Members of the anarchist artists collective INDECLINE have unveiled life-size statues of Donald Trump naked—and with no testicles and a teeny weenie—in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. “The Emperor Has No Balls” is the name of their multi-city guerilla installation.

What I like best about this is that clearly these wonderful pieces of ostensibly “public” art were made, really, for just one person’s dubious pleasure: Donald Trump’s! That the rest of us might find them amusing seems like a bonus.

Via the Washington Post:

The eyes scowl, the mouth pouts and the veiny, almost reptilian skin looks like it was torn off a human-size frog and dipped in bronzer.

The job of conceptualizing and creating the statues fell to a man who goes by the name “Ginger,” a Las Vegas-based artist. Ginger told The Post that he has a long history of designing monsters for haunted houses and horror movies.

In addition to doing makeup for a Busta Rhymes video, Ginger’s résumé includes another source of great pride for the artist: He’s a regular keynote speaker at haunted house conventions across the country. (We checked and, yeah, they’re a thing.)

“When the guys approached me, it was all because of my monster-making abilities,” he said, referring to INDECLINE members. “Trump is just yet another monster, so it was absolutely in my wheelhouse to be able to create these monstrosities.”

The statues were commissioned in April. The INDECLINE pranksters said they wanted Trump’s effigy to appear to have a “constipated look.” Each statue was glued to the ground using industrial strength epoxy.

Genius!
 

The “saggy old man butt” view from NYC’s Union Square.

 
Hard to believe shit like this is still being made. I mean, what the hell were they thinking?!

Meet “Mr. Wong Fong Shu” aka Jim DeBerry of Definitive Television. He’s shilling for Alabama-based law firm McCutcheon & Hamner. Presumably they approved this. And paid for it!

 
Nope, you’re just a straight-up asshole, buddy! The entire Internet thinks you’re a cretin. That’s marketing! Not good marketing, mind you, but marketing nonetheless.

HOW could this be any more racist??? (Please don’t answer that!).

Best of all have to be the YouTube comments. Of course this jackass couldn’t help himself and jumped into the fray. He seems to be as preposterously clueless as you might imagine. He also thinks all this attention will be good for his livelihood… in some alternate universe maybe, but not in this one, pal.

UPDATE: McCutcheon & Hamner released this statement to Above the Law: 

For the past two weeks, we have worked diligently to determine the source of this video. Within hours of first being notified of the commercials existence, we traced the producer to Definitive Television and its owner Jim DeBerry. We insisted that the video be removed and that he disclose the party that allowed my partner and I to be portrayed in such a negative and misleading light. After a personal review of our financial records which conclusively established that this video was not paid for or authorized by any party associated with our law firm, McCutcheon & Hamner, P.C. posted our response specifically disavowing the video as well as issuing a cease and desist letter to Mr. DeBerry and Definitive Television. Of course, Mr. DeBerry has refused and we are currently investigating our legal options. At this time, we have been instructed by our legal counsel to refrain from comment.

BUT WAIT: It gets even dumber! DeBerry thinks he can sue the Above The Law blog for calling his racist commercial racist! You know what they say about how a man who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer? Jim DeBerry deserves a SPECIAL (booby) PRIZE. Good luck suing the entire Internet, Jimbo!
 

 
Via Copyranter

 
Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Carnaval in Rio. Hilarity ensues!

“You know something, after watching the mullatos shake it, I can absolutely understand why Brazil is totally devoted to my favorite body part, the ass.”

Easy to see how the former body builder, Hollywood action star and one-time occupant of the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, CA got his “Der Gropenator” nickname…

“I learned one word yesterday… BUNDA!!!”

The part where he teaches her some English is pretty classic.
 

 
Thank you Syd Garon!

Fuck this guy. No really, fuck this guy.

Not that anyone had any high hopes that South Carolina’s Tea party favorite, Governor Nikki Haley, would appoint anyone but a fucking buffoon to replace departing conservative dickhead Jim DeMint—who left to head the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation and make a lot more money than being a mere US Senator pays—but she really plumbed the absolute bottom of the barrel by selecting Republican Congressman Tim Scott.

In his 2010 campaign for the House, Scott described himself as a lost youth who had his life turned around when a Chick-fil-A franchise owner took him under his wing and taught him conservative principles.

Think Progress summed up Scott’s deplorably moronic record:

Floated impeaching Obama over the debt ceiling. As the debt ceiling debate raged in the summer of 2011 because of the intransigence of Tea Party freshmen like Scott, the nation inched perilously close to defaulting on its obligations. One option discussed by some officials to avoid that scenario was for the president to assert that the debt ceiling itself was an unconstitutional infringement on the 14th Amendment. However, Tim Scott tolda South Carolina Tea Party group that if Obama were to go this route, it would be an “impeachable act.”

Proposed a bill to cut off food stamps for entire families if one member went on strike. One of the most anti-union members of Congress, Scott proposed a bill two months after entering Congress in 2011 to kick families off food stamps if one adult were participating in a strike. Scott’s legislation made no exception for children or other dependents.

Wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display Ten Commandments outside county building. When Scott was on the Charleston County Council, one of his primary issues was displaying the Ten Commandments outside the Council building. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Scott said the display “would remind council members and speakers the moral absolutes they should follow.” When he was sued for violating the Constitution and a Circuit Judge’s orders, Scott was nonplussed: “Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it.”

Defended fairness of giving billions in subsidies to Big Oil. Scott and his Republican allies in Congress voted repeatedly last year to protect more than $50 billion in taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil corporations. When ThinkProgress asked Scott whether it was fair to do that, especially at a time when oil companies are earning tens of billions in profit every quarter, the Tea Party freshman defended the industry: “fair is a relative word,” said Scott.

Helped slash South Carolina’s HIV/AIDS budget. As a state representative, Scott backed a proposal to cut the state’s entire HIV/AIDS budget, despite the fact that South Carolina ranks in the top-third of reported AIDS cases. The cuts were ultimately included in the state’s budget, impacting more than 2,000 HIV-positive South Carolinians who needed help paying for their medication.

Had enough?

Departing dipshit Jim DeMint is an asshole with big clown shoes to fill and it looks like Tim Scott is the asshole who’s going to fill them. DeMint is stupid, but he’s not stupid stupid, he’s stupid smart (“stupid like a fox” to coin a phrase). Scott, I fear, is just a real fuckin’ numbnuts. Exactly what the US Senate needs right about now…

That thing about cutting food stamps off for the children of striking union workers is one of the lowest of the low things I’ve ever heard of a Republican suggesting. That’ll break the unions: STARVE THEIR CHILDREN. Scott deserves spit in his face, gallons of it, not an unearned Senate appointment!

The reichwing blogosphere is already starting to bleat about South Carolina’s “first black senator” but… THIS KNOB??? Give me a fucking break…

For shame, South Carolina. If you can’t do better than Nikki Haley, Jim DeMint or a silly lightweight jackass like Tim Scott, that says truly pathetic things about your state.

 
Not content with the humiliating—and apparently “shocking” if Fox News is your sole source of intellectual nourishment—shellacking they got just last week, some impotent, rage-filled rightwing blowhards have a new “thing” to support to stick it to that Kenyan Muslim socialist in the White House and his commie plot to give poor people healthcare.

And wouldn’t you know it, it involves eating shitty, artery-clogging fast food (again).

Welcome to America!

A Facebook group calling itself “Rebooting America” is touting an event on the social network, planned for this Friday, Nov. 16, to protest the Affordable Care Act (ACA) due to centi-millionaire, “Papa John” Schnatter, founder and CEO of Papa John’s Pizza—and a big Mitt Romney donor and fund raiser—ostentatiously whining that he’ll be jacking up the price of his lousy product and passing that cost off on to his customers because Obamacare.

Hooray? I guess some people just get off on seeing their fellow man suffer, and it causes them to work up an appetite for disgusting pizza that tastes like cardboard topped with Alpo and burned Velveeta, but with Friday’s call for a “National Papa John’s Appreciation Day,” I don’t think the reichwing knuckleheads really thought this one all the way through, as Daily Kos Labor reporter Laura Clawson writes:

You know who I don’t take seriously when they say they really want everyone to have health insurance and it’s a shame Obamacare isn’t the right way to insure more people? People who run businesses where only a third of workers are insured. Like Darden Restaurants (the parent company of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, among others), which also said that Obamacare was what would be causing it to cut down on the 25 percent of its workers that got the 30 hours a week qualifying them for health insurance, Papa John’s is one of the 50 largest low-wage employers, and it’s a highly profitable one. So, no, “I’m so concerned that I might have to cut hours for some of the one in three employees I currently insure even though my 2011 revenues were $1.22 billion” is not the thing that makes me, personally, think “gosh, Obamacare really is putting intolerable burdens on businesses that want to take care of their workers but just might not be able to afford it.”

But I’m not the target for this kind of talk. Will Republicans mobilize in Schnatter’s defense? Failed Delaware Senate candidate and non-witch Christine O’Donnell wants to bring back that Chick-fil-A magic.
&nbsp:

Papa Johns CEO’s getting heat for saying Obamacare costs will force layoffs. Papa Johns support day this Friday #TCOT

— Christine O’Donnell (@ChristineOD) November 12, 2012

 
People who think low-wage, no-health-care jobs are a great thing should definitely go to Papa John’s on Friday to make the political point that the company would be right to cut workers’ hours. What’s more, everyone who heeds O’Donnell’s call should be sure the workers know why they’re ordering this pizza on this day. Alternatively, they could just leave a “please spit on this pizza repeatedly” note when ordering each one.

Admittedly, this was the first thought that came to my mind, too (I guess it’s a good thing I don’t work at Papa John’s). The second was fantasizing about spitting in John Schnatter’s face…

The question is, how will Schnatter’s dickish politicization of raising his prices impact his shareholders and the Papa John’s franchise holders around the country? I don’t think this is another Chick-fil-A protest that will end up as a net positive, or neutral event for Papa John’s (keep in mind that Chick-fil-A’s food actually tastes good, whereas Papa John’s pizza tastes, in the memorable words of Stephen Colbert, like the ‘ass of a raccoon that drowned in your birdbath’).

When the Chick-fil-A support day occurred, there was at least a threadbare cover of “traditional Christian values” and all that implies, whereas this is just a mega-rich JERK shooting his mouth off. Centi-millionaire Schnattar’s peevish pronouncements about raising his prices make him look poorly, the way Donald Trump’s deranged ass clown rantings make him look. And like Trump, Schnatter is not a sympathetic character, he’s just a fucking super-rich asshole.

If you’re so stupid that you think purchasing some low-grade junk-food to show your feeble support of some CHEAP Republican bastard with over a hundred million dollars in the bank who doesn’t want the people who work for him to have health insurance is a good idea, hey, by all means order some Papa John’s Pizza this Friday, just cross yer fingers that no one spits on your pie, dipshit!

Bon appetite!
 

 
More tales of music industry corruption and sleazy insider wheeler-dealing, with an outcome that is a major poke in the eye to the some very greedy bastards. And it’s more than likely that you, Dangerous Minds reader, could directly benefit.

If being a fan of Pearl Jam taught me anything (it was a looong time ago I swear), it was that TIcketmaster suck. They have monopolised the sales of event tickets in the States and made it very hard for bands and promoters to regulate their own pricing and promote independent gigs. Well, now Ticketmaster has been forced to “refund” all its “handling fees” to all of its customers from 1999 up to this year.

Huffington Post reports: 

As the result of a class-action lawsuit, the ticket-pushing behemoth is going to be handing out $1.50 per ticket (up to 17) to everyone who used the site between October 21, 1999 and October 19, 2011. Those who chose the UPS shipping option will be getting a little bit more back: an additional $5.00 credit per order.

It seems Ticketmaster’s processing fees were deemed deceptive because they did not clearly state that Ticketmaster was profiting from them.

According to Business Insider, Ticketmaster will continue to have these fees, but must clearly label them as profit on their site.

Good news! However, I put the word “refund” in quotation marks here because, as some of the commentators on the HuffPo story have pointed out, Ticketmaster are not giving their customers money back, but money off their future purchases. And to a limit of just 17 transactions, maximum.

So while it looks good on paper, in effect every customer who used Ticketmaster is only due a $26 credit note. Unless you used UPS shipping to receive your tickets, in which case you could be due up to $85 in credit, which is quite tidy. But you still need to return to using Ticketmaster to get any value.

But still. Fuck them. It’s great that their very dodgy dealings have been called out in public for everyone to see. And as I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m pretty confident that a high percentage of our readership here at DM will have booked tickets through Ticketmaster at least once over the last twelve years (and very likely more than once at that). So Ticketmaster owe you - get on ‘em!

Thanks to Teamy.

 
The anti-piracy group BREIN has been accused by a soundtrack composer of not having permission to use his work in their well known “you wouldn’t steal a car” anti-downloading campaign. The image above is a still from the infamous advert, which has been satirised heavily (most famously by The IT Crowd). 

You couldn’t make this shit up. Well no you could - but no-one would believe you. Which is why Melchior Rietveldt, the Dutch musician whose work was used on the huge international ad campaign after it was commissioned for a only one-off screening, wore a wire to record the conversations he had with his national royalty collection agency Buma/Stemra. As if it wasn’t bad enough that his music was used without permission (in a bloody anti-piracy campaign, of all things) Mr Reitveldt was then told by a representative of Buma/Stemra, Jochem Gerrits, that the issue could be resolved if Gerrits was given a 33% share of the possible million-Euro-plus pay out that Rietveldt was due. In effect, a bribe.

Via Torrentfreak:

It all started back in 2006, when the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group BREIN reportedly asked musician Melchior Rietveldt to compose music for an anti-piracy video. The video in question was to be shown at a local film festival, and under these strict conditions the composer accepted the job.

However, according to a report from Pownews the anti-piracy ad was recycled for various other purposes without the composer’s permission. When Rietveldt bought a Harry Potter DVD early 2007, he noticed that the campaign video with his music was on it. And this was no isolated incident.

The composer now claims that his work has been used on tens of millions of Dutch DVDs, without him receiving any compensation for it. According to Rietveldt’s financial advisor, the total sum in missed revenue amounts to at least a million euros ($1,300,000).

The existence of excellent copyright laws and royalty collecting agencies in the Netherlands should mean that the composer received help and support with this problems, but this couldn’t be further from what actually happened.

Soon after he discovered the unauthorized distribution of his music Rietveldt alerted the local music royalty collecting agency Buma/Stemra. The composer demanded compensation, but to his frustration he heard very little from Buma/Stemra and he certainly didn’t receive any royalties.
Earlier this year, however, a breakthrough seemed to loom on the horizon when Buma/Stemra board member Jochem Gerrits contacted the composer with an interesting proposal. Gerrits offered to help out the composer in his efforts to get paid for his hard work, but the music boss had a few demands of his own.

In order for the deal to work out the composer had to assign the track in question to the music publishing catalogue of the Gerrits, who owns High Fashion Music. In addition to this, the music boss demanded 33% of all the money set to be recouped as a result of his efforts.

Unbelievable! I hope Mr Rietveldt rinses these bastards for everything they’ve got. Here’s the original BREIN anti-piracy advert:
 

 
Thanks to Paul Shetler.

“Don’t you just look good enough to eat? Nom nom nom.”

Must-read essay over at Daily Kos today from Jack Cluth, who asks a question that’s been on a lot of our minds over the past few years: “What happens when an entire political party embraces the Dark Side?”

By the definition of today’s GOP, compassion is synonymous with weakness as charity is with enabling sloth and indolence. If you’re unable to do for yourself, whatever your situation might be, you have no right to expect government to do for you. Ill? Disabled? Uninsured? Unemployed? That’s too bad, but it’s not the responsibility of government to do for those unable to do for themselves.

It’s as if Republicans have decamped from anything resembling compassion and migrated en masse to the Dark Side. They’ve rejected anything that smacks of humanity and embraced a Darwinian view of America as a place where the strong rightfully survive and the weak get what they deserve. I don’t know about you, but this philosophy has nothing to do with the traditional Conservatism that Republicans profess to revere. Traditional Conservatism doesn’t reject the social contract. It doesn’t genuflect to the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex. It doesn’t traffic in fear, hatred, and loathing. It doesn’t reject science. It doesn’t embrace fundamentalist Christianity as the ultimate and only authority on what America should be.

Then again, this isn’t about Conservatism. It’s about doing whatever it takes to acquire, maintain, and increase power and control. It’s about enforcing Social Darwinism and Fundamentalist Christianity as the basis of the American experience and the law of the land. It’s about using fear, hatred, and propaganda in order to manipulate the American Sheeple into doing your bidding.

The guy nails it. Read more of The GOP: The party of pain, punishment, misery, and death (Daily Kos) and check out this amazing, snarling anti-GOP rant courtesy of Chris Matthews: “Does the GOP enjoy the misery of others?” Matthews makes a pretty clear argument that indeed they do…

My compliments to both chefs!
 

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 
In an effort to, uh, I dunno, maybe make a bid to become the Al Capp of his generation, (or follow in the footsteps of Ayn Rand-worshiping Steve Ditko?) comics writer, illustrator and film director Frank Miller vented his cranky, bitter, reactionary “opinions” (if you can call them that) regarding Occupy Wall Street on his blog:

The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” – HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached - is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find.

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.

Yeah, and that enemy is called the capitalist system, Frankie boy… and people LIKE YOU

This creep is supposed to be a celebrated writer? His dumbass screed reads like it was written by Michele Bachmann or Michael Savage! (“Frank Miller, the Michele Bachmann of comic books” is a shitty way to brand yourself, Frank-a-dank. Really.)

I’d like to spit right in Frank Miller’s fucking face. You can let Miller know how you feel about the idiotic bile he puked up in the comments section of his blog. Many people already have!

Below, the Frank Miller of the 1960s, Al Capp confronts John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Montreal Bed-In and makes a complete and utter ass of himself.
 

 
Conservative Republican activist Ralph Reed was the executive director of the Christian Coalition during the 1990s. He’s now running the Faith and Freedom Coalition which he says is “a 21st century version” of his former organization, and one that aims to build a bridge between the Tea party and evangelicals.

In the video clip below, listen to how this twat defines “freedom.”

The sad thing is that we as a nation have lost our way and we began to lose sight of the wisdom of the Constitution and the Declaration, we began to ask government to do more than it should do to meet every need; to take care of every hurting person; to set up a huge welfare state that meets every need we have; to have entitlement programs to take care of the poor, the underclass, senior citizens, and others.

Those are all good objectives. The problem is when we ask the government to do more then what it is specifically charged to do at the federal level in the Constitution, then we have the danger of our liberties being taken away. And that is exactly what has happened.

HUH? From what I can tell, Reed defines “freedom” as being allowed to live in penury when you’re old and not to have health insurance… or something. I don’t know Ralph, I’d imagine these are the sorts of freedoms most people can do without, you fucking fuckwit!

Can any Christian readers explain to the rest of us how Reed’s political positions are in any way consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ?  I always thought Ralph Reed looked like a… tattle-tale. Watching this video made me want to spit right in his smug, rat-like face.
 

Via Right Wing Watch

 
Via reddit politics

 
Increasingly irrelevant Republican presidential candidate/human punchline Michele Bachmann just can’t get a break. Nor does she deserve one. A trip to California over the weekend saw the bigoted Christianist Congresswoman from Minnesota’s 6th congressional district the target of a flash mob who danced to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” to protest her (more or less) “pro-bullying” stance (it’s what Jesus would want) and anti-LGBT words, deeds and activities as a private citizen, as a state legislator, and as a member of the US Congress since 2007.

Even Jay Leno piled on when she appeared on the Tonight Show and good for him. This woman and her kind need to be rebuked in no uncertain terms by right-thinking people in this country.

Even in normally ultra-conservative Orange County, Bachmann got the business. I guess the new OC is quite a bit different that the old OC. From The Minnesota Independent:

At a campaign rally in Costa Mesa, Bachmann was asked by a rally-attendee what she plans to do about bullying in her district. The Anoka-Hennepin School District is largely within the district represented by Bachmann and has seen many high-profile events surrounding the bullying of LGBT students. Six of those students are suing the district.

“That’s not a federal issue,” she said, dodging the question.

Nice try! It’s an AMERICAN and HUMAN ISSUE, Bachmann, and your public words and deeds are coming back to haunt you and will continue to haunt you every time you step out of your comfort zone. Few people in this nation, in your state or in your own DISTRICT have PERSONALLY done more to make the lives of LGBT teens worse than YOU have.

It’s your “accomplishment,” lady… Own it.

Two days earlier, Tammy Aaberg, a mother in the district who lost her son to suicide in 2010, presented Bachmann’s district office with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people asking her to take a stand on bullying in schools. Her office said Bachmann might eventually respond to the petition.

Might respond? Might? (And there were 145,000 signatures, btw, I think that many people deserve a response, don’t you?)

Michele Bachmann deserves no respect, she doesn’t even deserve politeness. She deserves ridicule. And worse.

Bachmann calls herself a Christian. If there is a God—I’ll up the ante here, make this a CHRISTIAN version of God—which of these two mothers would that God smile upon? Tammy Aaberg. the woman whose son killed himself—because of a climate of “Christian” intolerance in the local school district that was brewed up by the likes of Bachmann and her cronies like the Minnesota Family Council and dogshit dumb “preacher” of idiocy Bradlee Dean—who decided to STICK UP for other vulnerable children or one of the prime reasons for this climate of hate existing in the district, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann?

Why does Michele Bachmann believe that she and Jesus are playing on the same team? It boggles the mind…

Primer: Deep roots of Anoka-Hennepin’s discrimination controversy (Minnesota Independent)
 

 
Buzzfeed cut the debate down to its essentials.
 

 
Last night on the GOP Tea party debate on CNN, the assembled crowd of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals fucking assholes dumb old white people cheered like braying assholes asses at the notion that someone uninsured should be left to die.

Alan Grayson was right about Republican’s ideas for healthcare reform…

Here’s just one idiotic comment left on YouTube by a moron using the handle “nicpag9”:

Whoever posted this video needs to off themselves. People like you are what is wrong with this country and the reason it’s in the shape it is in now. No doubt you’ll be voting for Obama again. Too bad we can’t divide the country up into the idiot section run by Communists such as your self and the rest that just want to be left the hell alone for everyone with a damn brain. I’m sure the founding fathers would have no problem with that whatsoever.

No, my fren’ this country is in the state it is because of people like you… too damned dumb to understand the world around them.
 

 
Another camera angle on the “action” at GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s $15-a-head Rotary Club luncheon on Tuesday. Cringe in horror as Tom Nielsen, a 71-year-old retired plumber from Kenosha, Wisconsin gets thrown to the ground and handcuffed for “trespassing” (like everyone else there, Nielsen paid a $15 fee for the luncheon) because he objected to Ryan’s plans to destroy Social Security and Medicare. He was also detained for resisting arrest.

This video has something the other ones I’ve seen do not, when smug, rat-faced Republican class warrior Ryan has the poor taste to make a joke at Mr. Neilsen’s expense…
 

 
Via Joe.My.God