Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Everybody saw this coming.

No Justins, No Peace

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Republicans in disarray!

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Teabagging Christmas: A Festivus for the Rest of Us

Teabagging Christmas: A Festivus for the Rest of Us

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Oh holy shit night.

I’m coming right out and saying it: Teabaggers have no sense of humor.  Zero.  None.  Nada.  It’s a wonder that they are even able to tie their shoes in the morning.  Jesus H. Bieber in a manger:

The Liberal Clause: Socialism on a Sleigh is written by David Hedrick, a Tea Party candidate who lost his bid this year to be the Republican candidate for Washington’s third district. You may remember him from this recent story where he is accused of physically assaulting his wife. I think I was the only person to buy a copy of The Liberal Clause last night because Hedrick came over personally to shake my hand, talking excitedly about what he’d created (the book costs $20 so I’m not surprised a lot of people passed). The story, he told me, came naturally one night as he was making up a bedtime story for his children (the book is dedicated to them with the warning “Never forget that free goodies from liberal elves often come at a price”). The satire where Obama steals Christmas that Hedrick came up with on that fateful night was too good not to be illustrated and published for all children to enjoy.

Are you ready for a bedtime story, Blogtownies? Below the cut are some pictures, a rundown of the plot and some choice excerpts for your edutainment.

The Liberal Clause takes place in the small town of Camas, WA where, for as long as anyone can remember, the children have been given the special responsibility of electing the Great Elf Council that serves at the North Pole. This year, however, the ballots go missing. Suspiciously, nasty ol’ Elf Peloosi discovers a box she claims are the missing ballots under a shelf in the back of a union warehouse. The elves are so glad the ballots have been recovered that they don’t bother to question the fact that there are more ballots returned than were cast! This is all reported in local newspaper, The Christmas Times, above a picture of Hendrick himself with the subtitle “Camas man’s rant goes viral”.

The elves’ relief dissipates quickly as it becomes clear something fishy is going on. After the Liberal Party of Elves takes over the Great Council Santa Claus suddenly goes missing and the elf people are told he is being replaced. An excerpt from the book with all dubious spelling and punctuation kept intact:

“What about the Christmastution?” [an elf shouted].

Ignoring them, Elf Sneed shouted out, “My fellow elves, it is my distinct honor to present to you, the hope and change we have been waiting for; our new Claus!“

Shortly after these words left Sneed’s mouth, a man dressed in Santa’s suit stepped onto the stage and strutted to the mike. In front of him, a group of elves ran out holding up a TV screen with words on it. This was the first time the elves had seen a teleprompter at the North Pole. Santa Claus had always spoken from the heart.

The skinny imposter began to read.

“My fellow citizens of the North Pole,” he stated with a hint of arrogance in his voice, “I am here to pull Christmas back from the brink of destruction. My name is Barry, but you can call me Liberal Claus.“

“Are you even from the North Pole?” an elf questioned from the crowd.

Liberal Claus scowled at this elf with pure evil in his eyes. For a moment all of the elves stood in disbelief waiting for a response, but the response would never come.

That is one uppity looking Santa Claus.
[via Blog Town]

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  2. 2.

    El Cid

    Right! How can he be from the North Pole when he’s black?! HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR! And ELF PELOOSI WENT TO SYRIA!

  3. 3.

    beltane

    I think the proper term for this paranoid schizophrenic stuff is “Outsider Art”. Is Harry Reid so dull that this person had to put Joe Stalin in his stead?

  8. 8.

    bootsy

    A sense of humor requires humility — an ability to realize you just might not be plugged into THE ONLY SOURCE OF RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE, which might be The Free Market, Yahweh, Thor, etc.

    Brings to mind my least favorite idea that the right wingers’ have managed to institutionalize in this dumb country since 1980: The idea that liberals are ‘smug.’ To my mind, the people who will beat someone to death who looks different or has a vaguely different lifestyle are kind of smug and overly self-assured.

  10. 10.

    merrinc

    This is so disturbing. I gotta go read something else to get it out of my head before I can sleep.

  15. 15.

    The Dude Abides

    @9. Looks more like Stalin, but I bet a significant portion of teabaggers would mistake it for Saddam.

  16. 16.

    Mako

    Oh hey , there you are angry and black. Are you a Soul Train fan?
    Just curious, never had the opportunity to question an angry black person before.

  17. 17.

    beltane

    @bootsy: Calling us smug is their way of expressing disappointment at the fact that we continue to laugh at them despite all their attempts to impress us with their the loudness of their speech and their mastery of threatening facial gestures. It is a primate thing, similar to the way chimpanzees consider a smile to be a hostile gesture.

  19. 19.

    El Cid

    @beltane:

    their mastery of threatening facial gestures

    Hey, c’mon. It was a long struggle getting accreditation for that degree at the community colleges.

  24. 24.

    General Stuck

    “Are you even from the North Pole?” an elf questioned from the crowd.

    Born of the Kenyan gawds and witchdoctory. Floated to Hawaii in a basket, bailed out Walrus banksters, made soshulist takeover on present factories, sending white santa to the libtard gulag, Black Santa rules the world from North Pole over White Jesus by teleprompter and his army of elf operatives. Sarah sees it all from her front porch.

    Sweet dreams you little rug rats.

  26. 26.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Whaaaaaaaaaaa?

    Are you sure this really isn’t about the Insanity Clause?

    And these are the folks who think they know better than the rest of us?

  31. 31.

    Yutsano

    @trollhattan:

    Murray wins; Rossi shuts the hell up (at last),

    I can’t wait for the Republicans to try digging him out again for some other big office in a few years because they have zero bench here. McKenna shot his wad trying to go full metal teabagger on the health reform law without even telling the Governor, so now it’s safe to say that will become another Dem office again.

    Oh and Camas is actually kind of a cute community. Has a small hippie contingent there. Using it for teabaggery is just wrong in extremis. If Max is around she’s about to go off hardcore.

  32. 32.

    West of the Cascades

    The Portland Mercury rocks – it’s the alternative to our alternative paper (Willamette Week). Smoke that, Seattle.

  34. 34.

    Loneoak

    In related outrages, I was doing some research today (I’m an ethics professor) and the publisher whose journal I was perusing suggested an article proposing an Objectivist defense of child pornography. Piqued my curiosity, but I want to be able to sleep some time in the next month so I didn’t read it.

    (No, I was not researching that amoral monstrosity. Nor was I researching child pornography.)

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @Loneoak:

    In related outrages, I was doing some research today (I’m an ethics professor) and the publisher whose journal I was perusing suggested an article proposing an Objectivist defense of child pornography. Piqued my curiosity, but I want to be able to sleep some time in the next month so I didn’t read it.

    I can summarize it for you: It makes money, therefore it’s Objectively Good.

    See? I saved you from having to read it.

  38. 38.

    Calouste

    If I found that as reading material when I was going to take a dump, I would not just not read it, I wouldn’t even wipe my arse with it.

  39. 39.

    PhoenixRising

    I get the North Pole joke. I get the Nancy Smash Xmas joke. Why in the name of skateboarding Jehosephat is Burt Reynolds in a North Korean military uniform next to the podium?

    Sense of humor is lacking, yes, but also sense of time and space…it’s the black-haired ‘Best Little Whorehouse in TX’ Burt Reynolds, too!

  40. 40.

    General Stuck

    Dems end up with 53 senate seats, so I predicted that one right, but off by a little on my House prediction. Like about by 40

  41. 41.

    Martin

    @wasabi gasp: I have a confession. My wife’s employment is related to high-end estate appraisals. Every time one of these douchebags like Grammer cheats on their wives and needs to settle the estate for the divorce (as is happening this very moment), she gets work.

    I really do enjoy recycling their wingnut cash to people like Jerry Brown.

  50. 50.

    SFAW

    I was kinda hoping Liberal Claus or Barry or whoever he is was going to say “Where the white women at?”

    he stated with a hint of arroganceuppitiness in his voice

    Fixed to reflect author’s original MS

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: Book layout editors everywhere are cringing at the horrific sin done in their good name. And that’s just a tiny portion of teh massive fail.

  53. 53.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    That Santa is uppity – and do I detect “angry” as well? I believe that Santa may be angry!

    Truly the most absurd piece of all of this is the notion that it will appeal to children. Where do adults keep coming up with the notion that children are morons?

  56. 56.

    Angry Black Lady

    @freelancer: it’s aight. my spidey sense is telling me mako’s cool. besides, it’s not like i didn’t watch soul train every damn weekend, while drinking grape drank, eatin’ chicken, and spittin’ watermelon seeds at my moms and them.

  57. 57.

    Mako

    @freelancer:
    yes, any negroes here want to discuss Soul Train? Cuz that would be cool. Rather that just us white folk going on and on about how white people fucked up stuff. might be interesting to hear… oh nevermind

  63. 63.

    kdaug

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Don’t have kids. Don’t want ’em. Wife and I have plenty of nieces and nephews to borrow, spoil, and send back to our siblings.

    But who in God’s green earth exposes their children to this shit?

    This is for y’alls kids? Really?

  64. 64.

    Uriel

    All right, that’s it. Time to call that nice Dr. Kevorkian. Because it’s become painfully obvious over the past week that the best possible outcome of livingintheusa syndrome is a painful, drawn-out, and ultimately spiritually terminal spiral of agony.

    And the most horrifyingly common prognosis appears to be “you will wake up tomorrow.”

  65. 65.

    Mako

    @Angry Black Lady:
    Thanks. I had no idea. So it didn’t pan out, that movie. eh? I’m assuming you are not a Don Cornelius fan?

    I am. Don and the Soul Train dancers were always on Sunday morning. Some of us suburban white fucks didn’t have brothas and sistahs around to teach us dancing. We had to learn however we could. Fucking Soul Train was there for us. And now its not. Now its Dancing with Bristol or Bigest Looser, fuck that.

    Seriously, how old are you. Did you grow up watching Soul Train?

  69. 69.

    Mako

    @Angry Black Lady:
    okay. I’ll probably just wonder why my comments show up double and shut up then. But damn I really miss Soul Train. And I’m happy the reruns are finally showing up online. Cuz dammit, Soul Train educated a whole generation of people how to sorta dance.

  70. 70.

    morzer

    David Hedrick makes Walter Sobchak look rational and restrained. Why can’t these clowns stop embarrassing decent white people? It’s getting so ridiculous that I can’t even walk down the street in the evening without wandering which of these psychopaths might be lurking in the alley with a Glenn Beck Is My Savior t-shirt and a baseball bat, while humping the leg of a huge plastic Jeebus that he shares a fifth of whisky with every night.

    Incidentally, Hedrick’s been gibbering at random for some time now:

    http://www.inquisitr.com/34421/david-hedrick-is-america-angry-and-ignorant/

  71. 71.

    Martin

    @freelancer: Growing up in NY, I was the white atheist kid eating his favorite lunch of a knish and a grape soda – nobody in my family liked either one. 20 years later my Roman Catholic white-as-Palin family breaks the news that my grandmother’s first husband (she remarried?) was Jewish and that I have a same-age cousin that’s half-black.

    Coincidence?

  73. 73.

    Yutsano

    @Martin: Or a helluva lot of fun at Thanksgiving. Especially if he looks like Sidney Poitier.

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: People iz always wrong on the Internet, including me. As for not being about: I’m not deemed sufficiently ebil enough to get my night shift back just yet. Sigh. One more month though, then I can start officially sleeping in again.

  74. 74.

    Martin

    @kdaug: My kids all know how to do that.

    Lots of conversations about critical thinking, making sure they understand that adults lie, being a skeptic, how to discern fact from opinion, and what good facts look like vs bad ones. What marketers are really trying to accomplish. How to balance risk/reward. How to understand the difference between real risk and reported risk.

    The future is Idiocracy, not The Road Warrior. But they’ll know how to siphon gas out of an overturned semi, just in case I’m wrong.

  77. 77.

    kdaug

    @Martin: Occasionally I lack your “Idiocracy” optimism, but the best bumper sticker I’ve seen in a while was “Critical Thinking: The Other National Deficit”.

    On the upside though (ref: The Road), I’d be the guy who wouldn’t eat your kid and would tell them to keep the gun.

  78. 78.

    Martin

    @Yutsano: It’s a she, and she’s really quite hot. I won’t get into all the sordid details, but she grew up 3000 miles away from me and there was a not insignificant chance that after I moved here I could have met up with her instead of my wife. How awkward would that have been?

    But for a while there the family was dropping some new secret on me every year.

  79. 79.

    Martin

    @kdaug: I appreciate that. My son is 12, a black belt, and got his training sword. So in a few years I should probably be assuring you that he won’t remove your small intestine to use as a clothesline.

  80. 80.

    Mako

    @freelancer:
    You know, I actually line in Camas, Washington. Nobody paid any attention to this nut. The whole post is fun but stupid.
    My question is more meta. Are we worse off because Soul Train is no longer on television? I say we are.

  81. 81.

    Mnemosyne

    @Angry Black Lady:

    My best friend is a white girl who grew up in Detroit. No, not Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Point — Dee-troit. Seven Mile Road. Eminem country.

    When she came out to California for college, she got a roommate from Carson who was very very confused by this strange white person who actually liked “Soul Train” (because she’d always watched it with her friends back home) and didn’t run screaming from the room like her previous white roommates did.

    (But her roommate was weird overall. She put a sign on her bed that said “Do Not Sit On Bed” whenever she went out. It’s a dorm room! Where else are we going to sit?! She moved out the next semester.)

  84. 84.

    Mnemosyne

    @Martin:

    Okay, that made me laugh out loud, which probably means I’m overtired and ready for bed.

    (And one of us was only half-cracker (he was from Hawaii), so there.)

  85. 85.

    reality-based

    @kdaug: (and Martin) –

    Listen, my sisters and I have agreed that we can never sell the family land in NoDak, as their children/ my nieces and nephews may need to come back here and grow food on it. –

    – after our new Galtian overlords finish remaking our erstwhile country into Randopia.

    we’re thinking of interrupting their studies and lining them all up next summer, making sure they know how to can tomatoes, store potatoes, and pluck and clean a chicken – just in case – – –

    – – Oh, my God. I’m turning into a survivalist. That’s how crazy the last two days have made me! Thank God for ABL’s post – I really needed the laugh.

  87. 87.

    kdaug

    @reality-based: Best thing to “stockpile” are skills. As long as you know how to survive, you’ll be OK. (Really thinking more Dustbowl than Apocalypse here, but the principle’s the same).

  88. 88.

    Martin

    @reality-based: The good news is that another decade of climate change and you’ll be able to grow bananas up there.

    Canning is a household skill as well (and a rare one here in socal). Been a while since I plucked a chicken though.

  91. 91.

    Martin

    @Mako: You do realize the person who made the cracker joke is like the whitest person alive, right?

    Should we instead all do our best ‘I don’t see color’ Colbert impression?

  92. 92.

    SRW1

    OK, I recognized comrade Dzugasvili, but who’s the lady in business attire next to him. Couldn’t he have used someone real scary, like San Fran Nan?

  98. 98.

    Mako

    @Angry Black Lady:
    When you say you grew up watching Soul Train, how exactly? Just curious, because, you know you are a blogger wanting us to know you. What did you watch before? Did you dance along? Color or B&W tv?
    Sorry if i’m being intrusive, but hey, how often do we have an angry black lady around here? Mostly it’s just white folk.

  100. 100.

    Tattoosydney

    @Mako:

    Mostly it’s just white folk.

    Really? Huh. How can you tell?

    I would have said that I couldn’t guess the colour of 90% of the punters on here – except those with racially denominative nomenclature, like wifey and ABL.

  101. 101.

    Mako

    @Tattoosydney:
    Could i be the first to say how much i love the accent? “Punters” We really don’t get that around here, just wonderful.

    But seriously, you’re not a total idiot right? You’ve read some “blogs”? You know the deal.

  103. 103.

    Mako

    @NobodySpecial:
    Other colour (that spelling is for you, tatooey) folk are online, in huge majorities, if that’s what you are trying to say. They just aren’t here, in this blog, Here it’s mostly white amercin folk. There is nothing wrong with that and kudos to us for finally getting a black lady up in here.

  104. 104.

    Tattoosydney

    @NobodySpecial:
    @Mako:

    I take your point.

    I suppose my comment was more that I haven’t thought of most individual commenters as being of a particular colour…

    Nevermind, carry on.

    Could i be the first to say how much i love the accent? “Punters” We really don’t get that around here, just wonderful.

    Thanks. Btw, we didn’t get Soul Train over here. Just Hot Gossip.

  105. 105.

    mslarry

    @ruemara:

    grape soda is nasty. Real Black People© drink ginger ale-Reed’s; this is if real ginger beer is not available. or this drink of the gods.

    nope… gotta slow your roll, you know real black folks drink Kool-aid :) at least that’s what my white high school friends assumed upon meeting my chocolate behind. they also wanted to know what it was like to live in the projects. you should have seen the looks when i explained i had no idea, since i lived in a park slope brownstone. good times :)

  106. 106.

    Mako

    @Tattoosydney:
    Thanks. Btw, we didn’t get Soul Train over here. Just Hot Gossip.

    No worries mate, wherever the fuck you are, watch the Soul Train dancers. Learn. And don’t ever link that Sarah Brightman stuff here again, I will put my thumb in your eye I shit you not.

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    gocart –
    What was that? Did you say Santa is near?

    Now if only the Rethugs were stupid enough to fall for the gun-to-his-own-throat routine. They’re stupid, but not quite that stupid.

  109. 109.

    El Cid

    @mslarry: When we were kids, we drank Koolaid as rural white kids because our parents sure as hell weren’t going to pay for premade drinks and kids got bored of iced tea. To this day my fairly recently (within the last 10 – 20 years) immigrated Latino neighbors serve their kids powder mix drinks, because here we have clean water. It’s not like Coca-cola bottles aren’t also common, but the powders sure are cheaper.

  110. 110.

    ornery curmudgeon

    @beltane: ‘It is a primate thing, similar to the way chimpanzees consider a smile to be a hostile gesture.”

    No beltane, this is not true … a smile showing teeth is a display of fear and anxiety, not hostility.

    Why has it been mainstreamed to make crap up to support whatever blows out of one’s piehole?

  111. 111.

    Felonious Wench

    My grandfather fought in WWII. One of the things he brought back was the Nazi propaganda that was written for children.

    This looks just like that.

    And yes, I went there. If any of you have ever seen that material that came out of Nazi Germany, you know what I’m talking about.

    FW

  112. 112.

    JWeidner

    Wish I could take credit for this, but it was posted on Gawker by a commenter named Peppermint in response to an article on this same “book”. But it’s too good not to spread around…

    “Every citizen in the states liked their health care a lot.
    But Palin, who lived just next door to Russia, did not.
    Palin hated health care, and thought it was treason.
    Now please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
    It could be perhaps that she wasn’t too bright.
    It could be that she hated folks who weren’t white.
    But I think that the most likely reason of all
    May have been that her heart was two sizes too small.”

    link

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mako:

    It’s sad that racist humour is considered funny.

    Yep, nothin’ more racist than two white people telling jokes about white people to each other. How dare we make jokes about our own culture!

  114. 114.

    Citizen Alan

    You guys are all laughing at this, but it makes me really sad to know that this repulsive shit sprang from his relationship with his children. I have no doubt that he is abusing them in other ways as well.

  115. 115.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Mako: Thank god! I thought I was the only one.

    @Tattoosydney: Hiya, hon. I actually think this blog is only about eighty-five percent white, which isn’t so bad. Well, OK. more like eighty-nine percent. How you be? I’ve been sulking since the elections. I am easing my way back into the political groove.

    And, as for the book–it’s disturbing to me. A children’s book? Really? Shudder.

  116. 116.

    quaint irene

    I feel sad for his friends and family who will be pressured to buy a copy of this dreck. (Oh, self-publishing industry, see what ye hath wrought?)

    At least he won’t have trouble getting his kids to settle down for the night. ‘Hey kids, what storybook should I read tonight? The Liberal Clause?” “No, no, Daddy. We’re so sleepy, we’ll just go to bed now.”

  117. 117.

    quaint irene

    Hey, Aren’t we sure ;he just didn’t steal the plot from Alan Ayckbourn’s plaay, “Christmas v Mastermind?’

    A Synopsis For Christmas V Mastermind

    Father Christmas, who is actually a rather unpleasant man, finds himself in a battle of wits with a criminal mastermind called the Crimson Golliwog. The latter has persuaded Santa’s foreman and his gnomes to go on strike and kidnapped Santa’s fairy. All this is part of a ploy to take over Christmas. Meanwhile the efforts of Father Christmas to thwart his nemesis are hindered by two bungling police officers.

  118. 118.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:

    Truly the most absurd piece of all of this is the notion that it will appeal to children. Where do adults keep coming up with the notion that children are morons?

    My thoughts exactly. Just because it’s written from a childish mindstate and people are turned into elves doesn’t mean kids won’t be bored to tears by it and/or utterly lost in all the political terminology.

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