The Don't Sugarcoat It Award for November 28

Dang it's been a long time since we had a Don't Sugarcoat It Award.

For those of you new to Blue Gal or who forgot, The Don't Sugarcoat It Award is for individual bloggers who write a post showing gifted prose and a flair for direct, frank, and occasionally, but not necessarily, obscene discourse.

I award these prizes when I find them, and you can't submit posts for consideration. It's a surprise to all of us that way.

Today's award goes to the beautifully-named blog Übermilf, for her lovely Thanksgiving-themed post, "Dear Fucking Assholes Who Write Gravy Recipes."

Not only is the post Don't Sugarcoat It worthy, I totally identify with her aversion to cooking organ meat.

And although Übermilf is writing about a bit of a turkey gravy crisis, you may be relieved to know that in a subsequent post, we find that at least two women in her holiday household were eventually drunk enough on martinis to make adequate gravy. That's exactly how it should be.

As is usual with Don't Sugarcoat It's, leave all comments over there. Thanks.

[Ubermilf is from Chicagoland, and has inquired about a midwest blogger meetup in 2009. If you're interested, let me know. I'm thinking spring break or early summer, and I'll organize it. bluegalsblog AT gmail]

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for January 2

This is an easy one. The beloved Doctor Zaius wins today's Don't Sugarcoat It Award for putting into pictures what so many of us have put into words.

Love on ya, Doctor Z.

For those of you new to this blog: The Don't Sugarcoat It Award is something I give out when I come across a blog post that says it like it is, sometimes with profanity, but that's not essential. You can't be nominated, it's my whim and my blog surfing that determines the winner.

As usual with Don't Sugarcoat It's, leave your comments at the winner's blog. Thanks.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for August 9

Many of you know the satirical, but don't tell anyone website Conservatives for American Values, who win the most recent Don't Sugarcoat It Award for their lovely post:

Israel Has the Right to Kill Everyone

Guys, this is your best post since "Ending the Women's Suffrage Experiment." Congratulations!

The sad part is, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's CBN Network are pretty much saying the same thing.

Falwell tries to sugarcoat it, but this award is for NOT doing that, Jerry:

Understanding Bible Prophecy can help you become a more confident Christian because knowing "how the story ends" will help you realize that God has EVERYTHING under control!

...he says in a post entitled "March to Armageddon." Huh?

Here's a history lesson you may have missed:

A major display of the Christian Right’s support for Israel was the 2002 Road to Victory conference, organized by the Christian Coalition and quite unlike any previous Road to Victory conference. The keynote speaker was Ehud Olmert, then mayor of Jerusalem, who was invited to address the Solidarity with Israel rally. The galaxy of right-wing stars appearing at the conference either in person or through video included, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), former chair of the foreign relations committee Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), Lt. Col. Oliver North, Alan Keyes, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

...Christian Zionism can easily spill over into religious bigotry against Muslims....[In addition,] Gershom Gorenberg points out that for Christian Zionists, Jews are actors in a play where the final curtain forces them to either convert to Christianity or die in a blaze of fire sent by God.

From Right Web

And what a nice choice for the Jews that is!

Let's not sugarcoat it: these Christian Zionists are the wackiest and most dangerous people on the planet. Their version of Christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, and I fart in their general direction.



"This is for you, Jerry Falwell, you stoopid phoney-Christian knigggiggit!"


Update: As if you didn't know, Blue Gal loves Crooks and Liars, especially Mike.

Don't Sugarcoat It Follies - Jurassic Pork

If there ever were a Don't Sugarcoat It Hall of Fame, certainly it would include Jurassic Pork. Formerly of Yep, Another Goddammed Blog, and now of Welcome to Pottersville, he and his writing are well-known to most of you. His Assclowns of the Week is one of the best written (and most thoroughly researched) series on the blogosphere. Jurassic won the Don't Sugarcoat It Award back on October 24 of last year, and had Don't Sugarcoat It mentions on November 9 and December 19. His post is typical of the quality of his intelligent yet biting prose. Enjoy.

Malkin, Hinderocket, Get Tinfoil Panties in Twist...



...at a time when a tinfoil hat just ain't enough.

I'll be honest with you, boys and girls. As fun as it is to take apart wingnuts like Malkin, Coulter, John Assrocket and others, sometimes I tire of wasting my time and considerable energies and talents on glorified vegetables who, in a perfect world, would be hounded out of polite, rational society to push shopping carts full of soda and beer cans, doll heads, twenty year-old newspapers and other incongruous bits of detritus through the streets of Waltham, Massachusetts.

Alas, we don't live in a perfect world and instead these potential bag ladies and bottle redemption center fixtures make lucrative careers by not muttering non-sequiturs but shouting their Tourette's-inspired conspiracy theories from the sooty, pigeon shit-dappled rooftops of Right Blogostan. And since the proles on the dingy, rain-slicked streets of Sin City look up and hang on their every spittle-flecked word, that magnifies, if not wholly creates, their relevance and importance.

In a less than perfect but still reasonable world, we on the west side of town could afford to ignore these screaming mimes as they pretend to be trapped in little boxes that don't exist and moonwalk endlessly without actually making any forward progress. Alas, we live in a wholly imperfect and unreasonable world so we left wingers pick up the gauntlet to bitchslap the grease-painted faces of the deserving lest they metastasize unchallenged to the 100,000,000 hearts and minds that are up for grabs, the hundred million non-voters who with but a shrug can set things right again.

Malkin's panties are all a-bunch again, this time over this piece in the NY Times that's purported to be, according to Anal Dildo (aka Hinderocket) "A GPS For Assassins." This time, unlike the UC Santa Cruz incident, Malkin didn't entrust the ordinary rank-and-vile flying monkeys for swarm duty. No, this time, she's enlisted the aid of senior flying monkeys such as the aforementioned John Hinderaker, NewsMax (they of "the sneaky way to make money" ads) and Patterico's Pontifications, which had this to say: "Keller must have thought the article was available only through TimesSelect!"

Glenn Greenwald was among the first to pick up the gauntlet and to commence the bitchslapping over this most ridiculous of non-issues. Here's what's going on in a wingnut shell:

In a chatty, completely and utterly apolitical, non-partisan fluff piece in the Travel section of the NY Times, Malkin, Assrocket and others had discovered a vile, sneaky, despicable plot to lead terrorists straight to Rumsfeld's and Cheney's semi-glossed front doors in Maryland. What Malkin, once again, conveniently forgets is this little kerfuffle from the end of last year in which Cheney’s residence in the Naval Observatory was blurred out from Google Earth’s satellite images, a fact memorably brought to light by Maureen Dowd.



The Naval Observatory has been around since 1830. I think we can all agree by now on where it is, terrorists included.

I'd hardly think that Cheney's new private residence can be found on Zabasearch.com and it certainly hasn't been made public knowledge. Another thing that Malkin and Co. conveniently forget is that Secret Service protection while both men are at home will be so tight as to make exterminators redundant, since a gnat couldn't get through their security.

Yet, as proof that terrorists will soon be dropping into Rummy's and Edgar's homes in Maryland, Michelle cites this article as proof of how easy it is to terrorize the Secretary of Defense. Of course, all the information, as even the "reporter" from DC Indymedia was forced to admit, was compressed into two brief paragraphs. Here's what really happened, according to Code Pink.org and Common Dreams. Apparently, Michelle is so used to launching rat hordes that she's forgotten how to use a mouse and a search engine.

Another damning story that added another knot in a sensitive area in Michelle's panties that proves a pattern of pernicious, liberal behavior can be found here! "Liberal thugs" terrorized Karl Rove's family and "Uh oh, false alarm." There's nothing there but a Town Hall announcement saying that their redesign will rock your world on July 4th.

Now, let's get past the patent absurdity of Malkin and company making a mountain out of an anthill by bringing the Cheney and Rumsfeld residence into more conspicuous relief and concentrate, instead, on how she's adroitly conflating this nonexistent terrorist threat with thuggish liberals who have nothing better to do with their time than to terrorize the most powerful yet most unprotected men on earth who have never benefited from Secret Service protection. Let's also focus on the extraordinary timing of this non-issue at a time when that pernicious liberal thinker Bill Keller is under fire for his paper blowing the lid on yet another story of the administration spying on its citizens.

Why not just stick to the first issue of how Keller is weakening national security with his reporters' "scoop" of the government mining the financial data of terrorist organizations, something that they'd known about years ago?

Michelle, Hinderaker, et al: I think that any terrorists who may actually be in this country have better things to do than to unsuccessfully harm heavily protected old farts who are older than God's uncle, especially since they're smart enough to know that, in the unlikely event of success, Cheney and Rummy would only be replaced and it would only redouble the administration's flagging resolve to fight terrorism over here so we don't have to fight them... Uh, wait a minute...

Finally, I leave you with this endearing video that says it all on behalf of everyone with two neurons to rub together.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for April 11

I've been saving up these awards but it's time to give 'em out. And the don't sugarcoat it award is now being enhanced with an actual prize. But first to the three (!) winners:

Winner Number 1

The Neoskeptic, who has defended "what Jefferson really meant" for the blogswarm against theocracy, but whose comment at this post, directed at theocrat and mis-quoter Bob Ellis, wins him the prize:

And, as a graduate of The University, you had better not EVER misuse a quote of Th. Jefferson against me, or I shall rain down a world of intellectual pain and righteous vengeance upon thee, motherfucker.

And then Ellis takes the bait, and it rains.

Winner Number 2

Liberal Oasis, for this simple, direct, statement of fact:

You know what sends mixed signals to Syria? Working with Syria to torture our detainees for us, then attacking Syria for sponsoring terrorism.

Winner Number 3

The Largest Minority, for their story on a proposed arms sale to Arab nations? Clutch yer pearls, Senator Lieberman!

Congress, which is almost entirely pro-Israel, has 30 days to block the proposed sale if they so choose from the date they are notified about it. Formal Notification will likely take place later this month. One solution being considered is for a separate arms sale to Israel so that the Israelis won’t have to fear about losing their spot in the food chain.

By now you ought to be up to your neck in bullshit. With about 200 nuclear weapons in their possession, Israel doesn’t have anything to worry about with this sale. This has nothing to do with protecting Israel’s right to exist, and everything to do with keeping Israel’s neighbors defenseless. Then again, I’m a terrorist sympathizer.

No way, LM! You're a don't sugarcoat it winner!

Okay, now about those prizes. The winners, should they choose to accept it, may send their snail mail addy to bluegalsblog AT gmail DOT com. One of these days they will receive in the mail their very own "Vituperative foul-mouthed blogger of the left" button from my Cafepress income vacuum store. (Sorry, if any of you actually make money from Cafepress, more power to you.)



You may remember that V.F.M.B.O.T.L. is what Washington Post Columnist David Broder called us in a column last September. I responded in a post at The Aristocrats, where I unfortunately managed to use the F word only 49 times. I was so grateful to the commenters who pointed out those declensions of "fuck" that I had missed.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for June 15

When I linked him yesterday I also found that DeRosaWorld had recently written a lovely post worthy of the Don't Sugarcoat It award. Don't Sugarcoat It's go to small blogs (that can use the hits, so please don't submit members of Congress or any Orange Push-ups) who use language to tell it like it is. The language need not be foul, but we won't let that stop us neither.

DeRosaWorld wins today with his lovely and daintily-named post, "The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can Suck my Dick! The Secretaries of State and Defense -- Double Suck! -- War Czar."

The judges were particularly impressed that DeRosaWorld wants the President of the United States to actually act as Commander in Chief instead of hiding behind a non existent, no one wants that job, war czar. Good one.

If DeRosaWorld wants a button, he can email me a snail mail addy.

And btw I can't figure out who to give the prize to in the poetry contest. They're all too good. Maybe I'll just do a drawing. I'll keep you posted.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for January 23

to Physioprof, a recent addition to the Blue Gal sidebar.

Physioprof has just started his blog, but he comes with a pedigree. He was kicked in the ass to get his own blog by Driftglass, who was kicked in the ass to get his own blog by Steve Gilliard. So Physioprof is kinda sorta Steve's blog grandson he never knew.

Steve would be proud.

Here's the kind of comment at DG's, this time regarding Chris Mathews, that got Physioprof bumped to his own blog:

"You know you're truly a bottom-of-the-barrel low-life misogynist scumbag when even some asshole "reporter" from gonorrheic cockdribble purveyor Politico calls you on your sexism."

That comment alone is worthy of a don't sugarcoat it, but here's a sample of the don't sugarcoat it talent decorating Physioprof's own place...

For progressives who are disgusted with Obama’s comments about Reagan, it doesn’t matter what he said, how it was intended, or how it should have been interpreted. What matters is the undeniable fact that he mentioned Reagan–the most beloved halo-encircled icon of the motherfucking Republican Party–you know, those sick depraved bastards who have been successfully working day and night for the last 40 years to turn our constitutional republic into a feudal fucking kingdom–in a context other than one of avowed repudiation of his pernicious political strategies and governmental policies. Reagan was the leader of those sick depraved bastards as he presided over the early stages of enacting their perverted agenda, one that has now brought us to the brink of national disaster.

I've said it to you already, Physioprof, but welcome to the party. Leave comments at his place, and tell him Blue Gal sent you.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for December 16

Something tells me if you haven't ordered your Christmas cards by now, you probably aren't the Christmas card type. But if you're the kind who orders theirs for next year (nut) you can get these lovelies here.

Today's Don't Sugarcoat It award goes to Tengrain at Mock, Paper Scissors, for his lovely eulogy for Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Tengrain is one of the more talented bloggers out there: great writing, terrific commenting here and elsewhere, and web design that just knocks me for a loop every time.

As you may remember, the Don't Sugarcoat It award is reserved for individual bloggers who tell it like it is. If we could give one to a MSM kinda person, I would choose The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg on a regular basis. Here's a comment, overstating the obvious, but still, from the December 4 issue:

According to the “Backwards Bush” countdown clock, available on the Web and in key-chain and desk-accessory form at selected novelty and toy stores around the nation, the sitting Administration in Washington will, as of this writing, be in office for another seven hundred and eighty-nine days, five hours, twenty-three minutes, and 36.2 seconds. But, if present trends continue, it’s going to feel like forever.

From Tengrain, too.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for July 7

Usually, the Don't Sugarcoat It Award is reserved for anti-Bush rants. But Rob Helpy-Chalk's lovely post about a day in the life with two young children, "Jesus Fucking Christ, How Goddamn Hard Can It Be to Eat a Piece of Fucking Broccoli?!" struck a chord with Blue Gal and I'm sure, parents of toddlers everywhere.

We still have two more Don't Sugarcoat It Follies entries coming, so I'm told, and they'll be posted when they arrive in my inbox. Have a great weekend.

Don't Sugarcoat It Follies - Sandy Underpants

Regular Blue Gal readers might think I started this whole don't sugarcoat it follies thang just so I could have Sandy Underpants, of the wonderful group blog The Aristocrats, back on the show. And how very Merv of me. Sandy won the Don't Sugarcoat It Award on March 28 of this year and guest blogged for me again on May 19. Welcome back Sandy. Tell us what you've been up to.


a common thread - no planning for the bad result

had an epiphany t'other day - the absence of planning for or acknowledgement of the bad result is a common thread throughout Republican governance.

and for a while I thought, -they've just willed 'bad results' away. that's why they don't plan for them, to cement the charade of continuous progress on all fronts. briefly: --to acknowledge the possibility of bad results gives them a reality we don't want them to have.

but now I think it's not that simple, it's not that the Rs consciously avoid planning for the bad result; they just don't have time for it. they are fully employed and then some with their ceaseless planning for the good result --because their baseline gets reset with every sunrise. they're planning for a good result as compared with riiiiight now. they have embraced continuous governmental born-againism, coupled with bullet-proof self-serving blind optimism and it's very hard work.

they are the party of the future alright, just never the party of the present

Don't Sugarcoat It Awards for April 17

yes, you can order these blow pop panties, but I'm not telling you where

Today's Don't Sugarcoat It award goes to Blogenfreude of Agitprop for being the first to think of it: A Medal of Freedom Award for Rummy! It's so obvious I'll bet even Hannity is smacking his forehead right now. I mean, after all, he is doing a heckuva job, and well, you can read Agitprop for yourselves.

Yes, readers, you did just throw up a little in your mouth.

But while we're talking about it, you may remember that the Don't Sugarcoat It award is given to posts showing righteous outrage, not necessarily with profanity, but definitely with direct and elegant opposition to all that is wrong with the current administration/msm/world at large. Blogenfreude is being funny here, but by taking all this Presidential support for Rummy to its logical conclusion he makes a direct and elegant point about what a buncha stupid assholes these guys really are.

Is Blue Gal a little too NC-17 for you?

I won't get into why, and maybe Holy Week has something to do with it, but I've been wondering lately whether Blue Gal isn't a little too smutty.

A state-wide (yes, Alabama) blog listing rejected Blue Gal because they only wanted blogs that are "PG-13" at least.

Quaker Agitator has set some elegant and reasonable rules about posting to his site, including banning profanity. (I told him and his readers that whenever Bushco pissed 'em off, they could always bring their cuss words over here.)

And even Shakespeare's Sister brought the issue up, right before they opened a thread about what's your favorite sexual position. (Seems a tie between cowgirl and "woof woof", but I digress.)

If any of my regular readers finds an inconsistency between my love for Comrade Jesus and my calling Donald Rumsfeld a fucking asshole, please let me know in comments. If you can't read Blue Gal at work because of the panties (and kids, I could always just link to them, ya know), ditto. I'm here to please you, dahlinks.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for December 14

chug a lug that artificial pancake syrup, boys

Today's Don't Sugarcoat It Award goes to Aloysha McBain, for his lovely post, A Righteous Christian Gulag. 'Course, it coulda gone to his comment on yesterday's post, too. Anyhoo, it's good to have another sweet unsugared reader on board.

As regular Blue Gal readers know, the Don't Sugarcoat It Award is looking for raw emotion, not necessarily obscenity. But somehow the first four sentences of this post spoke straight to Blue Gal's heart:

Fuck you, George W. Bush. Fuck you, Dick Cheney. Fuck you, Donald Rumsfeld. And fuck you, Condi Rice.

Isn't that special? But the rest of the post is an elegant, truly elegant, indictment of those four regarding the whole secret prison scandal. Well-written, insightful, and lacking any syrup. Good job, auto-da-fe.

We are gonna talk about what to really do about terrorism tomorrow. Tune in then.

Don't Sugarcoat It awards for October 24

Blue Gal's most recent Don't Sugarcoat It award goes to Jurassic Pork over at Yep, another Goddamned blog for his open letter to the Democratic Leadership. Well written, even poetic, and his laundry list of issues We Care About is succinct and correct. Blue Gal loves his depiction [addressed to the all-too-wimpy Democratic leadership] of Mesdames Pelosi and Boxer:

Watch Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer in action some time. Nancy Pelosi putting Tom DeLay’s arrest warrant on the democratic leader’s website (it’s since been taken down. Hm) showed bigger, more hirsute and semen-engorged cajones than the rest of the Democratic House showed during the 108th session of Congress.

Watch Barb Boxer live up to her name and learn how to filet and not fellate an over-the-hill schoolyard bully like John Bolton or put Condi Rice’s well-shod feet to the fire...

Observe how fearless these ladies are of the stale and moldy as year-old bread charges of partisanship. Observe how dedicated they are to their constituency and the American people in general and let it rub off on you.

There's more, and you should read it, but since Blue Gal's Sunday School teacher might be reading too, she won't quote the really nasty bits. They're good though.

Honorable mention in the no sugarcoating category goes to a Republican Blue Gal loves, David Gergen. This has been quite a week for Gergen, in hot demand from talking heads shows because, well, he's a Republican that, surprise, never was asked to work for Dubya or never did. Either way, it's because he's intelligent and has integrity, so any job in this White House would not be a "good match" personnel-wise.

By now most of you have heard or read his "wheels are off the wagon" comment about this ugly period in White House history. He also is sticking to the guns re the "Cheney might be indicted" story, and sticking it to the Republican talking point that the treasongate story is being blown out of proportion:

I don't think that the press has over-dramatized this story. This is a major, important story in American political life. After all, the investigation, we know, is focusing on the two men who are closest to the President and the Vice-President of the United States. That's point one. And secondly, rapidly, if there are indictments, this story is also becoming an indictment of the way the Bush administration led us into war. Those are two important, dramatic stories.

In Talking Head Land, for a Republican to say that is more than a Don't Sugarcoat It moment.

Scooter, since you're in charge of the enemies list, please pencil in "and Blue Gal" right after Gergen's name, will ya?

Gergen's last stint at the White House was actually with Clinton because Clinton was smart enough to hire him. It's probably sacrilege for someone named "Blue Gal" to say it, but there is a brand of Repubs, Jesu Christi we ain't seen 'em much lately, who are class acts. They're intelligent and have integrity. They don't happen to be on Fox News or in this administration (duh), but William Weld, David Gergen, and a few others are actually decent human beings. Blue Gal hopes and prays that when this cesspool of a White House gets cleaned out, starting at the top, we not only have a Democratic Majority but hand over the Republican Party to some people with intelligent vision. And Gergen, honey, you're at the top of Blue Gal's list.

If any Blue Gal groupies wanna encourage Gergen to keep the faith and the courage, you may do so here if you tell him Blue Gal sent you.

PN: Happy Birthday to her favorite ACLU board member. xoxoxo

Don't Sugarcoat It Follies - Alyosha McBain

Welcome to the Don't Sugarcoat It Follies. I had so much fun when I was on vacation in March reading guest posts to my blog, that I decided to invite the past winners of the Don't Sugarcoat It Awards to write a post for Blue Gal. These will run as they come in over the next week or so. I gave the winners the option of writing about the 2008 Presidential election or coming up with their own topic. First up is Alyosha McBain of the blog Auto Da Fe. He won the Don't Sugarcoat It Award last December 14. More recent posts include the lovely and demure "How To Be A Fucking Fascist Disgrace, by Alberto Gonzales." And he's here today. Thanks Alyosha.



I lived through the eight long years of the Rudolph Giuliani mayoralty in New York City, and the possibility that this man could be elected President is terrifying to me. He must be stopped and kept away from a position that has stealthily accumulated more and more power under the Bush Gang. There is no bigger threat to American civil liberties than Rudolph Giuliani, and no other candidate out there has demonstrated their willingness to abuse the powers of elected office as clearly and readily as Mr. Giuliani.

He swept into power and won a mayoral election months after inciting a riot by NYC police officers, and left the office of mayor eight years later in 2001, standing on a pile of their corpses. His sonorous and somber intonations made in the shadow of the fallen Twin Towers (as smoke and debris clouds whipped around us all in NYC) helped establish himself as the government's public face of the 9-11 attacks. Prior to becoming NYC mayor, as a US attorney and later a prosecutor, Rudolph Giuliani attacked his caseload with the zeal of Andrei Vyshinsky, and used methods of humiliation and psychological pressure on his targets that were antecedents to those practiced by private contractors in Iraqi prisons under the Bush administration.

The media was adoringly complicit in these humiliations, giving wide rein to a man whose vindictiveness was so fierce that he once jailed a 78-year old mafia man over the Thanksgiving holiday as a flight risk and prevented him from receiving medical care while in police custody. Perp walks with Michael Milken and various other 1980's crime figures cemented his image as an up-and-coming figure on the NYC political landscape.

He used this notoriety to run against David Dinkins in 1989. Though he lost, Rudolph positioned himself as a logical successor to Dinkins. As the Dinkins administration floundered amidst such non-stories as a boycott of a Korean grocery store by African-American activists and real problems like the riots in Crown Heights in 1991, Giuliani's opposition to Dinkins took a turn from pointed critical analysis towards blatant pandering to frightened whites. This tactic proved successful for Giuliani as he won the 1993 election easily over Dinkins.

As mayor, Giuliani gave the police unlimited public support. He excused viciousness by the pigs in blue in the horrific torture and beating of Abner Louima, and helped defend and exonerate the trigger-happy coppers involved in the police murders of Patrick Dorismond and Amadou Diallo.

He turned the cops loose on the streets of the city, allowing massive numbers of illegal stop-and-searches in many non-white neighborhoods. His so-called quality-of-life improvement tactics allegedly involved the physical transport of NYC's homeless miles beyond city limits, although this issue was barely investigated by the city's elitist press, who if asked would probably have approved of this repressive and illegal activity. Cops began to flood precincts and courts with petty marijuana possession arrests that were dismissed by judges at rates of above 97% between the years 1997-1999. The arrest rates on this terrible, terrible crime rose over 7000% between 1992 and 1999 and ended up being little more than annoying busy work for city police officers. The fact that the civil rights of American citizens who happened to be drug users or minorities were being abused mattered little to shitheaded white NYC bigots, who had been thoroughly impressed and enraptured with the sudden fearful deference they felt from formerly self-assured minority citizens.

Giuliani closed off public access to City Hall as mayor (using concrete barriers, no less), and also did his utmost to prevent the most radical city in the US from having any sort of alternative political life. Protests were broken up by police after the mayor's office would deny permits, as Giuliani grimly attempted to make one of the most traditionally Democratic and unique cities in the US into some nightmarish Republican version of Fantasy Island. Welcoming franchise fast food chains into the city that other mayors had denied (like Subway and Chili's) was only one of the ways in which his asshole with a combover defiled the gloriously seedy landscape of New York City.

New York City folks are no fools. And by the sixth year of Rudolph's reign, many city residents were more fond of venereal disease than they were of Giuliani. The police stop-and-searches had begun to receive major negative coverage in certain newspapers, and the unapologetic use of deadly force by the NYPD had soured many early Giuliani supporters on the veracity of his rhetoric and purposes as mayor. The year 2001 witnessed the publication of a nifty hatchet job bio by Wayne Barrett that told of his transformation from a Democrat to a (gulp!) Republican, and it used his job as a prosecutor to probe Rudolph's psyche, concluding that his narrow, monochromatic view of the world was the result of years spent screeching at juries about the moral imperatives involved in locking people up in tiny rooms for really long periods of time. This bio splashed all over the tabloids in NYC, and there was no information more titillating than the fact that Giuliani's father did time in Sing Sing for armed robbery and also worked as a low-level enforcer for the Mafia. While this was going on he was being sued for divorce by his then-wife Donna Hanover, who alleged that this moral titan of Republicanism had been guilty of repeated infidelities with two long-term extra-marital girlfriends in the last eight years. Rudolph's response to this was to get all tabloid TV about it and reveal not only the name and face of his current paramour but to admit that he was suffering from prostate cancer. After public discussions of such treatment options as the implantation of radioactive seeds up Rudolph's ass along with less embarrassing, more traditional forms of chemotherapy, the people of NYC were just wishing that he would go away.

9-11 arrived just in time for Rudolph to rehabilitate his failing dictatorship. He was everywhere that day, running around with a crew of cameramen to record his every action on that fateful morning (which of course might suggest some foreknowledge of the deadly havoc that had been unleashed upon "his" city, but that discussion is for another day). Standing next to the witless GW Bush and the vapid, phlegmatic George Pataki in the days to follow, Rudolph couldn't help but come off looking like Churchill during the Battle of Britain by comparision. And once again, he was everywhere--at Yankee games, in his accustomed elite front row seat, with his newly beloved; or at Ground Zero, posing against the profile of the ruin of over 3000 lives. And not only that, but these events transformed this racist oppressor, this disciple of the Manhattan Institute's repugnant social philosophy into an American statesman!

Five years of relatively low visibility have allowed him to regain his health. His pugnacity and abililty to speak extemporaneously will be tough for any Democratic candidate in any debate situation. His iconic status as the Shepherd of Terror Victims is transparent, however, and he can be attacked on so many aspects of his record as mayor of NYC. The question is whether or not the Democrats will have enough balls to remind voters of his pre-9-11 record. His misuse of the police is something that New York State and City judges were on record about during the 1990's, and his sheer inattention to non-white citizens is something that must be brought up constantly by Democratic opponents. There is more to municipal governance than arresting its citizenry; I shudder when I think of a potential Giuliani administration, seeing DNA ID's, national traffic checkpoints, and routine police harassment as natural and immediate consequences of this dictatorial maniac's will to power. Great care should be taken by the Democrats to piss him off in front of running cameras; his shrillness and utter meanness cannot be hidden when he is in full temper. The retreat from the Bill of Rights that began after World War II and reached its high point under the illegal Bush occupation of the White House will continue, and if there's ever been an American politician who is likely to fill up the detention camps that Halliburton is slated to construct in the next five years, it is Rudolph Giuliani.

The Don't Sugarcoat It Award for July 9

I don't often follow celebrity news. So trust me, the fact that I've actually heard about Christie Brinkley's divorce, in detail. is a sign that it's an extraordinarily noisy affair. "Don't Sugarcoat It's" are usually reserved for foul-mouthed bloggers, but I really gotta hand it to the court-appointed mental health professional in this case, who essentially said:

"you're both self-absorbed crazyheads putting the needs of your pathetic egos ahead of your children's welfare, in public."

Thank you for keeping it sweet, court-shrink.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for February 9

I know, it's not Boy Butter.
Please, I want to stay neutral
in the "taste versus viscosity" lube wars.
Two don't sugarcoat it awards in two days. The blogosphere must be doing something right.

Today's award goes to new discovery Cause for Concern, for his lovely post, "A Haggard Idea, the Haggard Cure." Here's a sample, but do go read the whole thing:

Rev. Ted Haggard has been cured of his homo-dirty-man-sex-(and-meth) thing.

...And the drag queen angels are line dancing to "I Will Survive" on the head of every pin in the world. And they're laughing.

Congratulations, Cause, and welcome to the party.

Hump Day Open Thread

Bumpersticker from here.

Comment prompts:

This came up at salon Monday: Who's your favorite GOP candidate, for pure snark/ridicule purposes? My initial buck is on Brownback, but Guiliani sure is a close second. Tell us why, too.

Is there any link between Scooter Libby and the guy who jumped the Popemobile yesterday? Make one up.

I'm also looking around for some don't sugarcoat it posts. Got some sweet panties for the award ceremony. If you see a blogpost that doesn't sugarcoat it (small blogs only, please), let me know.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for February 3

Today's Don't Sugarcoat It Award goes to the published author and new blogger Cintra Wilson for her lovely post, "Tucker Carlson: A Big Girl's Blouse of a Snivelling Priggot." I could put a blockquote here, but really, you must go read the whole thing. And leave a comment that Blue Gal sentcha.

And gee, that post leads me to believe that Cintra won't have that Tucker Carlson Widget on her site. Dear MSNBC: That "feature" ranks right up there with the "freshness date" on canned Budweiser, in my opinion.

As I've said many times, Blue Gal's blogroll just can't have enough smart funny women on it. Welcome to the party, Cintra.

A nice spank with the velvet rope, which he prefers to the hat tip, to Doug.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for March 2

The blogosphere is all abuzz about how us lefties know and use the seven dirty words better than the wingnuts.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand dirty words.

Oh, let's not go there. You know I image google "panties" just about every day and seriously I am immune to most dirty pictures. I do wish summa those girls would take a shower and use just a little of their obviously huge body-wax-budget on their upper lip (yeah, the one just below their nose) before the flash goes off, if you get my drift.

Anyhoo, the award today goes to This Old Broad, who in my opinion is neither. She's a fox in looks and brains. And she doesn't sugarcoat her short story, which she tells in pictures. Good going, gal.

PS. Full Disclosure: Using teh Google's advanced blog search, Blue Gal, the blog, hosts 582 instances of George Carlin's seven dirty words. I consider that low.

Don't Sugarcoat It Award for May 1

From Sister Nancy,
and you can tell that's a Great Lash wand, you bet your bouffant.
(order the thong here.)

Today's Don't Sugarcoat It Award goes to visiting journalist Joe Bageant at Talk2Action for his lovely post, "Redneck Liberation Theology --- Why are leftists so fucking afraid of God?" It's so nice, first off, to see another writer of faith use the fuck word. Makes me feel a little less alone. But Joe also cuts through the mustard, turkey, pickle, lettuce and tomato, with this insightful comment, which really hit home with Blue Gal's experience at the Divinity School up the river:

It's OK for Latin Americans to practice fundamental Catholic Christianity with great devotion (brown peoples are suckers for that superstitious stuff) but white American fundamentalists, well, that's another matter. As the left sees it, what they need is a good public stoning.

The egotism of the left hit very close to home with me in graduate school. It's perfectly alright for Africans to practice Islam in a fundamentalist way, Buddhists to do whatever they do, etc. But if a white American believes in following Jesus than yeah, gotta watch that one. I was laughed at in a class at Harvard Divinity School for daring to bring up Lazarus in a discussion of the afterlife. Seriously. People in the class laughed out loud to my face. It's okay to take apart biblical texts and piece together myriad translations and even to bring up how OTHER PEOPLE in OTHER COUNTRIES might use Biblical text to change their situation. But hey, you know what? We're better and smarter than that.

That's not only fucking patronizing, it's fucking racist. Just saying.

Maybe I'm misreading Joe, but the money quote for me in this article is that we, all of us, have to come to grips with the fact that both the American Empire and the planet itself are dangerously close to ending. And that if we, the left wing, the ones who always, always, congratulate ourselves that WE are the ones "paying attention," fail through our own egotistical trust in our own intellectual righteousness, to connect with anything outside that ego, we're screwed.

Busting through the delusional veil of any imperial state culture always spells acceptance of more tough news for its clueless citizenry. In our case means reconnection with the earth, and embracing the suffering and eventual death it provides every living thing as a matter of physics and cosmic order. That's where it begins and ends. Everything in between, the NGOs, the Internet, the theologians, and all the political theories in the world are just the signal static, the self-enforced interference between ourselves and the only worthwhile goals left in a doomed Empire---and all empires eventually meet their doom---humility, compassion and reconnection with the spirit.

We lefty Christians, on the other hand, must admit that it's our own damn fault for letting James Dobson tell America that he speaks for Christianity and yeah, we didn't call him on his bullshit early enough or loud enough. Because now, yeah, the majority of lefties hate Christians and don't want to even talk about it. They're justified.

We've started to undo that, I hope, with Blog Against Theocracy. I hope at least in the blogosphere, the three hundred or so bloggers who participated realize that Christians are not all James Dobson, and that scientists are not all Richard Dawkins. If you're here reading, you know they're not.

In either case, it's not about being right all the time. It's about listening.