Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Late UN-Broken News

BYE BYE BARBIE!

August 31, 2022
10:00 PM Eastern

There is hope for humanity.

As you are well aware, we here at Paying Attention™ are not in the habit of blabbing good news, but with 93% of the vote in, but Mary Peltola has just been projected the surprise winner in a special congressional election in Alaska.

What’s so good about that?

First of all, Peltola is a Native Alaskan and a Democrat, which would be good enough in itself. However, what makes this so much more special is the other candidate in the run-off. She was endorsed by donald trump’s and is someone with whom you might be familiar – the one, the only Sarah Palin.

Oh, and Mary Peltola will be the first Democratic rep from Alaska since 1973, taking the seat held by Don Young for 50 years, before his passing. Peltola will hold the seat until having to run again in November to serve a full-term.

This has been a Paying Attention Special UN-Broken News report.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled schadenfreude.


Broken News

What A Fucking Drag

August 31, 2022

Ratpublicans are absolutely sickened by the invasion of our elementary schools by Drag Shows. They campaign on fighting them off. Already-elected morons like Florida Governor Ron DuhSantis is running off at the mouth at every opportunity to fight the scourge of drag queens strutting their stuff for small children. Funny thing, this has never happened. Ratpublican psychos have dreamed this shit up to frighten their brainless base. To be fair, not all of them are brainless, just too many of them.

So let’s do the math. Drag queens are never in our schools (neither is CRT by the way). You know what is in our schools on a regular basis? Fucking assault weapons. In the hands of children. Children massacring children. With assault weapons. In schools. Schools that are completely bereft of drag queens. Drag queens who are universally without guns. Not shooting anyone in schools. Ever. In fact, we know of no mass shootings carried out by any drag queens anywhere. But especially not in our gun-addled schools. We leave the mass shootings up to hetero white males. In fact, Ratpublicans encourage it. They are unflinchingly in favor of mass shootings. And raping puppies. Tell your friends.

Albert Brooks - Phone Call to Americans

You know what else is a hoax? Ron Fucking DuhSantis.

This has been a Paying Attention™ Special Broken News report.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled jocularity.

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Verrrry Interesting…But Sickening

Intelligence Inverted

August 28, 2022

Back in the day, I was among many on the Left who were perpetually suspicious about the dealings of the United States intelligence community – FBI, CIA, NSA, and all the other even more secretive organizations whose names were not known – which had a verifiable history of skullduggery at home and abroad. At the root of our suspicions, nay our displeasure, was their mission to protect the wealthy and powerful. Not to mention their penchant for assassination, regime change and corporate subjugation of developing nations. My, how times change…sort of.

On the flip side of this, just as many on the Left are essentially forced to root for Intel community as they fight back white supremacists, white nationalists and would-be theocratic autocrats, maybe the Feds are beginning to miss the good old days when all they had to do was infiltrate Hippies and Yippies.

Unlike today’s malcontents, who are a bunch of twisted neo-fascists, armed to the teeth with military-style weapons, heads full of conspiracy theories, Adderal, oxycontin and if they’ve even read it, a dangerous, twisted interpretation of the Constitution.

There is no reason to doubt that the driving force behind the intel community remains what it has always been. But now it is those on the right who are not merely suspicious, but are threatening violence against the FBI. One lone weasel even attempted to attack FBI headquarters in Ohio; it did no go well for him.

Know What Else Is Verrrry Interesting?

A record number of American intelligence assets around the world have been lost over the past year. A year, might I remind you, that sits smack dab in the middle of the two years, give or take, since disgraced, twice-impeached, ex-one-term-president and failed insurrection leader Donald Judas Trump began stealing classified documents from the White House. Some of the documents he stole contained classified material on human intelligence sources – you know, American spies and foreign nationals who betray their oppressive, murderous governments on behalf of the United States. It was well reported that Trump divulged an unknown number of state secrets while in office – including jeopardizing an ongoing Israeli operation by blabbing intelligence (a word you would otherwise never associate with Trump) to top Russian officials/spies IN THE OVAL OFFICE, after banning American press from the event. 

It seems entirely possible that when a guy like that, who has demonstrated absolutely no allegiance to America, and has never hesitated to throw those loyal to him, or countries that voted for someone else, under the bus or any other convenient vehicle, illegally absconds with sensitive top-secret documents, there might be significant real-life consequences. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

The Justice Department is in the process of determining exactly how much damage is being done by Trump’s theft and subsequent lax handling of critical documents (i.e., leaving them scattered about at Mor-on-Lardo, where anyone could access them, including in an unlocked basement closet – or as Trump describes it, the most secure place in the entire world).

I. Mangrey reporting. No classified documents were harmed in the making of this post.

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Thought For The Day

Cloudy With A Chance Of Civil War II

August 24, 2022

Thus far, the completely legal seizure of stolen documents by the FBI at Mor-on-Lardo, has been a huge boon for disgraced, twice-impeached, insurrectionist, ex-one-term-president and failed blogger Donald Turmp. The Traitor Tot is currently under suspicion of espionage (which we know full well he committed on numerous occasions while in office). As a result of their delusional take on the FBI raid, his minions are having a seizure seizure and Trump’s fundraising has gone through the roof. His once tenuous lead over Ron DuhSantis for the 2024 Ratpublican nomination has taken a turn for the better. And, his die-hard, brain-dead, gun-crazed cult members have declared war on the United States government and more than half of the populace, particularly non-Whites and non-Christians.

A Comedy Of Terrors

One might have thought Trump would have had the good sense to hide the stolen highly-classified-documents-that-could-land-him-in-jail in a better hiding place, like maybe in Ivana's coffin at the first tee at Mor-on-Lardo. Can’t imagine why one would think such a thing.

The most recently reported fun facts is that in December 2021 the sociopathic shithead tiny-hand-picked more than 400 classified documents (some 1000 pages) to stash at Mor-on-Lardo. Pretty interesting considering Turmp can barely read a tweet. Even more interesting for someone who needed to have his security briefings accompanied by crayon drawings in order to keep his damaged brain on message for more than 15 seconds at a time. Oh yeah, then he lied to the National Archives, saying he turned over everything the stole. But guess what, there was much more, which the FBI finally had to go in and recover. Can you say WTF?

Say Hello To My Little Fingerprints

This reporter is looking forward to seeing the actual Mor-on-Lardo security cam video showing Trump rifling through classified documents trying to decide which ones would fetch the biggest payday. 

With any luck, Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice will fully martyr this badly dyed dipshit and we can get on with this civil war. It may be unavoidable at this point, so we why not make the most of it. Nothing short of total capitulation to Trump will dissuade his troops from reliving their January 6 fever dream of violent insurrection/coup, though they will have to carry on without their shaman for the foreseeable future. So, the  DOJ might as well serve up some justice before that too goes the way of abortion rights.

Lock Him Up Yesterday! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

This has been your Paying Attention™ Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Schmuck Of The Day

Schmuck Irredeemable Asshole Of The Day

Guess Who?*

August 23, 2022

Joe Manchin Schmucks Again

"We had a senator from Arizona who basically didn’t let us go as far as we needed to go with our negotiations and made us wait two years," Manchin said in a video of the event that was viewed by NBC News. "Those type of things — I don’t question anybody, everyone’s responding to their own constituent base. But we did get something. And it’s the first time we made a positive move in that."
             Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Coal), August 19, 2022

What can one say about something so cluelessly despicable? From the man who single-handedly pounded Joe Biden’s (more like Bernie Sanders’) ambitious, badly needed and extremely popular Build Back Better legislative package into oblivion. Was Mansion’s plan to run out America’s memory clock and suddenly appear to come to the “rescue” to be the guy who let something pass? And then blame the second most obvious and recalcitrant blood clot in the Democrats’ body politic?

Bernie realizing how little of his hopeful change for America was able to
squeeze its way past the obstruction of Joe’s Mansion and Kyrsten’s Enema

Not that Sinema doesn’t deserve as much vilification as could possibly be heaped upon her until she loses in the primary. Then she can go back to Never Never Land and continue not growing up. I assume she has racked up enough favors from big donors to keep her in blood money long after her single term in office mercifully ends.

___________________________________________________________
*Purely rhetorical since there is no way to guess such a thing during this time of infinite stupidity, hate, incompetence and mind-blowing criminality.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Schmuck Irredeemable Asshole Of The Day.

Monday, August 22, 2022

The Best Words (And Pictures…Mostly Pictures)

The Turmp Lie-brary

August 22, 2022

Ever the devoted patriots, Paying Attention™ has come up with a plan to Make America Better Again. What this country needs, once Donald Turmp leaves office, which he has still refused to do, even though by all accounts he is completely out of it, is the Donald Turmp Memorial Alternative Presidential Lie-brary. Since his official version will be nothing more than a giant-sized version of his pathetic coffee table tome of pictures and childish epithets*, the alternative lie-brary will be filled with memories of all the alternative facts, lies (30,573 false or misleading claims in his four excruciatingly long years in office, according to the Washington Post), incessant whining, faux pas, psychotic tweets, impeachment testimonies and covfefe one building can hold.

Why am I doing this to myself?

The Turmp Lie-brary will boast very few books. It was decided that only books which were at least in part read by #45 would be acceptable. Most of the bound volumes will be those “written by” Trump. It could not be more obvious that he never even so much as gazed upon the Constitution, other than reading a tweet containing the Second Amendment. It could not be clearer that he had exactly zero familiarity with the Bible, though he often claimed it was his second favorite book – the first of course being his own The Art of The Deal ** – despite his inability to name even one single verse as his favorite, preferring instead to reply with the Sarah-Palin-esque “all of them” when asked to recite his favorite.

The alternative lie-brary will naturally include full transcripts and videos of both impeachments. The public hearings of the January 6 Select Committee will be played on a loop on a giant screen. 

The walls of all the bathrooms will be inundated with endless, inane tweets and all the toilet paper will be printed with copies of the myriad documents, “declassified” and otherwise, that #45 stole from the American people. The bowl of each toilet will be festooned with reproductions of actual documents that Turmp routinely flushed. No wonder he was obsessed with flushing and had to flush 10, 30 and sometimes 80 times. 

I am sure you are wondering, what homage to the 45th and Worst Ever president would be complete without an unlocked room in the basement featuring facsimiles of all the boxes and boxes of documents Turmp stole from the White House, intending to sell out the country he pretended to lead for four horrifying, nauseating, and soul-crushing years (not counting the frightening year of campaigning leading up to the 2016 debacle and the – as of this writing – nearly two extra years of Trump’s ongoing insurrection).

For the record, the 11 sets of classified documents, according to Trump and/or his “lawyers” and sundry enablers were:

- long ago handed over to authorities, and/or
          - planted by the FBI, and/or
          - just some cool souvenirs, stuff no one wanted anyway, and/or
          - work that was taken home to read in bed, and/or
          - documents no one else could have been trusted to keep, and/or
          - magically declassified by Turmp with a special look, and/or
          - mostly protected under attorney/client privilege, and/or
          - nobody’s damn business, and/or
          - something everyone does, and/or
          - no problem because if the president does it, then it is not illegal**, and/or
          - too bulky to flush, and/or
          - not my fault, Eric did it

There was a greater number and bizarre variety of (often mutually exclusive) attempts at excuses for the fully announced, completely legal warrant being served at Mor-on-Lardo than there were for WMD by George WTF Bush and Dick Cheney, et al. It was also quite amusing to see the speed with which one pathetic excuse landed with a cartoonish thud and was replaced by another, sometimes by one that had already been jettisoned.

Turmp’s advisors tried to persuade the man who knows it all that he should return the dozens of boxes of documents he stole from the White House and the American people. His unsurprising – though no less stunning in its authoritarianism, childishness and criminal nature – response was, “IT'S NOT THEIRS, IT'S MINE!” (actual reported quote)

I just can’t resist quantum physics humor

Unlike most presidential libraries, which charge an entry fee, the Tmurp will pay people to spend their precious time reliving the horrifying legacy of America’s worst, most-impeached, most criminal, grifting, racist and fascist president. A part he played even worse than his Celebrity Apprentice role. Suckers patrons will be paid by the minute for their ability to withstand either reliving – or experiencing for the first time – the abject terror and nauseating stupidity perpetrated by the 45th president in his quest for attention and money. And power. And nothing else.

Nothing I hadn’t seen before, but it’s still sickening

_______________________________________________________________
*Yes, I have admittedly hurled my share of childish epithets as well, but as you may recall, I am not nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, the fucking president of the United States.
**Tony Schwartz,
the man who wrote The Art of The Deal said this, “I don’t know if Mr. Trump read every word of The Art of The Deal, but I do know that I wrote every word of it.” As usual, Trump merely slapped his name and face on the façade and pretended he actually had something to do with it – the poster child for “you didn’t build that.”
***This was plagiarized from disgraced, almost-impeached, quitter Richard Nixon.


I. Mangrey reporting.  Read on Macduff.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Fun Fact For The Day

What The Fuck Is Wrong With This Picture

August 21, 2022

A GQP county franchise in Alabama chose a special graphic:

See if you can tell why these sick fucks ended up
having to ditch their “artwork” and apologize

Naturally, the use of the image in an announcement of a new county chairman was not the end of the sordid affair. Can you say copyright infringement?

The image was created two years ago by illustrator Woody Harrington, and was originally used in a Mother Jones article titled, “The Republican Party is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.”

As you would expect, the image was used without attribution, permission or compensation.

The best people.

Just thought you might like to know.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Fun Fact For The Day.

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Thought For The Day

Their Old Kentucky Home

August 20, 2022

Kentucky senator and WAP (White-Ass Pussy) Rand Paul is occasionally mentioned in this space. First, we apologize for this. Senator Paul himself should apologize for ever opening the exhaust hole under his nose.

The junior GOPP (Grand Old Putin Party) senator from the state that continues to bring us Bitch McConnell, attempted to school Secretary of State Antony Blinken on reasons we should not be interfering with the malignant mischief of Vladimir Putin. Paul attempted to justify Putin’s brutal bludgeoning of Ukraine by proclaiming, “You could also argue the countries they attacked were part of Russia. Were part of the Soviet Union.” Well, apparently he could argue that.

Someone should remind the bonehead from the Bluegrass State that Kentucky was home to tribes from five different culture groups – Iroquoian, Sioux, Algonquian, Muskogean and Yuchi. None of these peoples invited Paul’s pasty-faced predecessors to evict them. So maybe he should let them do as they please and reclaim what is rightfully theirs.

“Kentucky” comes from the Iroquois word “ken-tah-ten,” whose meanings “land of tomorrow,” “meadow,” “prairie,” and “the river of blood.” So even the state’s name was stolen. And like its original inhabitants, butchered.

To paraphrase the junior senator, after all, you could argue that the state he calls his was part of Pre-Columbian North America. Was part of Native Lands.

Senator Paul might want to STFU.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Friday, August 19, 2022

(Not So) Fun Fact For The Day

Something To Help Cheer You Down

August 19, 2022

On June 29, 2022, my favorite planet, and hopefully yours – Earth – broke the record for the shortest day ever recorded since the invention of the Atomic Clock. Interesting? Not so much interesting as ominous.

Why is that, you ask?

If you think about an ice skater spinning.  She spins faster and faster as her arms are brought closer to the torso. The theory is, as the we lose the mass of ice at the poles (in our lifetime, the Earth has lost ice equivalent to the size of the United States – how ironic – six feet thick). The weight of that lost ice is changing the balance of the Earth around its axis.

Let’s hope this doesn’t make us all dizzy...or something.

Dizzy - Tommy Roe

Just thought you might like to know.

This has been your Paying Attention™ (Not So) Fun Fact For The Day.

Bonus (Not So) Fun Fact For The Day:

Groucho Marx died on this day in 1986.


THE ONE THE ONLY GROUCHO

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Brainless, Vapid Shithead Of The Day

*

Cloudy With A Chance Of Morons

August 17, 2022

A no less mentally-challenged and grammar-averse Sarah Palin is throwing her empty hat into the ring for a seat in Congress. In the lower 48, they talk about people being all hat, no cattle. In Alaska they have instead all hat, no cortex when it comes to their ex-governor.

Opining about Democrats, history’s worst ever presidential running mate, who is worth $8M, said “Absolutely not, they want to wipe out the middle class. The mom-and-pop, Joe six-pack, us peons.” Not too many peons are sitting on $8M, but plenty of pea-brains are. With any luck, Palin will once again go down in flames…or sludge.

Palin, who quit in the middle of her term as (gulp) governor of Alaska, was on the ballot last night in the race to finish the term of deceased long-serving Rep. Don Young. No clear winner emerged, but the mavericky word-salad enthusiast managed to make it through the first round. Palin, who was endorsed by Trump, will have a week or two to work on her own big lie in case she loses as bigly as her benefactor. 

The petulant, exasperating Palin is running against multi-millionaire Nick Begich III – the choice of the Ratpublican Party, who have apparently had their fill of the worst VP candidate in the history of the world – and Mary Peltola the Democrat and Native Alaskan of Yup'ik descent. Peltola is unsurprisingly pro-choice and pro-Earth, unlike the other two craptastic candidates. As of this writing, Peltola leads in the vote count as the race likely heads for a run-off.

_______________________________________________________________
*Pictured above: Not the brainless, vapid shithead of the day Sarah Palin, but rather the great, comedic genius Michael Palin who is thankfully, no relation. I just couldn’t bring myself to subject any of us to the image of the horrible, tragic dimwit Palin in question.

This has been your Brainless, Vapid, Shithead Of The Day. Ugh.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Schmuck Of The Day

Meh

August 16, 2022

New Jersey denizen Mehmet Oz is for some unknown reason running for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. He has lived and voted in northern New Jersey for several decades. Oz also owns three mansions in Turkey, where he voted as recently as 2018, which he lied about. 

While not nearly as stupid as his Georgia counterpart Herschel Walker, what Meh lacks in pure, unadulterated dumb, he more than makes up for in dishonesty, hypocrisy and Turmp-level grifting. As a doctor, he is mostly a fraud, hawking absurd, completely unproven supplements. As a would-be politician, he is as steady in his positions as a one-legged stool.

Oz, pandering to gun nuts

Oz is running against life-long Pennsylvanian and current Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. Too bad this election couldn't be what Rudy “About-To-Be-Indicted-In-Georgia” Giuliani on January 6, 2021 called “trial by combat.” 

Meidastouch ad explaining Oz’s qualifications

This has been your Paying Attention™ Schmuck Of The Day. Feh…I mean, meh.

Monday, August 15, 2022

Thought For The Day

Audit For The Ages

August 15, 2022

“The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots. When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s gotta be.”
                                Donald J. Trump, Apr 14, 2020*

If disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous, ex-one-term-president and failed blogger Donald Turmp thought he was being audited before (he wasn't), seems like he ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Tax returns going to Congress, stolen nuclear (and many other) documents recovered by the FBI, I don’t know if anything as voluminous as Trump can fit under a microscope, but they are going to take a good long look at this noxious specimen.

If this was the Paying Attention™ Question For The Day, in response to the above actual quote, the question would be: How would that work for someone who is no longer president?

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________________________________________
*Yes, he really fucking said that.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

BONUS TRACK:


Richie Havens from Woodstock, August 15, 1969


Sunday, August 14, 2022

Thought For The Day

Fully Documented Stupidity

August 14, 2022

I don't know why some people are impugning the character of disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous, ex-one-term-president and failed blogger Donald Trump. They are saying that his intentions could have been benign, taking a truckload of documents from the White House as a going away present. They say that he either did not know he had sensitive documents including some dealing with nuclear weapons or that he thought anything that was not nailed down belonged to him. And what was in that safe? A judge or jury might be excused for entertaining a plea of ignorance and/or insanity from Trump’s cracked legal team.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he personally approved the searching of Mor-on-Lago after asking failed, subpoenas failed, and apparently someone in Trump’s inner circle ratted out the world’s biggest rat. When the FBI searched Mor-on-Lago they found boxes of top-secret documents along with more boxes of other materials that Trump's lawyers had previously assured authorities were not there. 

To Trump, it was just a bunch of stuff to be stored in an un-secured and then poorly-secured broom closet in the basement of his resort in Florida – a resort that had already been infiltrated by at least one Chinese spy years ago.  Rumors are flying that among the boxes of documents are Obama's birth certificate, Hillary's emails and Trump's elusive tax returns.

I mean, who in their right mind would leave stuff like that laying around in an unlocked room? I think Trump deserves more credit. Sure, he's stupid enough to leave nuclear documents just laying around, but let's be fair. We know Donald Trump. He took home top secret documents because he was planning to sell our nuclear secrets...the one's he hadn't already sold or given away while he lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.


This has been your Paying Attention™ Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Question For The Day

August 13, 2022

Six months after Trump sent an armed, violent mob to, among other things, hang Mike Pence Mike, Pence said that he didn’t know if he and Trump would “ever see eye to eye” on the events of January 6, 2021 – in the next sentence he kissed Trump’s ass. Eighteen months after Trump gleefully watched his mob on live tv as they defiled the Capitol and attempted to defile Pence, Marshmallow Mike, desperately trying to walk the fine line between criticism and ass-kissing added, “I don’t know that the president and I differ on issues, but we may differ on focus.” Yeah, I guess so. It seems that only one of them would be happy to see someone hang Mike Pence.

Mike Pence, who unlike the man who still holds the business end of Pence’s leash is still permitted to be on Twitter, tweeted the following shortly after we learned that the FBI executed a perfect search warrant on Mor-on-Lago:

Pence joined the voices of countless politicians and propagandists who waxed apoplectic without waiting for any facts whatsoever to emerge. All that traitorous noise was of course before it was learned that the only thing that was truly unprecedented was Trump’s theft of classified documents, including top secret nuclear documents, on his way out the door after his crushing defeat at the hands of Joe Biden and a majority of American voters (not just the fake Electoral College).

All of this begs today’s Question Of The Day:

Will radical religious hypocrite Mike Pence agree to be Donald Trump’s running mate in 2024, and will he bring his own custom-made noose this time?


Interesting leash they got there

This has been your Paying Attention™ Question For The Day.

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What is your question for the day?