Donald Trump Is Fucking Insane So He Is Probably Going to Win the Nomination

If we lived in a fair country with a fair media and fair-minded people able to see things fairly, Donald Trump's insane speech last night would be his Howard Dean scream moment. You remember the Howard Dean scream, where a microphone picked up and isolated the Vermont governor's enthusiastic cheerleading to rally a bunch of his voters at a post-primary loss event. Separated from the cheers he was trying to be heard over, his scream sounded like an unhinged parrot having an orgasm. Of course, it more or less ended his campaign for the 2004 Democratic nomination because the media replayed it over and over, seriously questioning Dean's sanity, even though its existence just shows what can happen when you separate a single sound from its context, like a Britney Spears vocal track.

Yesterday, in Iowa, GOP frontrunner and walking advertisement for loudmouthed, barrel-shaped men, Donald Trump, gave a 95-minute speech where he called Iowans and Americans "stupid" for wanting to vote for a pathological, child molesterish madman, which wasn't Trump himself, but Ben Carson. He attacked Carson savagely (and to this viewer's delight), mocking the stories by Carson that he was violent in his youth. You truly need to see that segment of the speech, which includes Trump eye-rolling, yelling, and, finally, as pictured above, trying to get someone to attempt to stab him in the belt buckle to see if the knife will break, as Carson claims happened to him.

And, considering the amount of time Trump spent talking about how amazing and prescient he was about everything, as well as promising to "bomb the shit" out of ISIS (no, really, those quotation marks are needed because he said that), the increasingly mortified and uncomfortable crowd might not have been surprised if Trump had dropped his pants, sat on the ground, pulled his legs back, and started sucking his own dick, pausing only to narrate how great his dick tastes and how everyone should want to suck his dick because it just feels good to have his dick there, jizzing into his throat and swallowing his own cum, triumphantly, before bringing out his daughter for a kiss.

If this isn't the end for Trump, if Fox "news" doesn't play this on an endless loop like it did Dean's scream, then you better be ready, GOP, because it's gonna be Trump or Carson and either way lies a kind of madness and irrelevance.

Addressing the Real Problems at Mizzou, Not the Fake Ones

The Rude Pundit, being a professor and all (really, tenured and everything), ran into another professor who, it happens, is in media studies. Walking across campus, the prof asked the Rude Pundit what he thought about the incident where University of Missouri communications professor Melissa Click called for "muscle" to block reporters from covering the encampment of anti-racism protesters on the school grounds. "What she did was fucking stupid," he said, "and that's not even getting into the plantation mentality of a white professor demanding mostly black students act violently for her."

The media studies prof agreed. Click was stupid, and as professors, it pained us to see her make herself so much a part of the story. "But," he added, "really she just said something in the heat of the moment that she didn't mean."

The Rude Pundit responded, "Yeah, but that's exactly the kind of thing that some people protest over and make other people lose their jobs." He was referring to incidents where somebody, in a heated moment, says or writes (and sends) something racist or awful.

We also agreed that Click shouldn't lose her job over it. Click has apologized, been stripped of any duties in the journalism department, and will probably keep her position. That's the way this should head. It should go that way for Jenna Basler, a staff member with Student Life at MU, who has also apologized for her interactions with the reporters. People are allowed to say stupid things, and, as long as they do not act on their stupidity in a way that harms others (if, say, Click had failed students who were trying to report on the story), then there is no reason, short of revenge, to force someone out.

This doesn't go for the administrators at MU who resigned. MU President Tim Wolfe fucked up. He ignored real and consequential racist actions on his campus. He ignored students who appealed to him to do something. MU student Jonathan Butler put it this way: "We’ve sent emails, we’ve sent tweets, we’ve messaged but we’ve gotten no response back from the upper officials at Mizzou to really make change on this campus." Let's be honest: the main reason Wolfe resigned is because the football team threatened to boycott a game, which would have cost MU a million bucks in penalties to the NCAA. You can bet the Board of Trustees pretty much told him to get the fuck out or they would fire his ass. But the fact that the situation had gotten so bad that it got the football team, including the coaches, involved is damning enough.

And, let's be honest, again, in addition to Click, everyone involved in the effort to block student journalist Tim Tai from entering the area is pretty much wrong. The organizers were wrong for putting up the signs banning the media. The protesters were wrong to form a human wall around Tai and allowing this whole thing to even occur. Tai was wrong for not backing off and trying to find another angle or report on the blocking of media as the story. MU student Mark Schierbecker wasn't wrong for filming the incident but was totally fucking wrong for filing an assault complaint against Click with MU police department and for saying, after Click personally apologized to him, "[M]y number one priority...is making sure she never teaches ever again."

Students will do stupid shit because they're fucking students. They're brand new adults, really, truly, and they're going to do things to excess. It's the way it goes when you're learning to negotiate the world before you get your sea legs.

We need to be able to separate these excesses from the real issues. The Rude Pundit could very easily tell kids to get off his lawn with their goddamned safe spaces and microaggressions. He could very easily give in to the urge to say these are whining, privileged, PC-clinging delicate flowers. But that's a punk-ass way to deal with some genuine problems that exist underneath the whining. Doing that gets you out of confronting the fucking racists who fucking are to blame for this fucking situation in the first fucking place.

As Tai said in an entirely rational and reasonable tweet, "I'm a little perturbed at being part of the story, so maybe let's focus some more reporting on systemic racism in higher ed institutions." That's the thing: it is so easy to discredit a movement based on its excesses. It is far, far more difficult to take it seriously and make necessary changes. But, at the same time, like it or not, a movement like Concerned Student 1950 needs to be aware of external perceptions (or, you know, "optics," as they say in the PR business) and cognizant of when something is excessive (which, yes, is in the rage-filled eye of the beholder) and those in positions of authority need to fucking know better than the students they need to guide.

One last note: If you're making death threats on anyone involved in any of this, no matter which side you're on, you should have a shit swastika smeared on you.

Random Observations on Last Night's GOP Money Orgy

1. The Rude Pundit's said it before, but it bears saying again: What fucking country were the GOP candidates talking about last night? Because, as ever, each one had the argument that the United States is a scorched hellscape beset by socialist demons just waiting for their full-bosomed queen, Hillary Clinton, to rise up and allow them to suckle at her many teats and only a brave warrior like John Kasich or Carly Fiorina could vanquish the Democratic succubus before she brings an eternity of darkness and unending suffering to the greatest country in the history of everything (except now because, you know, hellscape).

In other words, anything that we might call "reality" barely pierced through the air of manufactured despair conjured by the Republicans on at the main debate on Fox Business Network (motto: "Do you want Lou Dobbs freely roaming the countryside?").

2. Apparently, though, what the Republicans want is a United States where there are no laws. Here's just a partial list of what the candidates want to repeal or cut or get rid of:

A. Rubio: "On the regulatory side I think we need to repeal every rule that Barack Obama has in terms of work in progress, every one of them."

B. Rubio: "The clean power act, we ought to repeal that and -- and start over on that. The waters of the United States act, which is going to be devastating for agriculture and many industries, we should repeal that. We should repeal the rules because the economic costs of this far exceed the social benefit." (It should probably be noted that those two acts don't exist. The Clean Power Plan is an executive order based on a plan that stalled in the Congress in 2005. And the "Waters of the United States" thing is a clarification of a definition in the Clean Water Act, which exists in its current form after being signed by President Nixon.)

C. Fiorina: "Obamacare has to be repealed because it's failing the very people it was intended to help."

D. Rubio: "We need to repeal Dodd-Frank as soon as possible."

E. Paul: "The first thing I would do as president is repeal the regulations that are hampering our energy that the President has put in place, including the Clean Power Act."

This is not to mention all the tax cuts, department eliminations, and more. Basically, the Republicans want to gut everything that keeps the nation safe from polluters, corruption, and predatory capitalism, even minimally, and toss them steaming onto the free enterprise floor. So what they want is anarchy out of which they can create a police state. It's the only logical conclusion.

3. Ben Carson thinks the best time in American economic history is when the country had slaves. No, really: "This country was -- declared its independence in 1776. In less than 100 years, it was the number-one economic power in the world. And the reason was because we had an atmosphere that encouraged entrepreneurial risk- taking and capital investment. Those are the fuels that drive it." His point was something like "Blah, blah, blah, regulations." But for a good three-quarters of that century, the American economy was built on the backs of slaves, an industry that, okay, yeah, was not highly regulated. And, well, shit, you could argue that the Emancipation Proclamation was a job-killing new law. You got us there, Dr. Carson. Go be president of your house now and pledge allegiance to your Klingon Jesus painting.

4. Two "Fuck you, you fucking fucks" moments:
A. Rubio said, passionately, spittily (as he said most things), "The most important job I'm ever going to have, the most important job anyone in this room will ever have, is the job of being a parent. Not the job of being president, or the job of being a senator, or the job of being a congressman." No, fuck you, man. If you're president, the most important job is taking care of everyone else's family, not yours.

B. Fiorina said, passionately, spitefully (as she said most things), "Can I just -- could I just say, as a chief executive who's had to make tough calls to save jobs and to grow jobs..." and then who the fuck cares about what she said because, fuck her, she lost more jobs than she created at HP.

5. A cookie for whoever can tell what the fuck Donald Trump is talking about here in answer to a question about Russian aggression in Ukraine (not "the Ukraine," goddamnit) and Syria: "Well, first of all, it's not only Russia. We have problems with North Korea where they actually have nuclear weapons. You know, nobody talks about it, we talk about Iran, and that's one of the worst deals ever made. One of the worst contracts ever signed, ever, in anything, and it's a disgrace. But, we have somebody over there, a madman, who already has nuclear weapons we don't talk about that. That's a problem.

"China is a problem, both economically in what they're doing in the South China Sea, I mean, they are becoming a very, very major force. So, we have more than just Russia. But, as far as the Ukraine is concerned, and you could Syria -- as far as Syria, I like -- if Putin wants to go in, and I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates, and we did very well that night."

What the fuck is that? Stablemates? Is Trump saying that Putin was the stallion and he fucked the filly, Trump? Is that what doing "very well that night" means? Yes. Definitely.

6. If you really think that the length of a law or the number of words in a tax code is a significant issue, you are definitely too fucking dumb to be president, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.

7. The scariest thing about the evening is how much spending mattered on everything except when it came to the military. Only Rand Paul stood there and said, more or less, "Goddamn, you're all fucking hypocrites" about the debt. That led craven attention whore Marco Rubio to say, "We can't even have an economy if we're not safe. There are radical jihadist in the Middle East beheading people and crucifying Christians. A radical Shia cleric in Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon, the Chinese taking over the South China Sea..." This came shortly after most of the candidates had scoffed at the idea of raising the minimum wage (to the wild applause of the repellent audience). So the only thing that is worth spending wildly on is the military. Screw health care. Screw infrastructure. Screw it all, man, except blowing shit up.

8. There was a rumor that Jeb Bush was at the debate.

9. Yes, Rubio and Ted Cruz, we get it. Your parents were immigrants. But, you know, if you came from Cuba post-revolution, you were allowed to jump the immigration line because of our paranoia about Castro. So, really, guys, it's dumb fuckin' luck and red-baiting that got your parents in so easily.

10. Mostly, though, at the end of the day, you were just left wondering shit. Like the fact that the destructive fracking boom happened under Obama and helped drop the bottom out of oil prices, yet the candidates talked like Obama was personally punching oil companies in the balls. Or like the fact that jobs have been created, the economy is improving, and we're in a fuck of a lot better position than we were when the last Republican finished up in the White House, yet the candidates acted like Hillary Clinton will declare martial law and force all entrepreneurs into bankruptcy. And not a goddamn one of them had any idea what to do once they repeal the Affordable Care Act (except for Fiorina's legitimately, disturbingly dumb remark about trying the "free market" for health care, as if that wasn't what we had prior to the ACA).

What was clear, though, is that every time one of these truly deranged savages opened their foul mouths, they disqualified themselves from serious consideration for any goddamn political job.

In Brief: Ted Cruz Doesn't Think You Should Be President If You Don't Give Head Every Morning

The Rude Pundit is not making this up. Creepy ass Ted Cruz, senator from Texas, GOP presidential candidate, said last Friday, "Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this country." So apparently, the fellatio and/or cunnilingus abilities of the president must be top-notch, the knees strong, the mouth muscles pliant, the lips moist, in order for Ted Cruz to allow that person to go tell troops where to kill Muslims.

Cruz was speaking at the National Religious Liberties Conference, which strangely didn't have much to do with the liberty of any other religion than Christianity, in Who the fuck Cares, Iowa (let's say, "Des Moines"). He had been asked, no, really, if presidential candidates should "submit to Jesus Christ." That's right. You've gotta be the submissive of Christ, like in a BDSM relationship. And that zombie motherfucker knows something about flogging.

By the way, the guy doing the asking was Pastor Kevin Swanson, a sucker of goat cock and the head of a group that, in other times, we'd call a "cult." Earlier in the day, Swanson had said that, if one of his sons said he was gay and invited dear ol' Daddy to his gay wedding of gayness, he'd put "sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and I'd sit in cow manure and I'd spread it all over my body." That's strangely how the Rude Pundit feels whenever he goes to church. Really, the only question left is if Swanson is secretly gay, secretly fucking other women, or secretly fondling children.

As for Cruz, he implored the crowd to get out and vote, saying that too many evangelicals stayed home in 2012 (because fuck that Mormon, man). "Is it any wonder the federal government is waging a war on life, on marriage, on religious liberty when Christians are staying home and our leaders are being elected by nonbelievers?" he pondered. By "war," Cruz means, "Not doing everything to make LGBT Americans miserable."

Swanson topped that bullshit, though. He said, and the Rude Pundit has to remind you that this is a real thing said by a real adult person in real seriousness and taken seriously by an audience of real adult people, "[I]t would be better for them that a millstone be hanged around their neck and they be drowned at the bottom of sea." The "them" in that sentence is children, who should be drowned rather than read or watch Harry Potter, which will turn you gay. That led to this hysterical (in both senses of the word) line: "America, repent of Harry Potter. America, repent of How To Train Your Dragon" because both have gay characters.

Well, at least the president will be too busy, down on his or her knees, just sucking off or eating out, to be concerned about the gayification of children.

Watch the GOP Debate Tonight with the Rude Pundit as Your Ear Buddy

Yep, yep, yep. The whiskey is ready and the audio works fine. The Rude Pundit, along with compadre Jeff Kreisler, will be mocking their asses off tonight during the GOP debate tonight on Fox Business Channel (motto: "Neil Cavuto Is Probably High").

Join us on Rabble.tv. If you sign up for free, you can send us comments throughout the evening.  If you don't like free commenting, you can just fuckin' listen. There's also an app. It's America in the 21st century, goddamnit. There's always an app.

We'll be on at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT for the big kids debate, not the one before where Mike Huckabee will be trying to make Chris Christie squeal like a pig or vice versa.

Watch the debate on yer TVs and tune us in on your computers or phones or pads or doohickeys or whatzits.  It'll be like the Rude Pundit's whiskey breath is cooing in your ears, talking about Ben Carson floating through the air to Stabbyland.

Listen in.

The Racist Hypocrisy of Ben Carson's Supporters

In Detroit, just this past June, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for intent to murder and felonious assault. The teenager, upset about something, fired a weapon in his home and injured his mom. While he could be tried as a juvenile, he might be "sentenced as an adult" or be given a "blended" juvenile and adult sentence.

In Flint, Michigan, just down the road, in April, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for assaulting his mother while she was driving them somewhere. The kid had pulled his mom's hair and tried to grab the steering wheel of the car.

Just last month, in Mercerburg, Pennsylvania, a 14-year-old stabbed his classmate in the stomach. He was arrested for attempted homicide.

All three of these 14-year-olds have faced the American criminal justice system. All three probably ended up doing at least some time in juvenile detention, with the possibility that they may also face some time in an adult prison.

Now let's take GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson at his word, just for the sake of making a point here, and accept his stories as true. By his own admission, at 14, growing up in Detroit, Carson not only stabbed at a kid/family member, but the knife broke on the victim's belt buckle. Prior to that, he had a history. He said, "As a teenager, I would go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers." That hammer incident, by the way, was his mother's head. In other words, really, when you get right down to it, except for one literal lucky break, Carson really isn't that different than the 14 year-olds listed above, except for having the good fortune to have grown up in the 1960s, pre-mandatory minimums and 3 strikes and the like. (By the way, the Rude Pundit's just scratching the surface of non-sexual assaults that 14-year-olds committed, including attacks with bricks, rocks, and baseball bats).

For decades, we've been told by conservatives that youths like teenage Ben Carson were monsters who needed to be taken out of the population and imprisoned. The right is quick to look at black youths, especially, as unrepentant criminals, deserving of whatever punishment is meted out by a cop on the spot, a la Michael Brown, or by a justice system that charges them as adults and puts them in penitentiaries with grown-up convicts. And the criminal justice system is willing, especially on a state and local level, to put kids in the adult prison population for crimes like theft or assault. (This doesn't even get into the school-to-prison pipeline that has been caused by the privatization of prisons, unfounded hysteria about youth crime, craven politicians looking for easy targets, and corrupt judges.)

But when it comes to Ben Carson, conservatives see in him someone who has overcome a violent past to be a leader in their movement (whatever that movement is anymore). Todd Starnes, in a column with the overwrought title, "The Media's Lynching of Ben Carson," summarizes this ability to overlook the very things that cause conservatives to condemn a generation of youths to a revolving door of prison and parole: "Ultimately, Dr. Carson's life story is not about condemnation -- it's about redemption." Well, no shit.

In the National Review, David French calls Carson, "An admirable though imperfect man who rose from abject poverty to the pinnacle of one of the most challenging professions in the nation — all while never forgetting his roots, maintaining grace and humility even as he earned riches and honors." Pre-presidential race, many more on the right were equally orgasmic in their praise of Carson.

If Carson is telling the truth about his youth, he should be the shining example of how forgiveness, rehabilitation, and social justice policies can turn around the lives of lots of black kids in abject poverty who have the same rage Carson says he had.

You can't support Ben Carson and support the savage nature way this nation deals with youth crime. Unless, obviously, you're conservative and just couldn't give a rat's ass about your own hypocrisy. You didn't have to deal with teenage Ben Carson. You only get to kiss his ass now that he's made it and shares your corrupted beliefs.

The Epically Awful New Donald Trump Radio Ads (and Other Stuff)

Yes, yes, we're all caught up in whether or not Ben Carson stabbed a guy 40 or 50 years ago or whether or not the pyramids were made by aliens so the amazing technicolor dreamcoat guy could store grain (teach the controversy, people).  And perhaps we're talking about how Chris Christie, once the man destined to smite all other candidates, has been outbullied on the campaign trail and now has to sit at the kids' table at the next GOP debate on November 10.

But let us pause to recognize that the man who out-assholed Christie, Donald Trump, just released his first radio ads, and they are so epically awful that they sound like some YouTube smartass's parodies of Trump ads.

In one of the two commercials, Trump himself does the talking over royalty-free generic patriotic music.  Sounding for all the world like every male used car dealer in the Northeast, Trump makes grand pronouncements about how unbelievably amazing his America will be. "The fact is," Trump says, "I'm going to make the greatest trade deals we've ever made in our country." Obviously, the meaning of the word "fact" doesn't matter here.

He goes on, "I'll...make our military so strong that nobody will mess with us." Just like no one ever messed with us during Reagan or Bush II's presidencies, except for all those times they messed with us (note: we've had the strongest military in the world for some time. We're still messed with).

"People of Iowa, vote for me and you'll never be disappointed," he assures us. "I don't disappoint people."  He might have followed that up with "Except for a few ex-wives and the employees at my businesses that went bankrupt and all those chumps who paid to go to Trump University, but none of them are real people like you people of Iowa."

The second one features a woman's voice and, if possible, is even more obnoxious. Trump "will stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking by building a wall on our southern border," she says, "and he will make Mexico pay for it." It sounds like there's an implied "or else" in there.

Even more violent, she informs us, "Donald Trump will protect Israel and brutally and quickly cut the head off of ISIS." Has anyone running for president ever promised brutality? That's kind of fucked up right there.  What does he mean by "brutally"? Is it "Trump will cut their throats in front of their children after raping their wives"? Is it "Donald Trump will bomb even more recklessly than we are bombing right now and will bathe in the gore of our enemies"?

Well, either way, "It's time to make America great again, maybe greater than ever before," she promises, as if saying, "He won't fuck up the progress we've made so far" because, let's face it, in terms of progress of rights, peace in the nation, crime, and lots of other measures, America is greater than ever before right now. In fact, except for a few times, generally brought on by Republican policies, America is always greater than it was, if for no other reason than medicine and technology and other shit that makes life better.

The tone of the ads suggests a guy who can fuck shit up when, really,  Trump is just a pampered rich punk with the voice of every egotistical street corner dickhead. That second ad says that he "learned the values of hard work, determination, and faith at an early age."  Nowadays, Trump says that he got a "a small loan" of a million bucks from his dad to start his business career. It was actually $9.6 million, according Trump in a 2007 deposition. Hard work and daddy's cash, just like Americans love.

What does it matter? Trump will make America great again. He says so. His hats say so. His ads say so. Brutally.

Other stuff: Two things came up while the Rude Pundit was writing this.

First, President Obama finally, at long last killed the Keystone XL pipeline, announcing it with as simple a response to his critics as he's ever mustered during his presidency: "So while our politics have been consumed by a debate over whether or not this pipeline would create jobs and lower gas prices, we’ve gone ahead and created jobs and lowered gas prices." Yup, pretty much. And, of course, Republicans are going full-blown rage monster about it. Next Tuesday's debate will be fun.

And we learned that the liberal media prevented Ben Carson from telling the truth about getting a full scholarship to West Point. Turns out, he never even applied. In an ordinary election cycle, his campaign would be over and he'd go on the Secular Progressives Suck speaking tour he's destined for. But, shit, this time around, he'll probably say baby Jesus forgave him and his poll numbers will go up.

Correction: A previous version said that the Joseph that Carson refers to was Jesus's stepdad. Wrong testament. It has been corrected. Thanks to rude reader Patrick B. for keeping him holy.

In Brief: Hillary Clinton's Embarrassing Love Note to Israel

Everyone knows that in order to be elected to any national position in the United States, you must pledge allegiance to Israel. Indeed, we have seen times when politicians try to top each other with how much they love Israel.

"I love Israel so much that I'd let Benjamin Netanyahu blow his load in my face after I was done sucking him off," some Democrat might say.

Inevitably, the Republican will come along and say, "That just proves you hate Israel. I'd tell Bibi Netanyahu, my good friend who loves to give me the bone on Passover, that he could fuck me in the ass and I'd still lick his dick clean." 

Pretty soon, there's felching, a rusty trombone, and maybe even a strawberry shortcake before it's all over.  Everyone's left sticky, exhausted, and not even a little ashamed because, goddamnit, they have to show voters that Israel matters more than anything else in the world.

So the Rude Pundit read with dismay Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's mash note to Israel, the Israeli people, and its president.  The 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is "an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel." Then she goes on about how she visited Israel in 1981, how "Bill and I fell in love with Jerusalem as we walked the ancient streets of the Old City. Even amid all the history and traditions, it was a city pulsing with life and energy."

By the end of the whole embarrassing piece, you can't help but think, "Damn, why don't you and Israel get a room, Hillary?"

Look this ain't about What Should Be Done to End the Violence. It's about a presidential candidate feeling like she has to take a knee to bow down to Israel, and this is not to mention the expansive pro-Israel promises of the slavering lapdogs of the GOP. Is there any other country that demands this of the U.S.? Is there any other country that our leaders and presumptive leaders demand be treated this way? No. It's a fuckin' rhetorical hostage situation that our politicians should feel free to escape from.

Late Post Today

Gotta fill the pyramid with grain. 

Back later with more Egyptological rudeness.