Broken News - Running Of The Bulls(hit)

Stupid Deep, Morons High

December 27, 2023

This is not as new as some of our past Broken News (not to be confused with Fractured Fairy Tales) scoops. This never-ending-story began long ago, but seems to be reaching what most of us hope is its fever pitch.

We are referring to the no-holds-barred, knock-down-drag-out battle for stupidity supremacy in the Fascist (nee Ratpublican) Party. I would not want to be the one charged with deciding on the “winner.”

I really did not want to even mention this latest un-reality show, but there were too many requests. People kept stopping me in the street with tears in their eyes – some of them big strong men who never cried in their lives – pleading, “Sir, would you please say something about all these horrible, pathetic debates to see who will get to have their head up Donald Trump’s ass the farthest for 2024?”

Well, the debates are over and it's all over but the counting. At this point all I can muster  is this…

Clearly, the Russian judge is in the tank for Trump

If you thought the collection of crackpots, creeps and nitwits vying for favor in the 2016 Fascist Party primary were pathetic losers, and I’m fairly certain you did, this latest crop, though lacking in numbers, makes up for that by an overwhelming display of psychosis, idiocy and above all, fascist fuckwittery. All in the name of seeing who can come within 50 points of Der Furor, who despite 91 indictments hanging over his Crayola-colored face (I believe that particular hue is called Putrid Pumpkin) and comically-coiffed “hair.”

Meanwhile, most of corporate media is caterwauling about how old Joe Biden is.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled pogrom. 

Bringing You the Future Before It’s Too Late, Part I

Predictions, Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle

The End (of The Year) is Near

December 26, 2023

Where Will We Have Gone From Here

Well, here we are once again. One year dies out, another takes its place. 2023 will perhaps be best known for two things. The first being Donald Justice-Denied Trump’s smorgasbord of indictments. All across the land, from Florida to New York to Georgia (will Michigan be next?) to other trouble in New York, Trump is facing all manner of civil and criminal charges. From defamation over alleged rape, to financial fraud, stealing classified documents, to insurrection, to being a first-class fuckhead (well, he’s not on trial for that – we are).

The second thing that has made 2023 so special is that Trump showed his true color on the campaign trail. It’s not orange and it’s not even pasty-white. It’s full-blown fascist. It’s not like it was much of a secret before, but now it’s the whole show. There’s nothing else. Take it or leave it. Trump is not just singing the praises of the ruthless autocrats sprinkled across the globe, he is now singing the phrases of Hitler and Mussolini. And his cult followers are eating it up with a spoon. Sure, they’re often missing their mouths and covering themselves in filth, but they are getting ready to puke up whatever they manage to swallow, and they are too near us all for us to avoid getting splattered. All they need is one wafer-thin mint of fear and loathing and KABLOOIE!!

One wafer-thin mutiny

Sure the Climate Crisis catastrophes accelerated in number and degree across the globe as oil companies continued to sabotage all attempts to reduce human impacts on global conditions.

If this was the America that Donald Trump is looking to make, he would have either been locked up pending trials or found himself briefly looking up at the 15^th-story window from which he had only moments earlier been looking down.

Oopsie, damned Russian-made windows

Save America From Americans

Still, thanks to Ratpublicans insisting on eliminating elections, democracy and reality in general, the stupidity – now with more fascism – is so overwhelming and so widespread that our entire system of political and social norms, such as they are, risk collapsing into chaos. It is not hyperbole to imagine long-term irreparable damage to civilization itself if these medieval Machiavellian morons have their way. This is not one of our predictions (Or is it?), but just something think and gnash your teeth about.

Now, Back To The Future

Many people do not realize that predicting the future is not an exact science. Truth be told, science is not always an exact science. A large swath of America does not even think science is real. In reality – as if that’s still a thing – nobody can predict the future…as if that’s still a thing. Nonetheless, we will put our non-existent reputation on the line to tell it like it will be. Our record has been as good as anyone’s since our first foray into Predictions, Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle back in 2013.

I. Carnac, questioning all the answers that will be given in 2024

So, 2023, finally goes the way of all years, good, bad or ugly. At this point it, is all but guaranteed that we will be here to see it end.

In any event, here is what we predict you will see over the next 12 months…

January 1, 2024

Despite numerous attempts to shut that whole thing down, the year 2024 will not be cancelled and will proceed full speed ahead in spite of the looming cliff, clearly visible just ahead. As Trump attempts to wrest the wheel from Joe Biden (who I believe still has a valid driver’s license) people with discernable IQs are scrambling to save democracy and/or apply for citizenship somewhere that has no internet service.

Will America make it across the divide, or suddenly throw it in reverse?

January 6, 2024

Crappy Anniversary

Donald Trump celebrates his favorite day in American history by hiring (well, not actually hiring, which implies paying someone) several thousand mentally-deficient cult members to reenact that fateful day when Trump brought forth on this continent a most horrific tableau. In fact, he did not so much hire them as hold those pathetic enough to attend his rally hostage.

It was Defective Donny’s hope that his minions would descend on the White House, break out the old Mike Pence gallows, hang Joe Biden and install Donald back in his God-given (and therefore God-taken-away, if you believe in all that stuff) position as all-knowing, all-seeing, all-bleaching position. You know, the position that the voters never wanted him to have (despite God’s apparent wishes) as evidenced by his two crushing defeats in the popular vote.

Apparently, Trump had tired of being turned down by court after court in response to his incessant, albeit ridiculous meritless pleas to have all charges dismissed because he had previously been king and therefore “has absolute immunity,” and was, according to himself, “very likely to soon become America’s first dictator” after which he “would just go and pardon himself anyway.”

And so begins the Paying Attention™ panoply of predictions for 2024. As always, Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff and Shay King attempt to bring you the future before it’s too late.

Go and get an appropriate attitude adjustment and break out the popcorn folks, we’re just getting started. It is predicted that Part II will be appearing very soon.

You won’t want to miss a moment of 2024…or will you 

His Kampf

If It Walks Like A Duck, And It Talks Like A Nazi…

December 22, 2023

“I never read Mein Kampf.”
Donald Trump, December 19, 2023
after talking like Hitler at one of his Bund rallies*

Donald “Dictator For Day One” Trump has never been shy about his love and admiration for every very strong and powerful murderous dictator whose name he has come to know. Like Kim Jong Un, with whom Trump exchanged love letters. Like Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Xi and Modi to name a few. And of course, the classics like Hitler and Mussolini. Trump and his Red Hat (i.e., Brown Shirt) cultists are all frighteningly fond of these very fine people and all manner of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and insurrectionists. Trump has also waxed pathetic about such heroes as Al Capone and Hannibal Lecter, who Donald apparently believed was a real person.

Forty-two percent of recently polled, likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said that Trump's recent remarks about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” makes them more likely to support him, according to a new poll by the Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom. Unsurprisingly, Sen. Tommy “Minus-sign In Front Of His IQ” Tuberville (R-Duh) said of Trump’s Hitleresque comment, “I’m mad he wasn’t tougher than that.”

While Trump continues to spout Nazi phraseology – calling immigrants “vermin” and mewling about “poisoning the blood of our country” cited above – every time he waggles his dentures, pundits find it necessary to declare that “Donald Trump did not read Mein Kampf.” As if that had some bearing on how and why Trump manages to use similar or identical language as the murderous dictator’s murderous dictator, among other fascist fuckwads of days gone by, but apparently not bye.

Der Furor

While I will not argue the point that Donny Dipshit did not read Mein Kampf any more than he has read the Bible, the Constitution or any other book-like object. Hell, he didn’t even write the book he “wrote” – The Art of The Deal; the actual author of that selection – Tony Schwartz – once said, “I don’t know if Donald read every word in the book, but I know I wrote every word in the book.” Schwartz also said that as the book put Donald on the map, he regrets ever having been a part of it and has donated every penny to charities that are anathema to Trump – which would be any charity that actually was a charity, unlike the Trump family “charity” which only gave money to the Trump family until it was dismantled by the courts, and the Trumps were banned from ever creating another charity.

Herr Drumpf and friends

Anyway, let us stipulate that no, Trump in fact did not read Hitler’s works, even though his ex-wife and current golf course ornament Ivana (an immigrant, as was Trump’s mother and is his current wife, what’s-her-name) reported (and Trump later admitted) that he kept a copy of My New Order – a collection of Hitler’s speeches published after his death, on his nightstand. The fact that Trump did not personally read Hitler’s version of Mein Art of The Deal does not preclude the likelihood, nay the guarantee, that everyone around Trump, particularly the likes of the ghoulish Stephen Miller and the orcish Steve Bannon, has read if not memorized Mein Kampf, and has been spoon-feeding its ideas and terminology to the mentally incapacitated kumquat conman for years.

If It Walks Like A Duck, And It Talks Like A Nazi…

Do the math.

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*To quote the late, great Molly Ivins in response to Pat Buchanan’s 1992 RNC speech, “It probably sounded better in the original German.”

I. Mangrey. You?

Postscript

Fortunately, Dark Brandon is starting to get real, calling out Trump’s Hitler talk. Biden had this to say when asked if Trump is an insurrectionist

“It’s self-evident. You saw it all. Now whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero.

Biden has also said (via Twit/X)

“Trump poses many threats to our country: The right to choose, civil rights, voting rights, and America's standing in the world. But the greatest threat he poses is to our democracy.”

Please sir, can I have some more?

Fun Fact For The Day - Cheese And Kraken

Trump Lawyers v. The Law

December 16, 2023

Hey, remember when several of Trumps “lawyers” pled guilty to interfering with the Georgia presidential election way back in 2020? Remember the 2020 presidential election? Nobody knows who won.

Kenny “The Cheese” Chesebro, Sidney “Release the Kraken” Powell and Jenna Ellis, as part of their guilty pleas, were required to provide apologies to Georgia voters for removing their noses from Trump's ass long enough to stick them where they did not belong by attempting to fuck with Georgia's election results.

To her potential, albeit too-little-too-late credit, Ellis managed to squeeze out several paragraphs and chose to read her apology in public, complete with a full complement of tears and regrets, and some mention of what she did and why. It looked surprisingly real, though it might have all been due to the fact that her co-conspirator/ringleader Trump refused to cough up a single ill-gotten cent for poor Jenna’s defense. You know the old saying, “When you lie down with dogs, you wake up royally fucked over.”

Cheese And Kraken

On the other hand, The Cheese and Kraken took a different approach to penning their “apologies,” each managing to offer up just single-sentence statements. neither one bothered to acknowledge what they did and/or why, though Chesebro did mention “Count 15” in his statement as if anyone knows what the fuck that was. Unlike Ellis’ seemingly heartfelt, at-least-sincere-on-paper mea fuck-up, Chesebro and Powell chose passive/aggressive slop:

They say brevity is the soul of wit; in this case it is the soul of shit

Move over Billy Shakespear. Turn in your typewriter Truman Capote. Who needs Maya Angelou? These two educated, licensed, and highly respected (at some point, one assumes) attorneys, one of whom – Powell – continues to fling feces conspiracies about the outcome of the 2020 election, chose to have a four-year-old child pen their so-called apologies.

A reply is warranted…

Was that not in fact fun?

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

Fun Fuct For The Day - Snoop/Dog

Vultures

December 15, 2023

“He’s a populist, authoritarian narcissist.”
former House Speaker Paul Ryan on
Donald Trump, December 13, 2023

And here I thought Trump was just an arrogant, narcissistic, fascist fuckwit. As it turns out what I thought was his pathetic mugshot face, was actually an homage to Charles Schultz and one of Snoopy’s many impersonations – one of my personal favorites – the vulture:

Snoopy would be a much better president…or anything else

Somebody give this man a hot-lead enema.

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

Schmuck For A Day*

Dicktator For A Day

December 9, 2023

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
                Donald Trump, in defense of his Big Lie, December 2022

Last week, afraid to share the debate stage with his wretched rivals, Trump instead held a clown hall with Sean Hannity as his wing man. Hannity was working hard to keep the addled asshole from further incriminating himself, or threatening the lives of journalists, law clerks, prosecutors, judges or democracy.

Hannity lobbed the softest of balls at the demented dipshit, who often swung and missed or whacked himself in the nuts.

At one point, when Hannity tried for the second time to help Donald assure America that Trump had no plans to be a dictator, Trump told the audience, “He said, You’re not going to be a dictator are you?” I said, “No, no, no, other than day one...After that, I'm not a dictator.”

Queen/Dictator For a Day

Either Trump is lying about his intentions for day two or he intends for day one to be the end of the world as we know it. And if Trump is president on that day, and it’s the latter, I’ll feel fine. Believe me.

R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

This has been your Paying Attention™ Schmuck For A Day.*

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*Every day.

On This Day In 1980

December 8, 2023

John Lennon Memorial – Strawberry Fields, Central Park, NYC

December 8, 1980, another date that will live in infamy. The day legendary musician, songwriter and activist John Lennon was gunned down in front of the The Dakota apartment building in Manhattan. Further proof that, as Mike Love wrote in the Beach Boys’ Student Demonstration Time, “The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun.”

John Lennon statue – Havana, Cuba 

Watching The Wheels 

Nobody Told Me 

Gimme Some Truth

Also happens to be Jim Morrison’s birthday.

People Are Strange 

An American Prayer

One more for the road…

Instant Karma

Thought For The Day

The Germans Have A Word For This (And So Does Everyone Else)

December 4, 2023

Seek High Y'all

“But we’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy.”
Donald Jihad Trump, December 2, 2023

Joe Biden tries to help Trump get the look that matches his rhetoric

“The things we do for the Orange Jesus.”
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN),
after signing electoral vote objection sheets in service to the Big Lie

Fascist Christ – Tod Rundgren

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

What do you think?

Schmuck(s) Of The Day

December 2, 2023

Dimwitted, reprehensible representative Scott Perry (R-PA) has managed to kind of slither under the January 6, 2021 radar though we are now learning that he was a major Christo-fascist player in every single aspect of Trump’s relentless and myriad attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Apparently, this attempt as well as Perry’s supporting role in all of that remains technically “alleged” despite the mountain of Everest…I mean evidence that continues to block out the Sun.

Perry and fellow whackjob Jeffrey Clark plotting the overthrow

of the American government in God’s name…in vain*

Perry was the yahoo who recommended professional doofus Jeffrey Clark to be Trump’s fourth attorney general, though Clark’s only qualification was an almost fanatical devotion to Trump and his plot to steal a second term.

Clark, famously placed under arrest in his underwear.

The best people.

Jeffrey Clark’s mugshot

Perry, whose cellphone has been in the possession of the Justice Department and special federal prosecutor Jack Smith for more than a year has just seen the public release of some of its very interesting, massively incriminating evidence for Perry and quite a few other well-placed Ratpublicans involved in Trump’s failed coup.

Ultimately, 147 members of the Fascist/Trump wing (more of a torso than a wing, actually) of the Ratpublican Party voted to overturn the completely (well, as completely as we can expect in these here United States) legitimate 2020 presidential election. Naturally, it turns out that the only ones actually found to have voted twice, voted for dead parents and other larger-scale voter fraud were Trump supporters, a dozen or so of whom have since been found guilty in a court of law.

Breaking Schmuck

Not wanting to be out-schmucked, freaky, likely-felonious fabulist George Santos was expelled by his involuntary colleagues after the House Ethics Committee found Santos had violated the rules of the House and was completely devoid of ethics. Santos was determined to have broken too many rules even for some Ratpublicans to tolerate. The House (with the exception of the entire Ratpublican leadership) voted to toss him out on his Botoxed ear. This episode will not look good on Santos’ completely fabricated resume.

Many people find it interesting that fewer members of the Fascist/Trump Party voted to expel one-man crime wave George Santos than voted to annul the wishes of the American electorate in 2020 in order to keep disgraced, twice-impeached, four-time-indicted (so far), failed insurrection leader and Fifth-Amendment-dependent ex-one-term-president Donald Trump in the office he had already destroyed. These people are irreparably damaged. They need to be in a home, not in the House.

Many of these same idiots voted to oust their third-highest ranking member – Liz Cheney – just for shooting someone in the face…oh wait, that was her father – just for putting the country above the treacherous scoundrel (with whom she voted about 96% of the time) who tried to overthrow democracy.

For his part, Santos still faces 23 felony counts including fraud and misconduct which will be dealt with by the court system.

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Schmuck, Already In Progress

Once he realized that the coup was probably doomed to failure, Perry sought a preemptive pardon from El Trumpo. Perry apparently could not afford the purported $2M pricetag of a Trump pardon. Oops. Perry might want to flip before he flops.

Scott Perry – seen here committing sedition

on the cellphone he now claims he never met

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*SPOILER ALERT: Clark was neither ready nor worthy. And that’s putting it mildly.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Schmuck(s) Of The Day. Fuck yeah.