Two Women Kicked Conservatives' Ass This Weekend and It Was Glorious

1. Emma Gonzalez has a superhero origin story that is up there with Batman's. After her friends were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Gonzalez transformed from a smart, active, politically-aware teen looking forward to graduation into a goddamn warrior queen, a powerful avenger against the forces of evil that have dominated our politics for too long. Call her "the Skinhead Lesbian" and put a motherfuckin' cape on her.

Gonzalez had already given one of the most potent and angry speeches about the failure of adults, especially the adults supposedly serving the nation (but are really just serving the National Rifle Association), to do anything to address gun violence other than call for more violence. And on Saturday, at the March For Our Lives in Washington, DC., Gonzalez spoke for a couple of minutes and then stood there in silence, staring out at the sea of hundreds of thousands of people, stone cold except for the tears streaming down her face, for the remainder of the 6 minutes and 20 seconds, the same time it took for Nikolas Cruz to kill 17 and wound 17 others back in Parkland, Florida, a month and a half ago. What Gonzalez did emphasized both how short a time it was for so many to die and how long a time it was to wait in darkened classrooms, in closets, in bathrooms, behind locked doors, wondering if you are going to be murdered at your school.

Crazed Trump supporters and gun-humping conservatives are scared shitless by Gonzalez. They have attacked her looks and sexuality (the aforementioned "skinhead lesbian" remark that led to its speaker, a Republican - duh - to drop out of his race for the Maine legislature), photoshopped her tearing a copy of the Constitution (which was really a shooting range target), and criticized her for wearing a Cuban flag on her jacket (her father is from Cuba). Hell, craven scum fuck Rep. Steve King got in on the act, saying that Gonzalez was "ignor[ing] the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp." To which one can only say, "Asshole, that flag has been flying in Cuba since 1902. Should German-Americans never hang up a flag from their ancestors' country?"

This is the point where a rational pro-gun group would stand down, where rational pro-gun members of Congress would say, "Okay, let's negotiate," but these are not rational people. They are hideous money-engorging monsters who thrive on irrational fear and fake machismo. You can stand with them or you can stand with the vast majority of Americans who want gun control. You can stand with the desiccated, weary visage of the NRA's Wayne LaPierre or you can stand strong with Gonzalez.

Gonzalez didn't ask to become a superhero any more than Peter Parker asked to be bitten by a spider. She chose to take her pain and, along with her fellow students, turn it into courage and righteous anger. May we be a better nation because of it.

(Note: Amazing speeches were made all around the nation from students, from David Hogg to 11 year-old Naomi Wadler. Gonzalez's stood out because it used the incredible power of silence, something our noisy, word-filled, notification-dinging age has forgotten can convey more than a million memes.)

2. Man, Donald Trump must have been laying sullenly in bed after returning to DC last night, having spent the weekend avoiding protesters at Mar-a-Lago, which is less than an hour from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Seriously, it's right down the fucking road.) Trump must have been getting bits of Big Macs stuck in his fat folds as he watched the 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, the porn actress, director, and writer. How deranged he must have felt when Daniels said, plainly, she wasn't attracted to Trump, that she didn't want to fuck him after the first time because he lied about getting her on The Celebrity Apprentice, that she turned him into her bitch by spanking him with a magazine.

And, especially, that she came across as more honest, intelligent, and trustworthy than the goddamn President of the United States ever had been in his entire life. Yeah, that's right. The woman whose film roles include her taking copious amounts of jizz on her breasts is a way more respectable person than Donald Trump. Although, to be fair, there are moldy rocks that are more honorable than Trump.

Daniels, or, you know, Stephanie Clifford, was every bit as convincing as her lawyer said she would be. She confidently related how Trump got her to go back to his room, how he dangled the prize of the TV appearance over her, how he skeevily compared her to his daughter (presumable Ivanka, since Tiffany was 13 at the time of the affair, but, with Trump, you never know), how he told her to ignore the fact that Melania had just recently given birth. Trump comes across like every horndog old man creeping on a younger, seemingly sexually open woman. It's somewhere between pathetic and rapey, even as Daniels insisted that she was not a victim. But Trump's lawyer worked hard to intimidate her and someone sent a goon to intimidate her, threatening her in front of her infant daughter. Gee, who could have sent the goon? Who is a wannabe gangster? Who is a fake-ass tough guy?

What Daniels did to kick Trump's ass was to stand up to him and his thugs. She showed that you can tell Trump to shut the fuck up, and, if you've got the right magazine to spank him with, he might just do that.

Still, one thing she said has stuck with me. Daniels talked about coming out of the bathroom that first evening in 2006 in Trump's hotel suite and seeing him perched on the bed. She told Anderson Cooper, "I realized exactly what I'd gotten myself into. And I was like, 'Ugh, here we go.' (LAUGH) And I just felt like maybe-- (LAUGH) it was sort of-- I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone's room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, 'Well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this.'" So she had sex with him. In its way, that statement is a distillation of the treatment of women in our culture, conditioned to think that they "deserve" what they get. Daniels insisted that she consented, but she's admitting that that consent was a kind of self-punishment.

And while we can laugh and say that, of course, sex with Trump is punishment, it's sad that however much power Daniels had taken in the situation, she still didn't think she was powerful enough to tell him she wasn't into it. Maybe the interview was a long-delayed "No" that Trump rarely hears.

Fucking Hell, John Bolton Again?

Now that our goddamn president, Donald Trump, has appointed John Bolton, one of the most war-mongering, cruelest, dumbest dickholes, to be National Security Adviser, I oughta write something about his terrible career.

Except I already fucking did that back in 2005, when Undersecretary of State Bolton was nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations, a position he got a recess appointment for until he was whipped out of public service and became that fuckin' guy with the stupid mustache polluting the airwaves with violent and hateful rhetoric.

So here ya go, gathered for your clicking convenience.

John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America, where you can read about Bolton's belief that presidents should not have to respond to subpoenas, something you know Trump loves about him, as well as his attempt to get a woman fired from the DOJ for taking a leave while pregnant.

Part 2: John Bolton, Another Motherfucker for America, where you can read how Bolton was fiending for war with Iraq during the mid-1990s.

John Bolton Acid Flashback - The Age of Not Giving a Shit, where you can read a 1999 interview where Bolton out-crazied Bill O'Reilly by saying that the United States shouldn't intervene to stop the Serbs from committing genocide in Kosovo.

John Bolton, Crazy Man, where you can read what a total shitheel Bolton was to people working for him.

Here we are, 13 years later, and it's not like he's fuckin' mellowed since getting paid almost exclusively from Fox "news" and nutzoid think tanks. So, of course, Trump chose him. He saw Bolton on the TV.

Crazy meets crazy, and we're all fucked.

No Requiems for a Terrorist in Austin

When Anthony Stephan House picked up the package that was left on his front porch in Austin, Texas, on March 2, he pulled away some paper that allowed for an electric circuit to be completed, and the current caused the bomb inside to explode. House likely lost his hands immediately from the shockwave while the shrapnel that was packed into the bomb tore through him, severing arteries, embedding in bone, slicing organs. This is not to mention the additional fragments of broken windows and pieces of the porch. Just before picking up the bomb, House had sent his 8 year-old daughter back into their home to brush her teeth. Had he not done that, had he not been being a good dad, the girl would have been ripped up, too, probably dead.

I think about Draylen Mason, the 17 year-old musician and student who leaped in front of his mom after she opened the package in her kitchen with a knife. Mason must have known that something was wrong with the box on the table, and he protected her, getting the full impact of the bomb in a contained area. It would have torn him to pieces, and he died instantly. His mom is in the hospital. Imagine what she saw. Imagine her helplessness.

And I think about the three other victims, all severely wounded, probably from the nails that the terrorist packed into the bombs to achieve maximum pain and destruction.

Let's be absolutely clear:

Mark Conditt, the bomber, is a fucking terrorist, as surely as anyone from al Qaeda or ISIS or whatever spooky Muslim group you want to invoke is. When I hear Austin's Chief of Police describe Conditt's video confession as "the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point," I don't give a fuck because he's a fucking terrorist. The deranged shit blew himself up at the end. You know what we'd call him in other circumstances? A suicide bomber. Fuck him. Fuck his pain. Fuck his personal life. Fuck his challenges. Fuck his outcry.

Now we're treated to descriptions of Conditt as "the quiet, socially awkward oldest child of a devout Christian family that held Bible study groups in their white clapboard house, where an American flag hangs from the front porch." Oh, so he was a Christian terrorist, right? Shouldn't we be asking every Christian if they condemn Conditt? 'Cause "devout Christian" can mean crazy-ass fundamentalist, especially if they belonged to a sect that held secret meetings in a private home. Fuckin' hell, that's just a sleeper cell, and Conditt got activated. He was home-schooled, and that's suspicious as hell, isn't it? Maybe we should be dragging in his parents and ask them what the connection with Amway is. Is Amway really just a cover organization for a cult of Christian terrorists? Is their Ponzi-scheme of shitty personal care products covering up for a coming coordinated attack on others in this country? What about the town of Pflugerville? It sure seems like we should be raiding all the churches there to see what they might be hiding, especially Conditt's Austin Stone Community Church.

Another home-schooled student described the pasty terrorist as someone who "loved to think and argue and turn things over and figure out what was really going on." Have they questioned him and other home-schoolers about what they figured out? Have they rounded them up and beaten them until they gave up information on other terrorists?

Or maybe, just maybe, we should think about humanizing all terrorists in order to understand what drove them to violence. Maybe that would actually do more to make us mitigate terrorism, no matter where it comes from. Every terrorist is troubled. Every terrorist is challenged. Every terrorist has to go through a personal journey to get to the point where they want to kill others. We should try to figure all this out without demonizing the demographic group the terrorist comes from.

But we should never forget that, no matter who they are, they are still fucking terrorists, and we should call them as such, whether they're named Nidal Hassan or Dylan Roof or Nikolas Cruz or this fucking Conditt.

What Did That Dumb Orange Motherfucker Say Now? (Opioid "Policy" Edition)

So it was that our overbaked butternut squash of a president had his voluminous ass flown up to New Hampshire, dragging his poor wife along with him for some unknown reason, to make an announcement about a new policy initiatives to battle the scourge of opioid addiction in the United States. Why New Hampshire and not, say, West Virginia, where the crisis is far worse? Because, Trump said, "I don’t know if you remember, but this is the first place I came for the primaries. And this is the room right here. So I like this room. This has been a good room."

Are you already smacking your goddamn head, thinking that Trump sounds like someone on fentanyl trying to describe why they're passing out in your kitchen? Well, that dumb orange motherfucker also said he was living up to his promise, "I said I’d be back, and we are back."

The speech was filled with the usual Trump shit. He reacted to things in the teleprompter like he was seeing it for the very first time, likely because he was seeing it for the very first time, as in "In New Hampshire, the overdose, really, death rate — I mean, can you believe this? The death rate is double the national average. It’s got difficulties like people wouldn’t believe." No, we believe it because, see, we've been fucking aware of the opioid crisis for quite some time.

Trump briefly mentioned overprescribing as a cause of widespread addiction, even saying that "our Department of Justice is looking very seriously into bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies." He talked about making ads targeting young people who will see commercials "during the right shows on television or wherever — the Internet." And I'm sure you remember how when Nancy Reagan's pal Mr. T did a "Just Say No" ad, we all stopped doing drugs forever.

Most of the speech and most of what might be considered "policy" was all about the evil Mexicans who apparently forced all those doctors to hand out oxy like it's Halloween candy Yeah, as soon as Trump entered his wheelhouse of hate and bigotry, he was happy as a chihuahua with three dicks, just licking like crazy. He repeated the same specious lies, like "Some of these drug dealers will kill thousands of people during their lifetime." He attacked Democrats about DACA, for some reason. He got the gathered idiots to chant "Build the wall" because Trump said, "We’ll build the wall to keep the damn drugs out." Trump had said that "Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border," but somehow didn't mention that it's not on the backs of fuckin' drug mules running across the desert. It's on planes and boats, which, you know, fuck walls. And it's in trucks that go through border crossings where there is already a goddamn wall. This is not to mention the shit that goes through the mail from China and elsewhere.

In other words, Trump just preened and pretended, like an inbred prince, as when he ripped into "sanctuary cities." Weirdly, he dragged Kate Steinle's corpse into mix, a death that had nothing to do with the opioid crisis, which, ostensibly, was what the entire fucking thing was about. But that didn't stop him from shaking his jowls and humphing, "Look at this verdict. Look at the verdict. Can you believe the verdict?"

He also said, "According to a recent Dartmouth study, the sanctuary city of Lawrence, Massachusetts is one of the primary sources of fentanyl in six New Hampshire counties." The problem, though, is that fucking "study" was preliminary research that involved interviews with just 20 drug users. As the principal investigator on the study itself said, "I can't really answer where the sources of drugs are." In fact, the 20 white drug users named other places that aren't sanctuary cities as sources of fentanyl.

What really got Trump hard, though, was talking about being able to give drug dealers the death penalty. He practically humped the lectern when he started saying how he talks with leaders of other countries but "I won’t mention names, but you know the countries I’m talking about." And he had a little vaudeville back and forth with the imaginary leader. "I go around, 'How is your drug problem?' 'We don’t have much of a drug problem.' 'What do you mean you don’t have a drug problem?' 'Well, we don’t have.' I say, 'how come?' 'We have zero tolerance for drug dealers.' I said, 'What does that mean?' 'That means we have the death penalty for drug dealers. We don’t have a drug problem.'" Who? First base, bitch.

Ok, beyond the fact that the Philippines does still have a drug problem, there's one big fucking thing that Trump is leaving out there. Rodrigo Duterte didn't just pledge to kill drug dealers but also drug users. And, you know, there's still a fuck-ton of drug use in Iran, which also executes drug dealers. If you think that your average drug trafficker, who faces death all the time from opposing traffickers, from people trying to rob them, from within their own gang or cartel, from law enforcement, is going to give a single soggy turd about getting the death penalty, you are fuckin' delusional.

The one thing we know that helps with opioid addiction is proper medical care. Pain management is a long-term proposition, and people who don't have access to health care professionals rely on meds to get through what expensive therapy or surgery could help. And with the attack on the Affordable Care Act resulting in people losing their insurance and unable to get on Medicaid, with the absurdity of sky-high deductibles and co-pays, people in pain are gonna end up taking the cheapest route, no matter what piddling amount of money Trump tosses at the problem. (This is not to mention the heroin and fentanyl addicts who got there without any injury or illness.)

That's why no other nation has this problem with prescription opioids. Not because of the death penalty or drug dealers. But because they live in countries that, at a bare minimum, give a fuck about their health.

Republicans Promise They'll Do Something if Trump Fires Mueller. But They Won't.

At this point, "No Collusion!" has supplanted "You're fired!" as President Donald Trump's catchphrase. In three separate tweets this weekend, Trump lowed those words across the fields of America, even as he shit-talked the FBI leadership, former and present, and had Attorney General Jeff Sessions fire Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe for the crime of "Not licking Trump's taint," punishable by loss of retirement benefits and a Fox "news" enema, followed, no doubt, by a bunch of Twitter and Reddit threats and insults against McCabe, his family, and, hell, his dog.

Because that's the motherfuckin' world we motherfuckin' live in now and we live in that motherfuckin' world because the Republican motherfuckers have refused to do a goddamn thing, like tell Trump, "Yo, fucko, why not shut the hell up for a change, huh? Why not shut Putin's fuckhole in your face for a few goddamn days or weeks or years?"

Oh, but now, the mighty Republicans have said that there is a line that Trump dast not cross. If Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller, they said, oooh, they'll be really, really mad. On CNN's State of the Union yesterday, tough, independent, retiring Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona toughly said to Jake Tapper, "I just hope it doesn't go there, because it can't. We can't, in Congress, accept that. And so I would expect to see considerable pushback in the next couple days in urging the president not to go there. He can't go there." Tapper gave Flake his best "Really?" face and the Senator continued, "I mean, talking to my colleagues all along, it was, you know, once he goes after Mueller, then we will take action. I think that people see that as a massive red line that can't be crossed. So, I hope that that's the case."

Then Tapper gave Senator Lindsey Graham his best "The fuck?" look, and Graham said, "The only reason Mr. Mueller could ever be dismissed is for cause. I see no cause when it comes to Mr. Mueller. He needs to be able to do his job, independent of any political influence. I pledge to the American people, as a Republican, to make sure that Mr. Mueller can continue to do his job without any interference. I think he's doing a good job. And everything about McCabe and the FBI handling of the dossier has nothing to do with the Russia investigation regarding Mr. Mueller." And, even though Graham just gave Trump an out by saying if there's "cause," Mueller can be fired, Tapper was all "Really?" To which Graham promised, "Well, as I have said before, if he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we're a rule of law nation...when it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him. And I think it's very important he be allowed to do his job without interference. And there are many Republicans who share my view."

On other Sunday gabfests, lobotomy model and (retiring) Republican Representative Trey Gowdy told Fox "news" Sunday that there really wasn't shit he could do about Mueller in the House, but "Let it play out its course. If you've done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as wholesome and thorough as possible." On Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked frantic weasel anus Marco Rubio about Mueller, and Rubio offered his support for him, saying, "I remain confident that the Special Counsel is gonna, is going to conduct a probe that is fair and thorough and is gonna arrive at the truth and is, and is not going to go down rabbit holes that are not places that we need to be going."

You could read a hundred of these quotes, of Republicans saying that they are gonna stand up to Trump if he lays a finger on Mueller. And, like every other statement, like every thought, every prayer, every milquetoast waving of the hankie before flopping onto the fainting couch, not a goddamn thing will happen. Trump could fire Mueller and Mitch McConnell won't even budge, like a lethargic rat that's satisfied with the amount of moldy cheese in the hole. You know Trump is laughing at this shit, saying, "Oh, sit the fuck down, Lindsey, or I'll grab you by the pussy."

And the reason Graham would sullenly plop down on his petticoats is because the GOP is Trump. There is no Republican Party without Trump. That's because Republicans believe that the way to maintain their majority in the Senate is through Trump. As Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner explained, "He’ll be actively campaigning for a Senate majority. Absolutely." You can slap the ass of the man whose dick you're sucking all you want, but you're still sucking his dick and most of those ass slaps just make him come harder. The GOP isn't going to really do a fucking thing to hurt Trump when "Republicans insist there isn’t a state on the Senate map where they are nervous about deploying Trump."

See, the one thing Trump did by defeating those dozen plus opponents in the primary is he made sure that none of them could ever outshine him. Nobody's fuckin' going to a Kevin Cramer rally in North Dakota. But if Trump flies his orange saggy ass there to do one of his shuckin' and jivin' shows, oh, the yokels will line up. Trump knows he's the only fuckin' game in town for the GOP.

If the concerned Republicans in the Senate really, truly gave a fuck at all about Mueller or the truth or anything other than maintaining their majority, two of 'em would say, "Eat my ass, Mitch" and caucus with the Democrats. Because, at the end of the day, the only thing that will really stop the Trumptanic from sinking with all of us on board is a Democratic Congress that will subpoena and expose shit. Until Republicans do that, they're just rearranging the deck chairs.

All their fake courageous words are as meaningless as their degraded careers.

New Episode of AGD Podcast: Talking About Voting and an Interview with Molly Jong-Fast

Now up on iTunes for your free listening pleasure, it's the latest episode of Another Goddamn Podcast. This time, I'm talking about voting, even when you know your candidate is gonna lose. And I interview writer and mistress of Twitter snark Molly Jong-Fast.

She dishes dirt (no, really) on the Trumps, and she talks about her work on the board of the Arena, which encourages new Democrats to run for office and raises money for them.

Molly is funny, caustic, and pretty damn raspy because she had a cold. She says she sounds like Minnie Mouse, which would be true if Minnie Mouse said "fuck" a lot while punching Trump in his man-tits.

Download, listen, subscribe. You can also get early access and bonus stuff by ponying up some cash over at Patreon.

Writer Molly Jong-Fast on Meeting Vanessa Trump

In this fun clip from the new episode of Another Goddamn Podcast (or AGD Podcast, for your sfw ears), writer and Upper East Side of Manhattan resident Molly Jong-Fast talks about going to a ladies' game night party with Vanessa Trump, Donald Trump, Jr.'s soon-to-be ex-wife.

And Molly says that Ivanka Trump, who used to be in her social circle, is no longer welcome there.



Full episode, including more about the Trumps, will be up later tonight. Subscribe to AGD Podcast over on iTunes.