Out of runway.

It’s a personal saying — not quite a mantra, not quite an idiom — that I regularly resort to when I’m wont to describe a certain feeling of dread finality that comes over me — that sinking realization that your back’s up against the wall, of feeling the house lights dim, of sensing the final curtain about to drop down.

Charlie Crist is officially out of runway.

The once-popular Florida Governor was riding high just a scant year ago, his Republican good ol’ boy cred in a conservative state deemed enough of a momentum to let him cross the finish line of his Senatorial bid in a comfortable jog. In 2008, he was in the top running to be John McCain’s VP prior to McCain opting to play the Penguin to Sarah Palin’s Catwoman in a campaign equivalent of a schlocky supervillain tag-team. Prior to that, he was Florida’s Attorney General under Jeb Bush.

A lot can happen in a year.

Crist’s campaign coffers are now so in the red that they might as well have a DNR. Teabagger rival Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles with a conspicuously ethnic “o” at the end of both of his names — proof positive that the Tea Party can’t even manage coherent consistency in reviling the very type of person it was organized to detest — has been bracingly outdistancing him in polls. (read the full article)

“Opponents of this message, they’re seeking to marginalize this movement. They want to paint us as ideologically extreme and the counterpoint to liberal intolerance and outrageous conspiracy theorists aimed at our own government and unethical shameless tactics like considering a candidate’s children fair game. But unlike the elitists who denounce this movement — they just don’t want to hear the message — I’ve traveled across this great country and I’ve talked to the patriotic men and women who make up the Tea Party movement. And they are good and kind and selfless and they are deeply concerned about our country. And today I ask only this: Let’s make this movement a tribute to their good example…”

– from Sarah Palin’s Keynote Speech at the Inaugural Tea Party Convention

…and Alice just left the fucking table.

As our trusty pal Joe Jervis points out: “New Hampshire state Rep. Nancy Elliott doesn’t do anal.”

Godamnit!

Ms. Elliot wants to repeal same-sex marriage because — quote: “…We’re talking about taking the penis of a man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wriggling it around in excrement. And you have to think … would I allow that to be done to me?”

Well dear readers, what do you think? Could she? Should she? Would you fuck her? COULD you fuck her? Help us out here. And help out the citizens of New Hampshire while you’re at it — so much hangs in the balance (or sling).

Palinesque adj. 1 having the characteristics of a babbling, shallow cipher.

2 a quality that encourages inexplicable fandom from segments of the populace exhibiting an intense need to have their prejudices and fears legitimized in a public forum by a teased-haired rural caricature.

3 a bizarre form of self-aggrandizement coupled with a terminal lack of self-awareness that can result in difficulty in focusing, an inability to complete tasks, bad pronunciation, and the inclination to depart from certain locales because there are too many Asians.

4 relating to the tendency to use gender, motherhood, and especially children as human shields in order to deflect any and all criticisms about your character and aptitude.

5 a reflexive mindset wherein mass communications trigger a deep-seated paranoia and the corresponding reactionary impulse to lash out via Facebook or Twitter in the manner that a teenage girl would.

6 the perverse habit of insisting to speak on camera despite the fact that visual and aural mediums do not become you. (read the full article)

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal discusses the Republican closet and the sado-authoritarian culture that produces right-wing evangelicals in his new book Republican Gomorrah.

Full talk here.

Next time anti-gay groups launch a public referendum to strip same-sex couples of their civil rights, I’d like to see a television ad like this as a response:

Two married women and their young children are happily raking leaves in front of a cozy, suburban-style home, laughing as one of the kids leaps into the pile.

Suddenly (cue ominous music), a 40-something man in a business suit, revving up a chainsaw labeled “National Organization for Marriage” steps in front of the house.

He raises his chainsaw, and with a mad leap and a dash he barrels toward the terrified family, then past them toward the home, breaking through the front door with a powerful kick.

The family helplessly pursues, and the camera follows the attacker in to document his rampage: “Say goodbye to your partner’s health benefits!” he shouts as he obliterates the sofa.

(read the full article)

You know, sometimes you gotta switch it up.

Personally, my ladder of jerk-off fodder goes as follows: porn stars at the top rung, followed by TV stars, then movie actors, the douches from Tool Academy battling it out with the date rapists from Hot Chicks With Douche Bags for the fourth tier, then pro wrestlers, pro athletes, and finally politicians at ground level if I’m feeling all father complex-y (“Tell me I’m good…”). You need your bit players to play Greek Chorus or maybe fill in as extras in the gang bang of your mind. It’s just thorough casting.

Nobody’s ever going to accuse the GOP of being especially dollsome. If the last six months of watching wizened geezers riff off bad ’70s sci-fi movie plots in order to disparage universal health care, pudgy ex-junkies endlessly turn on the waterworks, jowly crumedgeons treat a Supreme Court nominee like inept hired help, and eye bags welling up during mea culpa press conferences haven’t left you holding your balls, then you’re a better man than I.

Still, we at Nightcharm do love our Mormon dick-baiters and their Daddy’s Boy broods. They’re like our take on Catholic School Girls: utterly hackneyed, infantilely coy, and prerequisite fixtures in the mix who may not get the heaviest of rotations, but who play well in a pinch. (read the full article)