Let's be honest here: the march this morning to shut down Wall Street was useless if its goal was to, well, shut down Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange is, more or less, a show. Multi-million dollar financial transactions are not done by crazy, sweaty guys on a loud, chaotic floor. They're done digitally. So whether or not the secretaries and junior fuckbag executives and janitors got into work didn't stop a single transfer of funds from one rich asshole to another. It pissed off some peo...

Dear Barack, We've had some good times over the last few years. Hell, 2008 was one of the most hopeful times in my life. Remember all those rallies and adoring crowds? God, it was wild. I didn't think I could keep up with you; you were so intense, so passionate. But once we started living together, things changed. Sure, sure, you brought me flowers, you told me how much you cared, and you me in ways that I never thought I'd be moved. You can still do that to this . But isn't that the way it i...

Casey Heynes had had enough. In a viral video that has been circulating this week, the overweight 16-year-old Australian student is confronted by a much smaller boy, three years younger than him, who taunts him as the bully's buddies gleefully record the action. The audio is muffled, but the smaller boy appears to ask, "Have you been talking shit? Huh? Have you been talking shit?" to which Casey, alone and backed up against a wall, replies, "I haven't been talking shit." But the bully hasn't com...

Source: TalkingPointsMemo.com New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley on Friday tried to calm people's nerves about rising food prices by reminding them that other products -- like iPads -- are getting cheaper. "Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful," Dudley said in Queens, Reuters reports. "You have to look at the price of all things." But better iPads don't put food on the table, audience members reminded him. "When was the last tim...

If the Rude Pundit were a really, really rich motherfucker, like in the several hundred million and above club, he'd call a meeting of all his fellow really, really rich motherfuckers and he'd tell 'em that we've crossed a line, and, unless we want our houses burned down, our assets confiscated, our dogs raped, and our children killed like they were the brood of the Tsar, we better stop acting like such greedy pricks and demand that the people we all own in the government stop licking our taints...

On November 12 ... Well, time again for the census. GLBT - check in please! meegbear present and accoiunted for.

(Image) As explained on his : It's the late show on a Saturday night in Columbus, Ohio. I'm halfway through my set and I mention Barack Obama. Some scattered boos. Which is normal. Somebody always hates the president, no matter who that president might be. In this case, the president is Obama and I am a fan, so I always ask they are so mad at him. "Why are you mad at the president?" Some common responses: "Because he's an idiot." "Because he doesn't do anything." "Because he broke his cam...

You gotta bet that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was so goddamned with himself when, in an interview with The Hill, he got his nasty on about "the professional left." See how brave he is? Attacking the people from whom the President is supposed to have spawned? Yeah, you know that Gibbs got a little boner when he spat, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality." "Oh," he must have thought, "how Rahm will scratch me...

Revealed: Shocking video of parallel first lady! (Image) (Link)

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Tell you what, motherfuckers, when dead people are left to rot in the sun because of the incompetence of the federal government, when corpses are floating in the streets, the President passively ignores the pleas of the governors of Gulf Coast states, when entire neighborhoods have been physically destroyed, when the federal government strands tens of thousands of people without food or water, when the federal government starts to blame the local governments, when the President praises the work...

A few things up front here: The Senate health care reform bill, as it stands, is not a good bill. The House bill is significantly better in actually achieving, you know, reform of health care. Most Democrats know that. The Senate bill exists in its current form only because of the hope of appeasing conservative Democrats and compromising with Republicans. Everyone in Congress knows that. The Republicans just pretend like they don't. A truly progressive bill is far, far closer to the House than t...

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Undergrund) Forget about Sarah Palin writing on her hand. Forget about her resigning as governor of Alaska a little over halfway through her first term for no reason other than she was tired of it. Forget that her husband thinks Alaska should be its own country and was essentially co-governor. Forget that she shoots wolves from helicopters for fun. Forget all about those things as arguments against Sarah Palin when you are dealin...

1. Oh, grow a fucking pair already, whiny goddamn Democrats like Anthony or Barney . You should be out there shredding Republicans, saying that they want to take us back to the policies of the Bush administration. Put that shit on repeat and use it. The biggest failure of the Democrats since the election of Barack Obama is that they have not made Republicans own the presidency of George W. Bush. It should become ingrained that "Republican=Bush." And the fact that it's not at this point means th...

I have a contribution this morning to the New York Times examining the Scott Brown victory, and I'll post the link to it once it's up. But for the moment, I want to address two equally moronic themes emerging over the last couple of days which seek to blame the omnipotent, dominant, super-human "Left" for the Democrats' woes -- one coming from right-wing Democrats and the other from hard-core Obama loyalists (those two categories are not mutually exclusive but, rather, often overlap). Last nig...

Let's put aside for a moment whatever misgivings we may have about the bullshit war we're fighting in Afghanistan and its nonsensical escalation (oops - tipped the hand there). In fact, put aside whatever personal animosity or disappointment you may or may not be feeling as health care reform gets watered down, gay rights gets thrown under the bus, and real banking regulation seems like a distant dream. Put aside, especially you, dear, sweet conservatives, any anger you may have about why Presid...

On November 12 ... 2004: (Link) 2007: (Link) 2008: (Link) Well, time again for the census. There's gonna be some holes this year. GLBT - check in please! meegbear present and accoiunted for.

It's too soon to tell, but there's a good chance that Representative Alan Grayson, he of the "Die Quickly" Republican health care plan, will end up fucking your shit up. Too rich to be bought off, Grayson's been fucking with the powerful for a few now. As an attorney, he represented whistleblowers, going after the hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud committed by contractors and others in Iraq. He told CNN in April 2006, "The development fund of Iraq was looted by war profiteers and war who...

Finally, we must take a measure of the man. Not the person, or the legislator, or the family member. No, the man. Ted Kennedy was more of a man's man than any of the brush-clearing, hick-talking, pick-up driving politicians who overcompensate again and again by faking it. No, Kennedy demonstrated, through all the ups and downs, again and again what a real man is. It is a type of masculinity that we rarely see anymore because it is a fearlessness that few are allowed to embrace. Put aside the mo...

(Mostly Profanity-Free for the Kiddies) Let's just get this : Do you like your state and not the federal government controlling the curriculum of your kids' schools? Thank Ted Kennedy. Do you like being able to vote starting at age 18? Thank Ted Kennedy. Do you think low-income people should get help with heating their homes in the winter? Thank the man. Do you think the federal government should fund research? Yep. Do you believe that Meals on Wheels is a good thing? Ditto. Does your da...

Sometimes, there's something delicious about offering a simple, sublime "fuck you" as a rejoinder to rank idiocy. In her Facebook "" on the health care reform debate, Palin protests that "we’re saying not just no, but hell no!" before launching into bizarro world, in her much-quoted: "And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in...

Disagree how you will with Barack Obama on some pretty serious issues (are we really whether or not to release a Gitmo detainee held because we mistook the video of him being tortured by al-Qaeda for him being trained as a suicide bomber?). Wonder who the fuck he's pleasing when it comes to some other issues (dude made some pretty explicit damn promises on the campaign trail when it came to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, among other shit). Accuse him of whatever you like, yell at him about whatever you...

Source: RawStory.com In a little-noticed letter to the IRS last week, Americans United for Separation of Church and State called for a formal review of the tax-exempt status of the university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell in the wake of the school’s decision to ban a club for campus Democrats. Liberty University, founded by the late preacher Jerry Falwell, banned a student Democratic club in May, saying that its principles were not in line with the university’s (even though the club was pro-li...

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The Rude Pundit responds to the resignation from Jake DeSantis, AIG's executive vice president of the financial products unit, published in yesterday's New York Times: "Dear (soon-to-be) ex-AIG Guy, "I read your letter with a great deal of interest. See, even though I'm just a member of the middle of the middle class who generally believes that vast sums of accumulated wealth are demonstrable proof of the corruption of the people who hold the wealth, I had your , at least as far as your right...

Let's face it: back in 2000, most of us were pussies. We knew, fucking knew, that the presidential election was being stolen as we watched. And we didn't riot - we didn't explode into the streets in a flare of anger and righteousness and shut shit down, demanding that the Supreme Court and the Republican Party back the fuck off. We didn't head to Miami to block the right wing thugs who were stopping the recount at the canvassing board. We didn't go on a general strike to say, "Count the votes." ...

Earlier this year, there was a firestorm in the GLBT forum. A series of threads "The Best of DU...", which GLBT members posted threads and comments on this site they found anti-gay and/or bigoted, were locked and was told no more of these threads were allowed. After protesting about this, Skinner stepped in, and in so many words, told us to shut up about it. He later apologized for the post and said he would work with us to ensure posters would be more tolerant on the site. The time between Ski...

(Image) So there she was, the Future of the Republican Party, standing yesterday like the spank-worthy centerfold of the LL Bean Christmas catalog, at a turkey farm, having just pardoned a fair fowl from becoming a crispy-skinned main course, as is the Chief Executive of a state's wont. And then she talked to the press. In front of a trough of blood and guts. While a farm worker was killing turkeys. The Rude Pundit loves that worker - let's name him "Johnny Moustache" - for constantly looking...