockroaches, Bush also implored Congress to get involved in the action.

In a series of sentences so bizarre that it puts the "taught" in "tautological," Bush said, "When they come back in September, we want to work with Congress to pass that which is necessary to make sure that the Dole-Shalala commission recommendations are fully implemented. In other words, there are some aspects of the commission recommendations that require congressional approval. We believe it's important for Congress to listen to the commission. We believe the recommendations make a lot of sense, and we would ask for the Congress to pass those recommendations as quickly as possible, so I can sign them into law." In other words, ice cream is tasty. And sweet. So let's eat it.

Then Bush expressed amazement at the miracles taking place around him: "There's an amazing -- there's a lot of amazing things taking place here in this facility. For example, we saw information technology, health care records that are being passed seamlessly from the Department of Defense to the VA, to make sure that the care providers here have got up-to-date access for each patient." Imagine - big electronical machines whose vacuum tubery allows them to transfer informationality from one telecyclopedia to the other. And it doesn't even require punch cards. Jesus, the man's never heard of an "attached document."

Another amazing thing is the kayaking. No, seriously, the fuckin' kayaking: "We saw volunteers helping the wounded learn to regain balance and confidence through kayaking programs." Really - kayaking:


And while kayaking may be a fine way to engage in physical therapy, is it truly "amazing"? Cool, perhaps, but "amazing"?

It just doesn't take much to amaze a man who thinks that a couple of less dead Americans is progress and that a bill to give health insurance to poor children is unwarranted government involvement in people's lives. Bush continued his amazinosity at the work of the hospital staff: "I saw physical therapists -- I heard physical therapists talk about their patients with the kind of care and compassion that obviously requires a big heart and strong commitment." What's the alternative? For the therapists to talk about their patients as faceless pieces of meat ready to be patched up to be sent back to be slaughtered again? To promise to neglect them in filthy rooms? "Care and compassion" ought to be among the bare minimum standards, no?

Bush finished his visit with this promise: "If we find problems, we'll solve the problems." But, of course, the most convenient way to avoid solving problems is to avoid looking for them and hoping they don't rear their ugly problematic heads.

A Leather Slave's Anti-Requiem For Karl Rove:
Karl Rove's ex-leather slave is worried. Feeling something not unakin to pity, he had watched his ex-master announce his resignation after reading Rove's prognostications and strenuous anti-prostrations in the Wall Street Journal. When he was Karl Rove's leather slave, the ex-leather slave was kept in the basement of the White House, chained to a broken radiator next to Andrew Johnson's Freedmen-stomping shoes covered in dried blood and just to the right of Warren G. Harding's giant-sized box of lamb intestine prophylactics ("Ribbed For the Delight of the Damsels"); if his mouth was Rove's playground, his anus was the Boy Genius's very own Six Flags Over Texas, complete with its own concession stand. Escaping after Rove was distracted at the end of the 2006 midterms, the ex-leather slave now lives anonymously in Virginia, and he is worried.

At first, watching Rove speak, the ex-leather slave felt a familiar twinge in his asshole, seeing his ex-master's howler monkey face slack and unusually calm, much like it was after withdrawing his cock from the leather slave's sphincter, ordering the leather slave to lick him clean. Rove would become introspective in those moments, as a man may when he's come in the ass of a human he more or less owns, maybe even getting a washcloth for the welts he left on the leather slave's back. Yes, seeing Rove next to the President, who had so often jacked off to videos of Rove's basement antics, the ex-leather slave felt a nearly Pavlovian need to finger his own prostate until he was just about to ejaculate and then stop, as Rove had ordered him to do so often, denying his own pleasure.

He was wondering why Rove was leaving. Was it because, like another mad, deformed Rumplestiltskin, someone had seen him dancing freakily in the forest, proclaiming his real name? Once you know you don't have to give away your firstborn to the dwarf who spun your gold out of shit, you can be free. No, that couldn't be it. No one but he, Karl Rove's ex-leather slave, knew the real Rove. Then, during the announcement, he saw it. Or more precisely, he heard it. And it chilled him to his no-longer-strung-up balls.

It was when Rove's voice quavered as he spoke, "At month's end, I will join those whom you meet in your travels, the ordinary Americans who tell you they are praying for you." The CNN anchors said Rove was getting choked up. But, no, no, that wasn't the truth. He wanted to call them and tell them that they were reading it wrong. He knew that it wasn't sadness or admiration or regret. It was pure disdain and hatred and anger, swallowed down, gagging him, not so much a lump in his throat as vomit at the very idea of "ordinary Americans." The ex-leather slave had heard that before, that savage rage, usually just before Rove made the slave play Jesus to his centurion, adding repeated sodomizings to the spiked bullwhipping of Christ; goddamn, it was like Rove was writing a new book to the Bible those nights, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Karl. Rove hates you all, the ex-leather slave wanted to say to the gathered reporters, you may know that, but you don't know how much. Karl Rove hates us all, and he's gonna prove how much.

He looked back at the Journal interview. Jesus, it's so obvious, thought the ex-leather slave. See, Rove's alleged greatness is that, because he lies and speaks the truth with such fluidity, one cannot distinguish them. The really, truly, demonic liars know that you have to be demonstrably right at least part of the time. Yes, yes, of course he's stumbled since 2006. Of course, his myriad sins are nipping at his heels like the waves of a tide coming in, but Rove has always walked on the ocean's edge. What we cannot know is what Rove really believes and what he wants us to believe so that he can accomplish what he really believes.

Take, for instance, Rove's comment on Hillary Clinton as "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate." How do you read that? Is it the truth, that he is saying what Republicans believe? What they wish? Or is he announcing in advance a threat, that Republicans are keeping their powder dry until the nomination, that they have something they can use and manipulate to blow up a Clinton candidacy? Masterful, just like when Rove would tell his ex-leather slave that he was going to shove a hot dog into his ass and instead he'd slam an eleven-inch dildo. Always keep 'em guessing. The devil is doubt for doubt sows division and division gives the devil the chance to harvest souls.

Yes, Rove can say he's going to write a book. He can say he's going to spend time with his family. That is probably true. But the ex-leather slave knows. He heard it in Rove's voice, a voice that said to the ex-leather slave, "I am not done with you."

Rove is going to come after him, the ex-leather slave has decided. Rove wants him back, and Rove can't get him back trapped in the White House with the buffoon he turned into a king. No, he's got to be out in America, using whoever he needs to find the ex-leather slave, whose jaws throb in painful memory of cocks and ball gags, for no one escapes Karl Rove. The ex-leather slave isn't sure who it will be, Thompson, maybe, or, god, no, Giuliani - the idea of Rove and Giuliani together is like mixing ammonium nitrate and kerosene and shoving it up his ass.

The ex-leather slave wants to warn people about this man, this Karl, this Rove, this ferocious, bejowled sociopath, this lamprey, this parasite seeking a host. But if he does, he risks everything. He is, after all, just Karl Rove's ex-leather slave, trying desperately to avoid being trussed up for another four years.

In Brief: White House to Louisiana: You Don't Need No Stinkin' Levees:
The Rude Pundit's hitting the skies today, leaving Red State America behind once again. He'll have more to say about the forgotten Katrina landscape later this week. But for now, in case you were wondering if the White House could dick over Louisiana just a little bit more, you're in luck.

Seems that the White House is threatening to veto a water resources bill that was negotiated between Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress, that passed with overwhelming support in the House, and that included levee and coastal restoration projects to help prevent large-scale hurricane damage in south Louisiana, including an area directly affecting 120,000 people.

The White House has made noise about the potential wetland impact of the levee system and the cost of the bill. But let's be clear: the other reason the White House is gonna veto this fucker is because it's a model of the kind of bipartisanship it desperately wants the Congress to avoid. The bill itself shows that politicians can function, and the Bush administration can't have that. It totally fucks up the White House's narrative that only it can rise above the fray with solutions.

That's not to mention that the White House was left out of the loop on the negotiations. The threatened veto, which might not be overridden, makes the President seem like the fourth guy in a room where a menage a trois is occurring, pissed off that he's consigned to watching rather than filling an orifice. Of course, that's one kind of man, a selfish prick. Another more decent, fulfilled man might enjoy the sight of such carnal pleasure in motion and sit this one out.

Up, up, and away.

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Teach a Romney Brother or Two the Joys of Man Love:


Serving their country, Josh and Tagg Romney visit "the world's largest bull," or, more appropriately, the world's largest plaster of Paris bull, in Iowa. It's sort of like being pinned down in Baquba by small arms fire and the occasional RPG under 120 degree heat while wearing 50-pounds of equipment, except with more, you know, bull.

You know why the Romney boys are not signing up for the military? Goddamn, the answer's so simple and logical and in line with their father's philosophy that it's staring us in the face. It's so obvious that you wonder why Mitt doesn't just use the truth. It's because each and every one of the five brothers must be gay. Out in the fields of Iowa, they must have been lapping down farm boy chowder like it was pouring from Brigham Young's ass. And the military still doesn't allow practicing homosexuals to join up. So, really, they're just being patriots.

C'mon, Ben, Craig, Josh, Matt, and Tagg. If you tell us that, then we'll understand why not a single one of you has volunteered for the war your father wants to have other people killed for.

Rude Thanks to the Bloggers Who Crashed Here Over the Last Week:
Man, queer love, black cock, and abusive parents. Ah, prom night. And also the last week of guest bloggers at the Rude Pundit's joint.

Let's give it up for African American Opinion of African American Political Pundit, Shark-Fu of Angry Black Bitch, Angry Independent of Mirror on America, Terrance of Republic of T, and the ubiquitous Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend and Pandagon.

The Rude Pundit was gonna send them sea shells, but then the hermit crabs bit him and he tossed those fuckers back in the ocean. That'll teach 'em.

Poppy Bush Loves George, Not Us:
Monster movies have taught us many things: our inability to control mad science, the way fearsome beasts are pussies when confronted with fire, nuclear radiation does bad things. Basic but meaningful lessons that inform our daily lives among the monsters. And there's one lesson filled with pathos but remarkable in its logic: if you create something that goes on a rampage (and you're not an evil mad scientist - just a, well, plain ol' mad one), it's pretty much your responsibility to kill it or at least tell people how to stop it before it totally wipes out a village or Tokyo or the world. Sure, you can have regrets, talk about how your three-armed giant toad/human hybrid is just acting on toad instinct, but that slimy motherfucker's gotta be suckin' down a grenade, blowing its viscosity (and its sadly human heart) all over downtown before the credits roll.

So, demonstrating once again that old money means never having to say you're sorry, it seems that George H. W. Bush, the older one, the boob father who couldn't manhunt Manuel Noriega without tearing up half of Panama, thus offering a template for future fuckery, is feeling sad that people say mean things about his son. How much of a wimp is HW? Apparently, it causes him "pain" when someone he knows says, "I love you, sir, but your son’s way off base here." Jesus, what would happen if one of his inner circle said, "I have nothing but the high hard man love for you, dude, but, goddamn, this fuckin' tard son of yours is gonna make sure we're all walkin' around with information chips up our asses, suckin' poison air through gas masks while we're all gettin' suicide blown to shit at the malls, our zombie soldiers keep fighting even after they've had their arms and guts shot to hell, and Congress doesn't even take a piss without his say so, and I think he'd like it that way."

In her lubricious hummer of an article in the New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg doesn't neglect Poppy's balls, either: "he likens himself to a Little League father whose kid is having a rough game. And like the proud and angry Little League dad who cannot help but yell at the umpire, sometimes he just cannot help getting involved." See? It's all like Little League, except the home team is deciding the rule book as it goes and none of the cute kiddies are driving over IEDs. Yet. Recruitment goals must be met, you know.

Stolberg licks Poppy's taint while giving creepy details of the family's relationship: "When the clan is in Kennebunkport, all the Bush children, the president included, stream into their parents’ bedroom at the crack of dawn for coffee." Yes, stories are told throughout the Bush family about Barbara Bush, very much the matriarch, having each child, in turn, pretend to suckle at her dried-fig dugs, telling them to "Have a little of Mommy's cream in your Colombian." Unless you're rich enough to buy an entire nation, you wouldn't understand.

If you were a friend of Poppy, you might give him some advice: "Would you fuckin' do something about your twit man-child before he wrecks the joint?" Andrew Card could tell whenever Poppy called his son: "Sometimes he’d ask me a probing question. And I’d think, Hmm, I don’t think that question came from him." That's right. If George W. Bush, our current goddamn President, asked something more than, "You think it's funny that Afghanistan and Pakistan and all those other countries end in 'Stan'? I think I'll call 'em 'the Stans,' so whenever I say, 'What's up with the Stans?' that's what I'm talkin' about. Should I issue an executive order to that effect?" then the question came from Poppy.

Of course, sometimes, Satan's just sitting there in a buried line, daring you to find him. Stolberg writes, "The former president is often asked how he steers clear of second-guessing his son, and his answer is always the same: that he is not qualified to second-guess because only the occupant of the Oval Office has complete access to the kind of intelligence reports that inform presidential decisions." Now, throughout the debate about the debate about debating the war, President Bush, this one, kept saying that Congress saw the same intelligence he did. It was the de facto buck pass. Now, here's Bush's father saying, "No, only the President sees it all." Any right wing bag of spooge who spouted that line endlessly wanna take it back?

The entire article tells us that blood is thicker than nation, that it's easier fall back on bromides like, as Stolberg quotes, the father "supports his son 'in every single way with every fiber of my body,'" that sometimes Dr. Frankenstein says we can all go fuck ourselves - he just created the monster and isn't it cool to just watch it wreck the town?

Poisonous Parenting?

It started when Pam saw the same news story I did, and had the same thoughts. I hadn't planned on writing this series, but lately some right wing whack jobs have been chafing my ass like a polyester g-string with their notions that LGBT parents are selfish, abusive mofo's, by virtue of being queer. Motherhood and fatherhood, apparently, is all about who you fuck.

Never mind that just about anybody who can pee straight can make a baby, while most queer parents have to jump through the flaming hoops of adoption or IVF to become parents. Apparently, jonsin' for the right set of genitals is enough to make you a better candidate for babydaddy/babbymamahood than queers who have the misfortune of not being able to fall down drunk and get up pregnant. (We've tried. Believe me, we've tried.)

As I've said previously, their fucked up logic is that while being straight doesn't automatically make you a good parent, it makes you a better candidate for parenthood than a queer, because you can't be gay and be a good parent no matter what the research says. I didn't it made any fucking sense, but for people who also believe they're gonna eat pie in the sky with Jesus while they watch the earth burn, sometime next week, it's as close to making sense as they'll every get.

So I decided to see what I could learn from some of these superior heterosexual parents.

I didn't have to look far. Right in my back yard, a mother had four dead babies in and around her house.

Investigators were trying to determine Tuesday why a woman accused of causing her baby to be stillborn had bruises on her body when she was found bleeding last week.

Police say Christy Freeman, 37, had bruises on her legs, stomach and forearm. She told police she was not pregnant, but changed her story to say she had given birth to a deformed baby, calling it "gloopity glop."

A 26-week-old male fetus was found wrapped in a bloody towel under her bathroom sink.

Freeman was being held without bond Tuesday, as investigators continued to excavate the grounds at her home in a search that has turned up four tiny sets of remains, including the 26-week-old male fetus.

Well, I can see where she's got it all over me. I can squeeze "gloopity glop" from my cock into a towel all day long (and in my younger days I used to do just that, but having a kid pretty much sucks up that extra time) and not even come close to filling up a bloody towel, let alone four. Godamm, Chrissy. You're goooooooooood.

There are a whole host of issues we could talk about here, the on that occurred to me was the same one that occurred to Pam.

Of course, the fundamentalists are more concerned about whether gays can adopt or foster children, not whether all children are safe and cared for, regardless of the caregiver's orientation.

I should have learned from that heterosexual couple in Georgia to just leave my kid in the car while I have dinner, go shopping, etc.

A 1-year-old boy was found dead Wednesday in a locked car in temperatures approaching 100 degrees in Orofino, Idaho. The boy’s stepgrandmother was charged, the authorities said. The sweltering temperatures in Idaho were part of a heat wave sweeping parts of the West. In St. George, Utah, temperatures hit 111 by 1:30 p.m., a day after a nearby weather sensor recorded an unofficial reading of 118, which would top the state’s record of 117 set in St. George in 1985. Around Las Vegas, where temperatures reached 109 degrees before 1 p.m., transformers were overheating and causing fires, said Scott Allison with the Clark County Fire Department. In Phoenix the high temperature was 115.

Here's I've been giving my kid the occasional kiss on the cheek, when I could have bitten an ear off instead.

A man accused of biting off the lip and ear of his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter pleaded not guilty Thursday and was ordered held without bail.

Bryan James, 34, was charged with assault and battery upon a child causing substantial bodily injuries. Police said the attack left the girl so mutilated doctors could not fully repair the damage.

The child's mother, Jessica Silveria, 26, pleaded not guilty to permitting substantial injuries to a child under 14 and intimidation of a witness. She was also ordered held without bail.

The girl lost the upper part of her lip and her ear was so mutilated that surgery could not return it to its natural state. The child also suffered other human bites on her body, New Bedford police Capt. Richard Spirlet said.

"She's small, brown hair, brown eyes -- great smile," the child's father, Eric Offley, said outside the courthouse. "You know, now that's taken away from her."

Again, I miles behind this guy. Plus, I'm a vegetarian. (Yeah, yeah. I know a gay vegetarian still eats "meat" of a sort. I don't generally bite it off. But, then, I've never been asked).

Plus, my kid's already behind developmentally. He's four and hasn't had his first drunken police chase yet.

Police who chased a car for miles along a highway at speeds up to 100 mph said the driver was drunk, hardly a rarity in this resort town. But there was more: When they looked inside the flipped vehicle with guns drawn, they found an 11-year-old girl at the wheel.

"You go up there thinking it's a felon you're dealing with," assistant police Chief Greg Duck said.

The girl, who was slightly injured in the crash, is now charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding, reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of an accident. Duck said she sideswiped another vehicle during the roughly 8-mile chase.

And here this girl's already catching up to Lindsey Lohan, at the tender age of 11, fine example of the outcome of hetero-parenting that she is.

He hasn't even had his first exorcism yet.

Officers responding to a report of an exorcism on a young girl found her grandfather choking her and used stun guns to subdue the man, who later died, authorities said Sunday.

The 3-year-old girl and her mother, who was also in the room during the struggle between 49-year-old Ronald Marquez and officers, were hospitalized, police said. Their condition was unavailable.

..."The purpose was to release demons from this very young child," said Sgt. Joel Tranter.

Officers arrived at the house Saturday and entered when they heard screaming coming from a bedroom, Tranter said.

A bed had been pushed up against the door; the officers pushed it open a few inches and saw Marquez choking his bloodied granddaughter, who was crying in pain and gasping, Tranter said.

A bloody, naked 19-year-old woman who police later determined to be Marquez's daughter and the girl's mother was in the room, chanting "something that was religious in nature," Tranter said.

Demons? Awwww, fuck. I hadn't even thought about the demons yet, lousy parent that I am.

I've been letting my kid ride in his car seat, instead of in the trunk.

A D.C. man has pleaded not guilty to child endangerment charges in a Massachusetts court after being accused of forcing his two daughters into the trunk of his car.

Michael Fekete faces child endangerment charges following the alleged incident Sunday afternoon in Foxborough.

Authorities said it happened outside a nursing home where the girls were visiting their grandmother. Police said witnesses reported seeing Fekete stuff the 9- and 11-year-old girls into the trunk, then let them out and put them in the back seat.

It wasn't clear how long the children were in the trunk. Temperatures were about 93 degrees in the area.

Fekete's attorney said the kids asked to be put in the trunk.

Damn. My kid has asked to wait in the car before, but I insisted on taking him inside with me. Every time.

Well, maybe I can make up for it when I drive him to his first gang fight.

Mothers have lied, spun elaborate alibis and hidden evidence for their gang-member sons. But investigators say Eva Daley went to murderous lengths.

Daley, 30, drove her 14-year-old son and six other members of the Latin Marijuana Smokers gang to a skate park to kill a 13-year-old boy they had a grudge against, police say. The boy, Jose "Bobby" Cano, was stabbed to death.

...Daley and the seven teenagers were charged with murder in the June 26 slaying near the squalid skate park in this port city of 462,000 about 25 miles south of Los Angeles.

Daley was jailed on $1 million bail and pleaded not guilty Tuesday. The teens, ages 14 to 17, face hearings to determine whether they will be tried as adults. Police said at least three more juveniles are being sought.

...Police said Daley knew her son and the others planned to kill Cano.

"She wasn't taking them there to play in the park," Officer Jackie Bezart said.

And I guess giving your child Xanax makes it easier to choke the shit out of them. (Something that's crossed the mind of any honest parent, on average of once every 12 hours. But faggots like me probably don't have the wrist strength to do that right either.)

Investigators found testosterone, painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs in the body of professional wrestler Chris Benoit, who killed his wife and son last month before hanging himself in his Atlanta home, a medical examiner said Tuesday.

Dr. Kris Sperry, Georgia's chief medical examiner, said the body of Benoit's wife, Nancy, also contained painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs.

Sperry said it's likely the Benoits' 7-year-old son, Daniel, was sedated at the time he was murdered, because a high level of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax was found in the boy's system.

Xanax is not normally prescribed for children, Sperry said.

Of course, our house isn't nearly filthy enough, and our son hasn't gotten his first firearm yet. So, that's probably why he hasn't shot us in the face, yet.

A 13-year-old girl used a shotgun to fatally shoot her father in the head early Monday in a home overrun with animals and filth, police said.

The girl told investigators she used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot 34-year-old Matthew Booth in the face while he was in bed, according to a police affidavit.

A police complaint did not identify a motive in the killing, but her mother, Michelle Fazek, who was separated from Booth, said she had complained several times to county child welfare officials that her daughter and her brother, 14, were living in squalor and that her daughter had been abused.

"I just want to see her," Fazek said. "She must be so scared."

... The house in Elizabeth Township, about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh was in deplorable condition, police said.

"They had a number of animals, dogs, cats and rabbits. They hadn't cleaned up after them," said James Morton, assistant superintendent of Allegheny County Police. The two-story frame house had dirty, peeling white siding, and a downstairs window was boarded up.

Matthew Booth's neighbor Suzanne Gruber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the girl had told her she had killed her father because she "just couldn't take it any more." Gruber said the girl also told her she had been abused.

Fuck. If we hadn't potty trained the kid, we'd be miles ahead by now. We just vacuumed yesterday. Oh well, at least I hadn't loaded the dishwasher yet.

Plus I sent my kid out in clean clothes today. Never thought about tying him and letting him soil himself.

They were often handcuffed, tethered together with plastic ties and allowed to soil themselves, investigators say. They had scars on their wrists. Some had burns.

None appeared to have more than a fourth-grade education, not even the adults in their 20s. All were starving.

In all, nine teenagers and young adults were held like prisoners in Judith Leekin's home in what appeared to be a decades-long scheme to line her pockets with the government payments she received for adopting and raising them, police say.

... According to authorities, she was unemployed and lived off the monthly stipends provided by child welfare authorities in New York. She owned at least two homes and several cars. The adopted children said they had never seen a doctor or a dentist and had not been allowed to attend school or even leave the house.

"These people have not received any formal education in the time they've been with her," Bartal said. "At times when they were restricted with handcuffs or zip ties, during the night, they soiled themselves because they weren't permitted to go to the bathroom."

They were fed only noodles, and "they would have eventually starved to death," Bartal said.

The 18-year-old told police Leekin threatened to cut her head off if she told anyone what was happening, authorities said.

"Was there any kind of emotional attachment? Yes, it was fear," Bartal said.

And here I am working for a living. Plus my kid runs to greet me every evening when I get home.

So, I've learned a lot in the past month from people who are inherently better suited for parenthood than me because they're not gay. To be fair, though, not all heterosexual parents meet this standard. Like Derek Fisher, who left a professional basketball career to take care of his sick daughter.

The Utah Jazz agreed to release guard Derek Fisher from his contract Monday so he can concentrate on finding the best care for his 11-month-old daughter, who has cancer in her left eye.

Fisher said he wants to live in one of the six or seven cities being considered for Tatum's care.

He didn't rule out playing for another NBA team but emphasized that his daughter's health is his No. 1 priority.

"Life for me outweighs the game of basketball," Fisher told reporters after flying from New York to meet with Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and other team executives.

"When it comes to decisions related to them," he said of his family, "I do what's best."

... In May, his daughter was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a cancerous tumor in her left eye. The danger is that it could spread to her brain or the rest of her body.

Fisher at times fought exhaustion trying to balance basketball and his daughter's welfare. He spent a day at a New York hospital in May, then flew to Utah for a Western Conference semifinal game against Golden State.

Of course, I'd do the same thing if my kid were sick. It's what any good parent would do. (Though I'm not sure how it jibes with of the above.) And Fisher deserves cred for stepping up. But the reality is that doing the same thing would actually not make me a good parent, because I'm a gay parent, which is inherently and irredeemably selfish and abusive.

Any doubts I may have had about that are erased when I consider the story Dana covered earlier, about the lesbian mom who can't get visitation rights and has stopped fighting her "ex-lesbian" partner for the right to see their daughter.

Earlier this year, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that an estranged lesbian partner does not have visitation rights of her ex-partner's child simply because the two shared parenting duties while they were together. The plaintiff in the Jones v. Barlow case says she has no plans to appeal to the nation's highest court.

"My fear is that it would just cause a bigger problem," says Keri Jones. "The federal court is not swayed toward our side. Just imagine what it did on the local level to the families below me. Having that kind of ruling on a national level would be horrific. The whole thing is probably just not a good idea."

Jones says she is also concerned about the effect any further legal battles would have on the child she calls her daughter. Others involved in similar situations are already feeling the fallout of Jones v. Barlow. Gina Herrera and her ex-partner had nearly agreed upon a visitation schedule when the court rendered its decision. Herrera's ex then took visitation of their child away, despite a contract to protect Herrera's rights that was drawn up prior to the birth of the child. Herrera hopes the court will decide in her favor.

Funny, isn't it. You can fail to do all that the parents above did, and instead give your child nothing but care and love. But at the end of the day, your not a fit parent. You're not even a "real" parent. Despite what Utah's Chief Justice said

The Utah Chief Justice dissented from the February ruling, however, writing "While this case is, in part, about parental rights, it is also about whether children in nontraditional families, with nontraditional but nonetheless real parents, are entitled to have their interests addressed just as if they had been born into traditional families.”

Except that they're not. At least not in Utah.

So, when I hear talk about "strengthening families" — whether from White House proclamations or Democratic leadership — I'll just keep asking when and how that's going to apply to ours. I can be an irritating little fucker that way, sometimes.

My Administration is committed to strengthening American families by supporting Federal, State, and faith-based and community programs that promote healthy marriages and responsible parenting.

I know the president and his base don't include our families in that. And if we want our friends to include in their promises to strengthen families, we gotta keep reminding them. Every chance we get.

Crossposted from The Republic Of T.

[Ed. Note: Thanks to "Rude" for the opportunity! I don't cuss nearly as much on my own blog. But that can change. Come find me at The Republic of T.!]

Big black buck blowjob

"Here's the unmentionable secret: Racism isn't that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It's rapidly becoming an ugly memory."
-- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, back in the day (Fox News Sunday, October 6, 2003)

Well he got one part right -- no sensible person supports it. Take the story of Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R-of course). He also served as John McCain campaign’s co-chairman in Florida. He had a 90% Christian Coalition voting record. But he also allegedly had a taste for big black man meat.

Rep. Allen picked the restroom at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Titusville to satisfy his need for chocolate oral pleasure. As he cruised the stalls, he solicited an undercover male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform suck off the black man in blue for $20. Yes, he was going to pay to perform.

When the cop lifted his shirt and showed Allen the badge, imagine what kind of excuses ran through his mind to explain away the encounter -- the devil made him do it? Drugs? Booze?

Those all would have made sense. Too easy. All of the GOP sexual hypocrites have it down pat -- just check into rehab and hope everyone will forget about the indiscretion.

No. Bob Allen reached back into the recesses of his bigoted mind and probably said "Eureka! The big black buck made me do it! He was about to mug me and I needed to do anything to beat a path from these dangerous darkies."

State Rep. Bob Allen told police he was just playing along when a undercover officer suggested in a public restroom that the legislator give him oral sex and $20 because he was intimidated, according to a taped statement and other documents released Thursday.

…”This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he “was about to be a statistic” and would have said anything just to get away. Allen, who couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday, has repeatedly declared his innocence, his intention to fight the charges and his desire to stay in office.

For a man scared out of his f*cking gourd at the Giant Stocky Negro about to attack him, Allen sure handled himself well with this improv, from the police report:

The officer: “I was standing against the far wall of the stall. Allen closed the door behind him and stood against it. I said “what’s up” and Allen said “Hi.” Allen then said “this is kind of a public place isn’t it.” I said “do you have somewhere else where we can go?” Allen said “How about across the bridge it’s quite [sic] over there.” Allen engaged me in a conversation in which he agreed to pay me $20.00 in order to perform a “blow job” on me.”

The above exchange took place after Allen entered the restroom twice cruising, peeped over the stall wall at the officer and then pushed open the door to join the officer to proposition him.

We should all react with such innovative self-defense maneuvers when confronted by a menacing Big Black Buck in the Bathroom. Penis-in-mouth = getaway car.

**

Many thanks to The Rude One for letting me drop by again (read my guest post from last year, It's All About the Sex). You can read slightly less rude material at Pam's House Blend.