Larry Flynt's Blog, page 27

IS IT TIME FOR A REVOLUTION?

from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

When the government turns against the people, it is time for the people to turn against their government. So you must ask yourself: Is the government of the United States of America representing you? Or is it representing the corporations that fund the politicians' election campaigns?

To date, the government has taken your money to bail out the banks, sent your jobs overseas to support Big Business and made your ability to vote a meaningless exercise. (See Brad Friedman's article The End of Democracy, beginning on page 72 of this issue.)

The American Revolution was sparked by a tax on tea. What will it take for us to (peacefully) storm the barricades?

THE END OF DEMOCRACY

by Brad Friedman
From HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

Amid the billowing smoke and carnage in the oilslicked waters of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the damage wrought by a Japanese surprise attack was devastatingly clear. The same was true when we watched in horror as the smoldering twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001.

Like those two pivotal events, January 21, 2010, is also "a date which will live in infamy," yet you probably didn't even notice. But you will.

If you thought the U.S. Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott ruling was bad, and its 2001 Bush v. Gore decision awarding the White House to Dubya stunk, hold onto your hats. The highest court in the land has outdone itself with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Whereas Dred Scott deemed that blacks weren't people and therefore not entitled to the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, early this year the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-4 decision, decided that corporations can spend unlimited sums on political advertising to elect a preferred candidate—or to ensure that anybody they don't like doesn't get elected.

So, next election, it will be your "free speech" versus Walmart's. Your "free speech" versus ExxonMobil's. Your "free speech" versus AIG's or Halliburton's or Citibank's or Monsanto's or Lockheed Martin's or Pfizer's or the entire for-profit health insurance industry. Who do you suppose is going to win such a contest?

Corporations, which spent more to influence Congress last year than ever before, already had too much control of both Republican and Democratic candidates. And it's about to get much, much worse. Justice John Paul Stevens, in his scathing dissent to the Citizens United decision, wrote: "While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics." But the five Reagan/Bush I/Bush II-appointed justices—Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy—won the day.

Former Federal Elections Commission attorney Lawrence M. Noble concisely explained what any lobbyist or any corporation may now say to any member of Congress: "We have got a million we can spend advertising for you or against you— whichever one you want." Noble's "million" is an exceedingly conservative number. He might as well have said 10 million or 100 million. It's all legal now, any amount.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations," while Chief Justice John Roberts worried that "First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy." Free speech "confined to individuals"?! Oh, the horror. We'd hate to interrupt the "vibrant public discourse" that currently takes place every day between you the reader and Bank of America. How's that "vibrant discourse" going, by the way?

Justice Antonin Scalia added, with a presumably straight face: "We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate."

Even a Ronald Reagan appointee, former conservative Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, wasn't celebrating the decision: "The [Supreme Court] majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in…elections might get considerably worse and quite soon." As the previous swing vote on the High Court, O'Connor wrote the majority opinion supporting legislative restrictions on corporate campaign spending in the bipartisan McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act, which was gutted by the Citizens United decision.

As if that weren't enough, legal scholars say the decision also applies to corporations with majority ownership by foreign countries. China and Saudi Arabia can now spend as much as they want to influence American elections. And worse, it can all be done in secret! No disclosure is necessary.

Republicans Celebrate "Activist Judges Legislating From the Bench"

It didn't have to happen, but Chief Justice Roberts wanted it to. Citizens United, a wealthy right-wing group with a documentary called Hillary: The Movie, wanted to advertise the hit piece on television in the days prior to 2008's New Hampshire primary. That would have violated the McCain- Feingold Act's restrictions on corporate spending in the 30 days prior to elections. Lower courts barred Citizens United from advertising the movie. Roberts granted the case a hearing, but rather than decide on that very narrow issue, Dubya's appointee asked Citizens United to return later to argue a larger question that it hadn't even asked: whether there should be any limits on corporate campaign spending.

There was little doubt that the highly unusual move was made to allow Roberts and his right-wing majority on the Court the opportunity to decide in favor of corporations. The activist Republican justices clearly went out of their way to decimate a century of established campaign-finance law limiting corporate spending.

Republicans used to call that sort of thing "legislating from the bench" back when they were against judges creating law and overriding the will of the people's elected legislatures. As with most claims by the modern Republican they didn't actually mean it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) praised the decision: "For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process. … [T]he Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups…to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day."

Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Republican Leader, concurred: "I think the Supreme Court decisions today are a big win for the First Amendment and a step in the right direction."

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, said: "I am pleased that the Supreme Court has acted to protect the Constitution's First Amendment rights of free speech and association." Of course, the "free speech" of corporations comes first for Cornyn and friends. Unless, like ExxonMobil, you also have $45.2 billion in profits available to pump into political campaigns—as the oil giant had in 2008. Most of the immediate Democratic responses were timid, but some Dems were fighting mad. Florida's firebrand freshman Representative Alan Grayson said the decision "legalizes bribery on the largest scale imaginable. … Corporations will be able to reward politicians that play ball with them, and they will be able to beat to death the politicians that don't."

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, coauthor of the McCain-Feingold Act, called the decision "a terrible mistake" in which the Court ignored "important principles of judicial restraint and respect for precedent." He added, "Presented with a relatively narrow legal issue, the Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was President."

Stare (pronounced star-ay) decisis refers to established law or precedent, the idea that judges should defer to the decisions of their predecessors, particularly after those decisions have had sufficient time to become "settled law." The concept is generally raised during the confirmation protocol to determine whether or not potential Supreme Court justices will honor long-established decisions, such as abortion rights.

Both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito gave lip service to their support of stare decisis during their respective confirmation hearings, although Roberts showed his hand a bit more than Alito did. While claiming an interest in "promoting the stability of the legal system," Roberts hedged. "Obviously, if the decision is wrong, it should be overruled," he qualified. "That's not activism. That's applying the law correctly."

Despite considerable pressure from progressives to filibuster the nomination, 22 spineless Senate Democrats—including the otherwise-tenacious Feingold—voted to confirm John Roberts in 2005. They might as well have been voting themselves out of Congress—unless, of course, they prove willing to toe the corporate line.

Alito was less honest about respecting precedent. "It is not true, in my judgment, that the Supreme Court is free to do anything that it wants," Alito stated during his 2006 confirmation. "It has to follow the Constitution, and it has to follow the laws. Stare decisis…is an important limitation on what the Supreme Court does. And although the Supreme Court has the power to overrule a prior precedent, it uses that power sparingly, and rightfully so."

Apparently Alito was just kidding when he said he was "in favor of not trying to do too much, not trying to decide questions that are too broad, not trying to decide questions that don't have to be decided and not going to broader grounds for a decision when a narrower ground is available."

Just four Senate Democrats voted to confirm Alito—enough to ensure the longevity of the right-wing coup initiated by the High Court's Florida 2000 decision.

The Only Real Solution Is a Constitutional Amendment Outraged yet? If not, you're not paying attention. Or you believe that our Founders, after giving no explicit rights to corporations in the Constitution, actually intended that fictional entities—which don't breathe, go to jail, die or even have an actual mouth— should be entitled to "free speech" guaranteed by the First Amendment.

In his dissenting opinion, Stevens stated the obvious: "Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters."

Normally, one might fight a bad law by taking it all the way up to the Supreme Court. But this law was written by the Supreme Court. So we are largely fucked. (I'll take this opportunity to thank John Kerry for that—for not fighting in 2004 to make sure every vote was counted accurately and publicly in the state of Ohio, where he might have received more votes than Bush.)

As this issue goes to press, members of Congress—largely Democrats—plan to introduce legislation that could result in some restrictions on corporate campaign spending. But any new legislation can now be opposed by the power of unlimited corporate cash before passage.

Alan Grayson has introduced a package of six bills with names like the "Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act," the "End Political Kickbacks Act," the "Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act" and the "Ending Corporate Collusion Act." At SaveDemocracy.net, Grayson posted a simple petition in support of the package, stating: "We cannot have a government that is bought and paid for by huge multinational corporations. We need a government of the people, by the people and for the people." A crazy leftist idea.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Representative Chris Van Hollen (DMaryland) hope to fast-track bills banning donations from foreign-influenced companies and from companies that have received taxpayer assistance, such as 2009's bank bailouts (at least until that money is paid back). Such bills would mandate immediate public disclosure of campaign spending by corporations, approval from shareholders or "I approve this ad" announcements by company CEOs.

As yet no Republicans are cosponsoring those bills. course, any new bill will face Supreme Court scrutiny. Good luck with that.

Activists at PeaceTeam.net have launched a petition calling for the impeachment of the "Supreme Court 5." Good luck with that too. The only permanent and reasonable option to unwind this madness is a Constitutional amendment clarifying what every logical and/or non- Republican person in the country likely understands: The First Amendment right to free speech is meant to apply to humans, not fictional business entities.

Representative Donna Edwards (D-Maryland) has proposed a resolution calling for an amendment to the Constitution. It reads: "Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company or other corporate entity. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press." If passed, it would then require ratification by two-thirds of the state legislatures.

Constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, legal director of FreeSpeechForPeople.org, supports Edwards's initiative, noting our nation's history of enacting amendments "to correct egregiously wrong decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court directly impacting the democratic process."

The group's general counsel, Jeffrey Clements, calls such action necessary because, he says, the Citizens United "decision is devastating to our democracy, which is already dominated to a dangerous degree by corporate interest money." Adding a new amendment to the Constitution is an onerous process that takes years, but other options are limited. Yes, this is that bad.

MoveToAmend.org also has a petition in support of an amendment to "firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to Constitutional rights."

As Move to Amend strives to craft language that may gain broad support—even from Republicans, who would be needed to ratify such an amendment— John Wilkens, a reader of my own blog, wrote elegantly simple Constitutional language for such an amendment: "The rights, responsibilities and privileges granted to citizens of the United States as enumerated in this Constitution, its amendments and extended through case law are exclusively reserved for human beings."

—–

Now there's an—apparently—novel idea! Brad Friedman is a Los Angeles-based investigative journalist and political commentator. Besides cohosting radio's nationally syndicated Green News Report, he is the executive editor and publisher of The Brad Blog (BradBlog.com).

WHITEWASHING BUSH TORTURE CZAR JOHN YOO

by Nat Hentoff
from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

THE WAR ON TERROR CONTINUES TO GIVE THE PRESIDENT UNBRIDLED POWERS THAT TURN THE RULE OF LAW UPSIDE DOWN.

Authored by John Yoo in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2002, the infamous "torture memos" gave the Bush-Cheney Administration precisely what it demanded: legal cover for the unbounded "coercive interrogation" of suspected terrorists at Abu Ghraib and the CIA's secret prisons ("black sites"), as well as for "renditions," whereby other such suspects were whisked off to countries known for torturing their prisoners.

This shameful U.S. "torture policy" led to deep resentment from our allies and a unanimous, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2008, which declared that these "coercive interrogations" provided al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups a powerful recruiting tool.

Accordingly, there was keen anticipation in this country and abroad when the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility embarked on a four-year investigation of the possible lawlessness of John Yoo and his accomplice in the Office of Legal Counsel, Jay Bybee.

Before the final version of the OPR report was released, leaks revealed that the investigation initially found that then-Deputy Attorney General Yoo had "committed intentional professional misconduct when he violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective and candid legal advice." (Bybee was similarly censured.)

This ruling, once issued and sent to the bar associations in the states where Yoo and Bybee were licensed, could have led to their disbarment and possible prosecution. But suddenly both were spared punishment by an edict from David Margolis, a longtime high-level associate deputy attorney general. He is a Justice Department expert in—I kid you not—"legal ethics."

Margolis countermanded the OPR investigators, concluding that Yoo and Bybee (the latter promoted in 2003 to a federal judgeship) had used just "poor judgment." Naughty, naughty. Then and now, Yoo's go-ahead on torture was based on his conviction that the President— commander in chief in the war against terrorism— had limitless power to keep us safe. For instance, when an OPR investigator asked Yoo if the President could order the extermination of "a village of civilians," his answer was "Sure."

There is much more in this extensive Office of Professional Responsibility report than references to Yoo and Bybee. It makes, in detail, a powerful case for a necessary Congressional— or independent—investigation on the highest accountability for the torture policy all the way up the chain of command to the White House.

Dick Cheney, the proponent as Vice President of what he called "the dark side" of our survival battle against terrorism, actually said to an ABC News interviewer on February 14 of this year— as he defended John Yoo—"I thought it was important…to stand up and defend those people who'd done what we asked them to do."

Yoo and Bybee were indeed acting on orders from on high. OPR investigators were told by John Bellinger—who was a lawyer at the National Security Council while Yoo was at the Justice Department—that Yoo was under tremendous pressure to come up with an answer that would justify continuing the interrogation program.

As I've previously reported, the CIA was very worried that its interrogators might be in danger of being prosecuted, and Yoo had urgently asked for an Office of Legal Counsel get-out-of-jail pass. Great pressures on Yoo had also come from Dick Cheney's insistently hardline legal counsel, David Addington. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in 2008, Addington—defending Yoo—said significantly, "This is what his client asked him to do."

Yoo's client was George W. Bush, along with those he commanded in the executive branch, including then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Now that we and the world know who was ultimately responsible for violating our own Torture Act, the international Covenant Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, etc., shouldn't we know whether any of them will be investigated to show that we are indeed a nation of laws, not men? As of this writing, there have been pledges of investigations by chairmen of the Democratically controlled House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but nothing has started. And President Obama, who has continued some of the Bush-Cheney practices, is opposed to looking back lest he be tracked.

As for the Republicans, the influential Senator John Cornyn of Texas, an active member of the Judiciary Committee, said that Yoo and Bybee deserve "the thanks of a grateful nation for their service." Huh? Cornyn is only angry at "the irreparable damage to their reputations." How about our reputations? The triumphant John Yoo, in a prominent Wall Street Journal article titled "My Gift to President Obama," exulted: "Barack Obama may not realize it, but I may have just helped save his Presidency. How? By winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe. … I did not do this to win any popularity contests. … I did it to help our President—President Obama, not Bush." I expect President Obama is grateful.

After leaving the Oval Office, Richard Nixon said: "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." Nixon ultimately had to resign for what he did. But if Obama and future Presidents continue to operate under the Bush- Cheney-Yoo doctrine that there are no boundaries to what our commanders in chief can unilaterally do to preserve our safety and our values, Nixon's assurances that future Presidents are impregnably above the law will be validated as long as there are threats from terrorism. With the Constitution's separation of powers discarded as obsolete, our individual liberties are being imperiled, not only due to terrorists but also at the hands of our own leaders. Will this still be America?

Nat Hentoff is a historian of the Constitution, a jazz critic and a columnist for the Village Voice and Free Inquiry. His incisive books include The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America ; Living the Bill of Rights ; and the forthcoming Is This America?

TO LIVE AND LOVE IN LINCOLN

by Sam Sullivan
from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

WRESTLING WITH OLD-SCHOOL MORALITY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is more than a renowned educational center in the Midwest. Like institutions of higher learning from sea to shining sea, UNL is also a place where the young at heart and eager of mind can strike back at the rigid morality of their forefathers. Two sterling examples: a pair of UNL wrestlers opting to model in the buff for a gay Web site and a Sigma Chi fraternity pledge literally putting his ass on the line.

"When you cleave the meat off the bones of the Midwest, the bones are just as hard," says Micah Persell, a UNL political science major. Oddly profound wisdom.

Is the University of Nebraska-Lincoln especially depraved? No. But the common conservative vision of the Midwest as a wholesome utopia, free from the burdens of coastal sin, hardly stands up under the evidence. Beneath the illusion of freshly pressed-and-starched piety lies the same kind of sexual indiscretions found in any of the demonized big cities far from Lincoln. Here in the supposedly squeaky-clean capital of Nebraska, a pickup truck has come to be a double entendre, and one of the most popular hangouts for UNL students (especially coeds) is The Q, a gay bar on Ninth Street.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has another interesting distinction: the Scarlet Project, a Web site dedicated to digging up the school's proverbial dirt. While more like a traditional lowbrow gossip rag, the Scarlet Project broke the gay-porn scandal, which was further sensationalized by the Lincoln Journal Star and ESPN. It turns out that FratmenTV.com paid cold, hard (pun intended) cash to two UNL wrestlers, who were booted off the team after it was revealed they had individually modeled nude for the gay Web site. (It's worth noting that over the years a litany of Cornhusker jocks have engaged in far more egregious activities without facing dire consequences.)

Regarding the aforementioned Sigma Chi incident, it's no secret that things often get out of control when fraternities and sororities recruit prospective members and later welcome them into the fold. But there's something unique about what earned the UNL chapter of Sigma Chi a suspension: hiring a stripper who allegedly used a vibrator to anally penetrate a rush pledge during an initiation ceremony. Yes, those Greeks sure know how to have fun.

Perhaps a modern-day Sinclair Lewis from Nebraska will write a heartwarming tome about the joys of frat house buggery. And maybe, in due time, a political candidate will follow in the footsteps of John McCain and Sarah Palin, vowing to bring the heartland's cherished values to the rest of America, including free subscriptions to FratmenTV.com.

The Midwest, it might be said, is only depraved by the standards of cultural relativity: A given transgression looks worse because this part of the country is perceived as a bastion of virtue. Helping fortify that notion is neocon Glenn Beck's The Real America: Messages From the Heart and Heartland. But taking the book as gospel, which many appear to have done, makes it easy to overlook that transgressions abound nationwide, even in the cornfields of the Midwest.

Finally, the University of Nebraska- Lincoln campus is adorned with religious outposts meant in part to bolster the faith of students who, living away from home for the first time, might be tempted to stray from their family-values upbringing. A dual world emerges, one where the bones of the university are laden with meat, and another where they are picked dry not by ravenous vultures but something more insidious: cold, hard facts. While the Midwest is reputed to be the "real America" because of its inhabitants' virtues, perhaps it deserves that designation because of its inhabitants' faults.

Sam Sullivan is a University of Nebraska- Lincoln sophomore majoring in general studies with an interest in criminal justice and journalism. In his spare time the Hebron native, who aspires to be a full-time writer, is a "dedicated muckraker" and YouTube contributor.

Attention college reporters: If you have an idea for a story involving your school—streaking, stripping, partying, pranks, protests, political or censorship issues, etc.—please contact us at Features@LFP.com. If you get the green light, Larry Flynt will send you a check with his name on it. Besides the financial windfall, a HUSTLER story will look good on your résumé.

LAME BILL FROM A LAME DUCK

by Robert Scheer
from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

CONGRESS MAY TRY TO REIN IN WALL STREET, BUT THE BANKERS WILL CONTINUE TO THREATEN OUR WAY OF LIFE.

If the healthcare-reform battle has been an unsatisfying test of the government's ability to deal with our pressing problems, brace yourself for bigger disappointment in its attempt to bridle Wall Street. This is where the true heavies go to work, and—as opposed to the medical-industry lobby— the moneychangers fear not the wrath of their clients or, as Scripture tells, any higher power.

Certainly not that of Congress or the President, whose powers it has so confidently purchased. That is how we got into this mess. The bankers wrote the rules of the road that allowed them to exceed all reasonable limits when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House. And when the crash came, it was the Republican George W. Bush who made their problems go away.

Having survived that disaster of their own creation, they are not about to let anyone make them change their ways. It will definitely take more than the likes of Connecticut's lame-duck Senator Christopher Dodd, a likely candidate for more lucrative employment in the financial sector that the Democrat has served so faithfully.

Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, made a big show of introducing legislation to rein in Wall Street, having failed to elicit a single Republican vote after months of caving in. He has abandoned his earlier proposal for a truly independent regulatory agency that would challenge the Fed, which got us into this jam. His bill rejects a public audit of the Fed, where he would house what remains of the President's proposed consumer- protection agency.

There is only a nod in the direction of a return to the Glass-Steagall Act's separation of investment and banking firms, a regulation that Dodd, along with New York Democrat Charles Schumer, helped kill a decade ago. As the New York Times reported on October 23, 1999: "Dodd, whose state is home to the nation's largest insurance companies, and Schumer, with strong ties to Wall Street, have long sought legislation to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act."

That's what legally made possible the toobig- to-fail mergers of insurance giants like Travelers and AIG with banking companies. As Peter Eavis pointed out in the Wall Street Journal in March 2010, Dodd's proposed bill "still flunks the AIG test," in that "if the Senate bill became law, it looks like the government could still find itself making the sort of payments it made to AIG counterparties."

And that's before the lobbyists go to work. The most glaring failure of Senator Dodd's proposal is to fully come to grips with the enduring threat of unregulated derivatives. In this area the bill's text is an unparalleled exemplar of the use of the runon sentence in the pursuit of obfuscation. But what is clear is that the out-of-control derivatives market, which Dodd helped engineer ten years ago when he supported the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, will be at best tempered somewhat.

Obviously aware that his current bill provides no serious answer to this most pressing of our financial-industry problems, Dodd holds up the wan hope that "Senator Jack Reed [D-Rhode Island] and Judd Gregg [RNew Hampshire] are working on a substitute amendment to this title that may be offered in full committee."

Yes, we know what such bipartisan efforts bring, and it does not bode well for getting a grip on a derivatives market that threatens to do us all in.

Warren Buffett wasn't kidding when he called them "financial weapons of mass destruction," and by now most Americans are aware that the innocuous-sounding derivatives that he was referring to have done great damage to our way of life. It extends from foreclosed homes in Florida that are collected in collateralized debt obligations to credit default swaps on Greek airport revenue and, as the New York Times reported, massive corporate collateralized loan obligations that are "a potential financial doomsday."

The dubious security bundles are as vast as they are obscure, and their notational value is staggering. As Dodd's committee's fact sheet stated, "The over-thecounter derivatives market has exploded— from $91 trillion in 1998 to $592 trillion in 2008." The current figure is $605 trillion and still growing.

As Dodd's press release put it, "Because the derivatives market was considered too big and too interconnected to fail, taxpayers had to foot the bill for Wall Street's bad bets."

Now he tells us. But let's hope there's more to this bill than meets my eye and that the lobbyists don't get to gut it further. As this issue goes to press, it is still a work in progress with some good points, the House bill is better, and it is time that Congress hears much more from the suffering public.

Before serving 30 years as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer spent the late 1960s as Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. Now editor of TruthDig.com, Scheer has written such hard-hitting books as The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America and his latest, The Great American Stick-Up: Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them.

THE WORD FOR TODAY IS RETARD

by Alex Bennet
from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

DID SARAH PALIN GO ON THE WARPATH WITHOUT FIRST CHECKING TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY ARROWS IN HER QUIVER?

Hell froze over a while back: Rush Limbaugh said something I agreed with. Can the apocalypse be far off?

Limbaugh was talking about Sarah Palin's snit over a comment made privately by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The ever-mouthy Emanuel had said Dems who disagreed with him were "fucking retarded." Palin, who will use anything to get publicity—including the Down's syndrome issue from her already-overworked womb—demanded Emanuel be fired and that the word retarded be banned from usage.

Limbaugh, presumed to be in the Palin camp, took her to task with a rant about political correctness. During his tirade he used the word retard over and over again. I was astonished. Was the most hated enemy of liberals correct? Were Palin's remarks just another instance of political correctness out of control? Of course they were! So which is worse: Emanuel's evisceration of some Democrats or the way Palin uses that poor kid of hers? Armed with information the child would be born with Down's syndrome, she chose to have it anyway, citing her religious beliefs. Palin did this after already giving birth to a litter of four. And despite breaking water in Texas, the "mother of the year" still got on a plane to Alaska, thereby putting the fetus in danger. (Some believe she actually wanted it to die.)

I believe the real reason Palin didn't get an abortion was because it would look bad to her base. This outweighed the reality that the kid, who'd never have a normal life, would become the responsibility of her other children after she was gone.

As for Palin's motherhood credentials, they're not great. Her daughter Bristol got knocked up. Where was the birth-control discussion that should have taken place when it was apparent she was coming into sexual maturity? There was none.

Any other unwed girl her age (17) might very well have gotten an abortion, but not poor Bristol. Mommy was running for Vice President, and it just wouldn't look good. So Bristol had the baby to keep Mom's career intact. Then there are the rumors surrounding her son Track's enlistment into the armed forces. Some say it was a courtordered choice in an alleged case of school vandalism. The record is muddied because, it's believed, Palin used her position as governor to cover things up.

Meanwhile, Trig—the Down's syndrome baby—was schlepped around the country so his mom could hold him up at every campaign stop like Simba in The Lion King. She used the kid's handicap as a prop. This is the woman who finds Rahm Emanuel in bad taste? Somebody should call Child Protective Services.

A few weeks after her tirade against the White House staffer, Palin targeted Seth MacFarlane and his blissful creation, Family Guy. She was reacting to the episode in which the Griffins' son Chris becomes enamored of a girl at school with Down's syndrome.The fact that Chris loved the girl in spite of her condition was lost on Palin. She was livid because, when asked by Chris what her family did, the girl replied, "My dad is an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska."

Surprisingly, voice actress Andrea Fay Friedman—who like the character she portrayed on Family Guy was born with Down's syndrome— came forward to blast Palin for exploiting people with the condition. Friedman scoffed, "My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes."

Even more perplexing was how Palin excused Limbaugh's statements. She claimed they were satire. I've got news for you, Sarah: Rush wasn't using satire; he was using commentary. Family Guy was using satire. I guess Palin just didn't want to piss off the right-wing's number-one megaphone.

So why all this political correctness over a perfectly legitimate word? Even medical dictionaries describe Down's syndrome as "mental retardation." Yet we're no longer able to use the word? Now we're supposed to say "developmentally challenged." People are no longer "handicapped," they're "handicapable." I ask you: How much of this is politically correct, and how much is pure condescension and mock sympathy?

Rahm Emanuel's only sin was that he didn't get the memo, and Sarah Palin's biggest problem is that she epitomizes the C word: CRAZY!

Alex Bennett is a longtime HUSTLER contributor. The twotime Emmy winner, who broke into broadcasting as a teenager, currently calls Sirius Left 146 his radio home.

VIRGINIA THOMAS

From HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. In your case that would be your husband, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (Yes, Santa is an angry black man!) And you must have been very nice indeed to get such a great Christmas present: your very own conservative lobbying group, Liberty Central Inc., which will cater to the Tea Party movement.

"I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across the country," you announced at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference. "I have felt called to the front lines with…my fellow citizens, to preserve what made America great." Of course, the gift didn't come directly from Clarence. You are getting donations from those big ol' corporations that the Supreme Court ruled could spend as much as they want influencing election campaigns. The potentially limitless influx of money, which we imagine will provide you a hefty salary, is just their way of saying thank you to your husband.

It's a pretty safe investment, Virginia. The corporations can have no doubt that both you and your husband know where your bread is buttered. And as long as they keep bankrolling Liberty Central, they can be pretty damn certain Clarence will continue his activism from the bench. Can you say conflict of interest ? Can you say recuse ? More importantly, can your husband?

The belated Christmas gift was the Supreme Court's January 21, 2010, decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which effectively left chunks of coal in the stockings of most Americans. Thanks to that decision, there's no way in hell—if there ever was—that the average citizen can match the fat cats' dollars when it comes to supporting a politician or a political issue. In effect, a Republican Santa has allowed huge corporations to buy any election they want, which will pretty much be all of them. It's as if your Santa, Virginia, has taken a shit down everyone else's chimney. (For an overview of the High Court's landmark ruling, see The End of Democracy, beginning on page 72.)

By attaching yourself to the Tea Party, a right-wing-financed front group, you have— with your husband's help—shredded whatever was left of the notion that the judges of our highest court are impartial arbiters of the law. Clearly, the majority of them—like you—have an extreme right-wing agenda.

Let's look at your politics. You worked for Republican Dick Armey when he was a congressman. (Armey now heads FreedomWorks, a major backer of the Tea Party.) And you were a consultant for the ultraconservative think tank Heritage Foundation. More recently you've stated that it's time to "get the Constitution back to a place where it means something" and that it's time to fight against "tyranny."

How odd. Your husband and his right-wing cohorts have controlled the Supreme Court since at least 2000, if not earlier. Everything threatening our way of life today is the result of their decisions: the erosion of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments; the loss of habeas corpus; and an economy on life support. This has all happened because of the stupidity you and your husband embrace.

And what's with this "tyranny" crap? You think President Barack Obama is a tyrant? Well then, what about George W. Bush? After all, Obama is just following in W's footsteps. Regrettably, he's done little to undo Bush-era policies. As for Obama's so-called lurching to the left, get real! His healthcare reform, by way of just one example, bears no resemblance to socialism; it is a windfall bonanza for the health insurance industry.

Regarding Liberty Central, you are collecting "scorecards" for candidates running this November so you'll know whom to raise funds for and whom to oppose—all legal, naturally. Despite your claims of being nonpartisan, you're not fooling anyone.

Back in 2000, even as your husband was conspiring with his fellow right-wing justices to steal the election from Presidential candidate Al Gore, you were vetting staff for the George W. Bush Administration. It's almost as if you already knew what the Supreme Court's decision was going to be. (As everyone found out a year later, Gore had won in Florida.)

Finally, you named Leonard Leo director of Liberty Central. As a top gun at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies—a notoriously conservative advocacy group—Leo helped shepherd Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito through their Senate confirmations.

So yes, Virginia, there is a Republican Santa. He exists as certainly as selfishness, greed and predatory capitalism exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, not so much for most everyone else in this country. For them there is no poetry, no joy and, most importantly, no jobs. But you don't have to worry about that, Virginia. Now, as a member of the ruling class, you're well taken care of. Screw everyone else! Let them fend for themselves! You've got your own private Santa.

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