Bits & Pieces
Articles with unfiltered opinions
Latest Politics
The True Gospel On Immigration
About this fellow Jesus, who is the object of much commercial attention right now: If you care a whit about his moral teachings, you’ll share my beliefs regarding the immigration dispute. According to the Good Samaritan parable in the New Testament’s Gospel of Luke, the divinely inspired message on obtaining safe passage to heaven is...
Fracking Up Texas
It may be true, as they say, that everything is bigger in Texas—even the hypocrisy of the state’s elected Republican officials. It is so big that exposing these two-faced scoundrels in a single HUSTLER column will de difficult. But saddle up, pardner. I’m gonna try. The voters of Denton, Texas—the vast majority of them registered...
Asshole of the Month: Marco Rubio
Marco Rubio is a fresh new face in the Republican Presidential sweepstakes, but despite the good looks and charming articulation—a Ricky Ricardo look-alike carefully tailored to siphon the Hispanic vote away from Democrats—he’s afflicted with the same debilitating political Alzheimer’s that plagues the rest of the pack. After five years in the U.S. Senate, Rubio...
Gays’ Big Day
Thanks to the wisdom of five U.S. Supreme Court justices, the sexual revolution has won its most important victory. By affirming the “equal dignity” of same-sex marriage, the Court held that the significance of matrimony transcends the traditional religious purpose of procreation. As Justice Anthony Kennedy noted for the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges,...
Derailing Amtrak
Eight people were killed and more than 200 injured when an Amtrak train bound for New York City derailed in Philadelphia on May 12. According to federal officials, the train had been barreling around a sharp curve at 106 mph—more than double the allowable maximum speed—just moments before the locomotive and all the cars careened...
Asshole of the Month: Ben Carson
By popular acclaim of the Tea Party and the evangelical ding-dong wing of the Republican Party, Dr. Ben Carson has been drafted to run for President. No doubt he’s a smart and talented man: former head of pediatric surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the first surgeon to separate conjoined twins attached at the head, author...
Treacherous Sucking Sound
“We have got to stop sending jobs overseas,” the somewhat loony Ross Perot presciently warned back in 1992. The third-party Presidential candidate was bashing the then-pending North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) before most Americans had a clue what he was talking about. They still don’t. “ pretty simple,” Perot explained during a debate with...
Asshole of the Month: Jeb Bush
After the embarrassing debacle of George W. Bush’s presidency, you’d think the Republican Party would be wary of offering up one of his siblings for another stint in the White House. But the Bush pedigree is ever popular in conservative circles, guaranteed to haul in record boatloads of campaign cash from the oligarchs who virtually...
Asshole of the Month: Tom Cotton
Tom Cotton, the freshman senator from Arkansas, has stormed Capitol Hill like a fire-breathing Godzilla, determined to demolish any moves toward diplomacy, peace and non violent resolution of world conflicts. The whole Neocon nutball chorus is swooning over him, having finally found somebody besides a craven chickenhawk to beat their war drums. After graduating from...
Mainstream Media Strikes It Rich
When the U.S. Supreme Court, in the now-infamous Citizens United case, ruled that corporations, associations and labor unions may spend as much as they’d like to influence (buy!) elections, it helped blow the wheels off of whatever was left of our democracy. CQ Roll Call’s Eliza Newlin Carney, one of the few journalists focusing on...
Useless Spying
They are such liars! Since September 2001 the government’s secrecy spooks have insisted that their indiscriminate monitoring of our phone calls, emails, financial transactions and reading habits is necessary to protect us from terrorists. But evidence is mounting that the NSA, CIA and FBI are full of it. There is not a single provable instance...
Asshole of the Century: George W. Bush
As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron,” wrote H.L. Mencken, the Sage of...
What a Friggin’ Meese!
The 41st anniversary of HUSTLER as a controversial pornographic magazine is a fit occasion to evoke the memory of Edwin Meese III. As President Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Meese failed spectacularly in his effort to shut down the publication and others like it. But that setback wouldn’t dampen his usefulness to reactionary causes. From the...
Asshole of the Century: George W. Bush
As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron,” wrote H.L. Mencken, the Sage of...
Why Isn’t He In The Slammer?
No one is ever prosecuted for revealing secrets that make the government look good. The book is only thrown at whistleblowers, like Edward Snowden, who expose government officials for betraying the public trust. Unless sex is involved! Then, as former CIA Director David Petraeus learned, puritanism trumps even the claims of patriotism, and passing highly...
Indefensible Waste Of Money
In his January 17, 1961, farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that “in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” and “the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” Most American leaders have ignored his warning and have allowed the military-industrial juggernaut...
Asshole of the Month: James Inhofe
We ridicule Iran as a country dominated by backward-minded religious zealots, clinging to the ancient Quran as the supreme authority for governing life in the modern world. But those who live in glass greenhouses shouldn’t cast stones: America has its own tribe of embarrassing Bible-belt baboons making idiotic statements and self-destructive policies. Chief among them,...
Friend Or Foe?
What we don’t know about Saudi Arabia is killing us. That’s the insane subtext of the so-called War on Terror, a decades-long travesty during which six U.S. presidents have been hustled by the religious fanatics of a brutal theocracy. Saudis are the sworn enemies of all our basic democratic values; yet we have embraced them...
Tortured Accountability
Now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress, you’ll hear more and more talk about “accountability” for a “lawless President.” Don’t worry. They’re totally kidding. Sure, they’ll put on show trials (otherwise known as oversight hearings) pretending to get to the bottom of phony “scandals” they claim to be “serious violations of the law and...
Asshole of the Month: Louie Gohmert
If you think George W. Bush is the most backward buffoon ever to come out of Texas, think again. Dubya’s reign may soon be upstaged by another inbred spawn of the Loon Star state— Republican Representative Louie Gohmert. A blunt-speaking darling of the Tea Party crowd, Gohmert’s reactionary philosophy is summed up in this statement:...
