Three years ago
today disgraced, twice-impeached, four-time-indicted (so far), failed
insurrection leader and Fifth-Amendment-dependent ex-one-term-president Donald
Trump incited his cult members to lay siege to the Capitol for the purpose of
short-circuiting the final step in the peaceful transition of power consequent
to a free and fair election in which Trump was trounced by the American people
who, for the second time, handed the popular vote to someone running against him – previously
Hillary Clinton, and in this case, Joseph R. Biden.
Not everyone agrees that the assault on the Capitol was a bad thing, many people were, and even more are now saying, that it was nothing more than a typical tourist visit. I'll let Al Franken help sort it all out...
On that day, one hundred
and forty-seven white male Ratpublican members of Congress (with the exception
of there being 18 white women and 2 Black men among them), including the
current speaker of the House and his immediate predecessor, voted for the
insurrection and the overturning of the election. Nearly every single
one of these sick and sickening traitors remains in Congress. And most of these fuckwads are
now insurrection deniers, even some of those who had to change their shorts
after they ran for their lives to avoid, let's call it close contact, with their very fine constituents.
Trump’s insurrection continues to this day.
You can easily see why 25% of Americans believe that all the angry white people storming the Capitol were Antifa and BLM…oh, and FBI
As if you needed further proof that Black Lives
Matter was to blame for the assault on the Capitol...
On the eve of the
Civil War a mob tried to break into the Capitol to disrupt the electoral vote
count following the 1860 United States presidential election. Sound familiar?
Capitol security blocked their entry, so the mob stood outside yelling insults
at the head of the Capitol's security force. Capitol security was not nearly so
lucky or successful three years ago – possibly on the eve of a second Civil War
here at home.
Later today, Donald “Death
to America” Trump will be holding one of his Bund rallies to officially launch
his campaign to end democracy in America and celebrate what most Americans see
as one of the two darkest days in most of our lifetimes.
May no one have
mercy on his “soul.”
Ultimately, our Paying
Attention™ Thought For The Day is…
This has been your Paying Attention™ Thought
For The Day.
Disgraced, twice-impeached, four-time-indicted (so far),
failed insurrection leader, Fifth-Amendment-dependent ex-one-term-president and
current professional defendant Donald Trump is planning to celebrate tomorrow
like it was the fucking Fourth of July and Christmas combined.
Tomorrow, of course, is the third anniversary of the
Trump-incited assault and siege on the United States Capitol – you remember the
United States, right? – which included the hunt for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
Vice President Mike Pence and countless others for the purpose of either
kidnapping, assault or assassination. The events of the day featured the brutal
assault of 140 members of law enforcement, defecating on the walls, and the
death of one of their fellow seditionist dipshits as she tried to breach the
last line of security between the insane, bloodthirsty Trump mob and members of
Congress, which resulted in the crazed intruder being shot dead by security.
Trump, et al naturally consider her a martyr – just like all those martyrs of
yesteryear who donned their gray uniforms and died while attempting to
overthrow the government of the United States in the name of protecting Nikki
Haley…I mean, slavery.
Trump has repeatedly called his cult members – the poorly
educated, the anti-democratic, the shamelessly violent salt scum of the
earth…you know, morons – heroes and political prisoners. He promises to pardon
each and every seditionist, insurrectionist, murderer and America-fucking
asshole convicted of myriad crimes against the United States on Trump’s
“orders” on January 6, 2021 – a date which will live in infamy. That is, unless
you are Donald Trump or one of his mentally and democratically deficient mob of
cretins (and I’m using that descriptor in the more technical, clinical sense –
i.e., an IQ between 50–69 and not merely as an ad hominem attack).
Weekend At Biden’s
Joe Biden on the other hand will be observing 1/6 like it
was Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Biden will officially launch his re-election campaign
today (instead of tomorrow due to predicted foul weather) at Valley Forge
(famous for its foul weather some years ago), warning the American people of
the fascist threat posed by his would-be opponent and his cult.
Whatever you might think about Biden, and though he often fought against
the middle class in favor of the filthy rich and corporations throughout his
career and was instrumental in allowing Clarence “Uncle” Thomas to sit on the
now-horribly-stained Supreme Court bench, Biden never fought against the United
States or our democracy, as did (and does) his presumptive Hitler-channeling opponent
this coming November.
From this reporter’s perspective, there is simply no
contest. I don’t care if Biden is 181 and kept alive by a room full of machines
and round-the-clock medical staff, or even by smoke and mirrors. I don’t care
if by Election Day he is Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s. I’d sooner
vote for Kevin McCarthy – he’s not and evil, fascist, toxic narcissist psychopath;
he’s just a fucking spineless idiot.
To celebrate the new year,
while there still may be reason to celebrate it, Paying Attention™ is
excited to announce a brand-new feature:
Look Who’s Fuckin' Talking™
We will from time to
time bring you special moments of stunning, toxic and mind-blowingly-stupid
lacks of self-awareness. And there promises to be no shortage of opportunities in 2024. Not only because this
is a leap year, giving us an entire extra day of potential cluelessness, but
because ignoramuses like Lauren Boebert, Empty G, Donald Trump and a cast of
thousands continue to draw breath and emit sounds.
To kick things off,
we bring you an unsurprising entry. You may know him as a little man in
high-heels, pretending to be a big boy. A petty tyrant, vying to become even
more petty and more tyrant-y.
A man who, while
running for governor of his state, ran an ad featuring him building a toy wall with one of his children, explaining MAGA to a toddler, and reading Donald Trump’s
The Art of The Deal to his infant child
What a maroon!
A man whose “smile”
not only looks like he is nauseous, but makes anyone gazing upon it nauseous.
After becoming
governor he passed the "Don't Say Gay" law in his state, as well as a
ban on abortion after six-weeks. He had immigrants kidnapped and carted
off to northern states, and fights every day to ban books and history. He has fought tirelessly to stop intelligent thought from contaminating his state, relentlessly
seen to it that institutions of learning – at every level – bury science, truth
and reality where it can never be seen.
Our maiden voyage on the
USS Look Who’s
Fuckin' Talking™ brings us to the slimy
shore of dithering dipshit and Florida governor Ron
DuhSantis, currently running for president and from himself and his past, and
his present. DuhSantis inspired this feature while desperately trying to
separate himself from the man he begged to endorse his run for governor, the man he supported to the last,
well, next to last. DuhSantis has finally realized, now that his campaign is on
life-support, that he cannot simultaneously try to be and run against Trump.
In his last-ditch
effort to salvage his useless, pathetic campaign on the eve of the Iowa caucuses,
the current self-anointed dictator of the land called Florida, the man who has
weaponized everything he could get people to spell for him, including schools,
libraries and health care, said this of his now-former bestie Donald Trump:
“Lets just be clear:
Trump is fine with weaponization if it’s against people he doesn’t like.”
Talk about the pot
calling the kettle fucked in the head. Someone get this man a mirror and a
brain.
Oh what the hell, go ahead. Use it. How much worse could he be?
Predictions,
Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle
Still trying to bag the elusive Would-Be-Monarch
Butter Fly
I Can See Next Year From Here
December 31,
2023
Anyone can put
together a look back at the year that was. Not that there’s anything wrong with
that. But it takes true courage, a complete disregard for common sense and real
spunk to pretend to know what will happen in the year to come.
So, here it
is. The final installment of what to expect in 2024.
Donald Trump –
the long COVID of presidents – still has us gnashing our teeth, fighting to
keep food down, losing sleep and praying that the Constitution will ultimately
prevail despite the unrelenting and seditious efforts of its arch enemies –
Donald Turmp, his Fascist Party, and the Supremely Extreme Court. Hopefully, Trump’s
legacy will attain a fate similar to so many of Turmp’s other fraudulent, and
ultimately failed ventures.
Ed Venture
Unmanageable Editor
August 16, 2024
The Call Is
Coming From Inside The Louse
Stock photo of Trump on phone
During an
alleged bathroom break at a courthouse, perpetual defendant Trump makes a
series of perfect phone calls to secretaries of state, county election
officials, the few local election workers who have not been threatened by
MAGAts, and random Second Amendment fetishists in seven battleground
(figuratively speaking, for now) states attempting to persuade them to not
certify the election results in their states, though everyone knows Biden will win
their popular votes by double-digit margins in the 2024 election that is more
than a month away. According to reports, Desperate Don even rang up Brad
Raffensperger in Georgia for old times’ sake, to give it one more shot. People
waiting in the courtroom wondered what was taking so long, but they just
figured Trump was full of shit and needed extra time in order to flush five or
six or fifteen times. And Trump says it’s windmills killing dolphins.
Trump’s next phony phone call will be behind
a different “desk”
September 11, 2024
He Cannot Not Tell A Lie
Under oath Trump, sweating more
than a badly beaten football team in a cramped post-game sauna, swears up, down
and sideways, “Melanie made me do it. She is a very foreign and possibly very
dangerous person. She’s the brains in the outfit and she might be part of the
fake Russia hoax. I think she might even be from Russia. I only do what she
tells me. I obviously don’t understand how anything works. It was all Melanie
and Ivanka. I think Ivanka was out to get me from the beginning because I
refused to date her. This is the God’s truth. I forgot to bring my Bible, but
Two Corinthians – am I right? Cross my heart and hope you die.
She’s the one – that
foreign-sounding loser over there. I never met her before.
September 24, 2024
The election is
put in jeopardy when unexpectedly, Donald Trump holds himself hostage, having
himself handcuffed to Ivana’s coffin near the first tee at the failing
Bedminster Resort and Golf Abyss. He threatened to take himself out if his
demands are not met. As you might imagine, his demands included “stopping the
vote count as soon as I have more votes, since last time I was winning bigly
and then suddenly they said they kept counting votes and they said I lost. I
did not lose and you know it and everyone knows it.” The self-hostage also
demanded “a $5B ransom and a get-out-of-jail-free card, plus all the fake witch
hunt charges must be dropped” and something about calling off the 2028 election
just to be safe.” At least we don’t have to worry about this self-loathing
cretin developing Stockholm Syndrome.
You can see how important this tax-break,
I mean gravesite is to Donald. It has been left this way presumably to make it
easier to dig up when the time comes to retrieve the classified documents
buried with his dear ex-wife. You would think being Ivanka’s mother would have
bought her a modicum of caring; after all, he did date her.
Before we finish our predictions for
2024, this brief word from our sponsor…
November 6,
2024
Joe Biden
defeats Donald “Just Call Me President Anyway” Trump in a landslide-and-a-half.
Trump only managed to win Texas, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina and
almost every mental institution.
Trump seeks refuge
at his hideous home at Mor-on Lago, where he is greeted by the only crowd still
having any interest his existence. A flock of vultures.
Best Mor-on Lago buffet ever
November 28, 2024
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
included, among its famous giant balloons, a giant deflated Trump balloon
dragged through the streets until it disintegrated into dust.
After being
crushed (for the third time) at the polls, and seemingly nearly picked clean by
vultures, it is revealed that Donald Trump was in fact a creation of an AI
program that had been infected with a virus.
The virus was
described by one expert as “the COVID of computer viruses,” adding “while the
Trump bot was completely fake, a digital disaster, the human COVID-19 virus
was absolutely real and killed millions of actual people.” Countless computer
technicians tried everything they could think of to quell the virus, including
shining a powerful light inside the computer and pouring bleach inside it.
While this approach did manage to destroy every computer it was tried on, it
was unsuccessful in eliminating the virus itself, which is why Trump was able
to continue his surreal existence long enough to practically destroy America in
four years and then attempt one more interminable term in office.
Sort of like Max Headroom, but evil and less
real looking
Thank goodness the American people
managed to win the day, even overcoming the absurd Electoral College – always
there at the ready to override the will of the actual electorate. Efforts are
still under way to determine the orangins, uh oranges of the virus, uh where
the virus came from, and ensure it cannot create anything as horrific ever
again.
December 25, 2024
Donald J. Trump, STFU In
Peace
It was as if the entire world,
well the entire world minus the toxic vein of fascist fuckwads, asked Santa for
one thing and Santa delivered. People were dancing in the streets. Atheists were
thanking God. The world lost a malignant cancerous growth that threatened life
as we know it. On his long-overdue deathbed, Donald Trump finally concedes the
2020 election. Just kidding, his final words were, “Biggest crowds ever…stolen
elections...11,780 votes…president for life…covfefe.”
December 31, 2024
This Will Have Been The Year That Will Have Been
We are predicting that the year 2024 will come to an end, at
midnight or there abouts. We are simply not stupid enough to even consider
predicting how. There is a non-zero percent chance that we will once again be
relieved to wring out another year.
Do I smell smoke?
To be fair, we have to share one more
prediction. It is not our prediction, and since it is very unlikely that anyone
will have gotten this far, we decided to put it here. See if you can guess
whose prediction this is for 2024…
“THE STOCK MARKET IS ONLY HIGH BECAUSE PEOPLE, & INSTITUTIONS,
BELIEVE & EXPECT ME TO WIN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024. IF I DON'T
WIN, IT IS MY PREDICTION THAT WE WILL HAVE A STOCK MARKET "CRASH"
WORSE THAN THAT OF 1929 - A GREAT DEPRESSION!!! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Yes, as everyone knows, the economy rises or
falls based on who will be the next president. That was an actual quote from an
actual (as far as we know at the moment) person – ex-president Donald “Flopsweat”
Trump.
Out With (ano)The(r) Bad Year, In With The Completely
Unpredictable (With The Exception Of Our Predictions) And Potentially Fatal New
Year
In any event,
hope for the best, expect the worst. Remain vigilant. Sleep with one eye open.
The year 2024 is coming for you and is plotting to kill you if you’re not
prepared.
Mel Brooks – Hope For The Best
And this is not
a prediction, this is a guarantee: the word of the year will be
Either that or
the ever-reliable gift from the Hopi language
Anyway, that’s it for Paying Attention™ in 2023 and now we all know what to expect in
2024 – or at least some of it. For now, just enjoy New Year’s Eve, think
responsibly, and for now, forget the future ever happened.
Feel free to ignore all
predictions except this one from the world’s foremost authority: “If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're
going.”
From Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff
and Shay King, and our research and legal teamS:
Hello 2024, come right
in, we’ve been expecting you. We know what you did next summer.
Before we begin, you need to know that there is a
secret word for today’s edition of Schmuck Of The Day. It’s a common word,
found every day around the nation.
The secret word is ‘Slavery’
These fascist Ratpublicans are simply impossible
to believe. At a recent New Hampshire town hall, South Carolina’s favorite
daughter, Nikki Haley – who is of Asian Indian descent, but is trying to get
right-wing, racist pig voters to think of her as white – did her state (you
know, the state that started the Civil War) proud.
Haley was asked by a voter, “What was the cause
of the United States Civil War?” Haley took a long, deep breath, turned tail
and literally walked away from the questioner and the question. Realizing there
was no physical escape, the soon-to-be-ex-candidate put on her tap shoes and began
her response with, “Well don’t come with an easy question.” Inquiring minds
want to know: Is there any easier question though?
Nikki Haley preparing to spew a whole lotta nothin’
Haley then proceeded to dance like she was
Gregory Hines in his prime. Tap, tap, bob, weave, tap, tap. “Roll of
government” this, “the rights of the people” that. Haley danced around the
truth for so long all one could think of was “they shoot horses, don’t they.” Haley
tried everything to avoid using the word ‘slavery,’ one with which one can only
assume she has at least a spit of familiarity. She finally ran out of breath,
thinking she had emerged victorious and put the annoying question to rest, and tried
to turn things around, asking her inquisitor, “What do you think the cause of
the Civil War was?”
After reminding Haley
that she was the one running for president, the man who asked the question thanked
Tricky Nikki adding, “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer
that question without mentioning the word slavery.”
Just when you thought Icky
Nikki had been utterly humiliated, she unsheathed her Jell-O-sharp wit and replied,
“What do you want me to say about slavery?”
Seriously, “What do
you want me to say about slavery?” Oh, I don’t know; anything? Maybe say the
word?
At one point during
Haley’s unsuccessful circumlocution, she meandered off course, which was the
whole point of course, saying “We need capitalism; we need economic freedom.”
Well governor, which is it?
With any luck, that gaseous
gash below her nose will finally heal shut and she can slink back to the
Secession State where she belongs.
It
is time to pick up where we laughed off. Hopefully, you are sufficiently
soused, fittingly fried, tenuously toasted, or otherwise appropriately altered
as 2023 melts away like the Arctic and if many
people have their way, America’s democracy. If you had already started
your Rent-A-Coma experience and are not seeing this in a
timely manner, welcome back – I hope you are feeling refreshed, or at least
blissfully unaware of any of the disastrous depredations that occurred while
you were “out.”
It
was with great trepidation, constipation and crustacean – no, that can’t be
right… that we even forced ourselves to look at the coming year. 2024 promises
to be horrifying, angst-ridden and exhausting. And that’s the best-case
scenario. This election could have people running for the exits faster than the
audience at the premier of Springtime For Hitler just before the lovely
and talented Lorenzo St. DuBois took the stage and stole the show.
Lorenzo St. DuBois – best Hitler ever
As
we watch 2023 dissolve into the American memory abyss, Donald Trump is
desperately appealing each and every indictment, claiming that former
presidents, even a disgraced,
twice-impeached, four-time-indicted (so far), failed insurrection leading and
Fifth-Amendment-dependent ex-one-term one has a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free
cards. Never thought I would use the words ‘Donald Trump’ and ‘appealing’ in
the same sentence.
In
any event, welcome to Part II of our annual three-part series on the way it
will be in 2024. With any luck the prediction gods will provide something
to save the day, if not the year.
January 16, 2024
It’s My Party
And I’ll Win If I Want To
Trump wins the
Iowa caucuses running away, but is either confused about having won or is so
accustomed to whining, yelling and mooing about hoaxes, witch hunts and rigged
elections, that he spends several hours between midnight and 3 am posting a
series of all-cap screeds on his soon-to-be-forgotten fake media platform…I
want to say Ruth Social, or something like that. Here’s a frightening and
painful sample:
Despite being
told by his team that he had actually won, Trump began kicking his aides and
throwing food until he was finally subdued with the help of a tranquillizer
dart, well several, since no actual elephant tranquillizers were available.
February 25, 2024
What's That Smell? Is It
Musk?
Despite still
insisting that he lost the “very fake and horrible” Iowa caucuses, Trump
announces his running mate as he continues his for American fascism. Quoting
Hitler with reckless abandon, praising Xi and Putin at every turn, many thought
it would be Mike Flynn or perhaps super-genius and anti-Semitic,
anti-social-media empresario Elon Musk. Others insisted Trump would choose Icky
Haley or the sniveling Reejek Ramasmarmy.
It turned out
to be a complete unknown. Someone who could rile up the base and drive the libs
crazy. Someone who would never – at least not for the next 20 months or so –
criticize Trump or say anything that would make Donald seem stupid by
comparison. Though small in stature, and having never been in politics, this
would-be second-in-command at least comes with no baggage, no skeletons in the
closet. In fact, no skeleton whatsoever…
This would assure Trump that
his VP would always stand by him, well at least once he was born and was given
a name, if not quite able to actually stand yet. And there is no way little What’s-is-name would be able to run against
his boss in 2028, 2032 or any election prior to 2060. After that, he could just
be mysteriously shot or suffer a high-rise window mishap.
April 1, 2024
Golden (Or Is It Orange)
Shower or Piss On, Piss Off
Trump finds
that pissing off the courts is not enough, so he whips out his mushroom-shaped,
barely-functional phallus and reenacts the infamous Pee-pee Tape, only this
time he’s the one providing the golden shower, pissing on the court,
with his idiot lawyer Alina Habba taking friendly water, taking it on the chin,
as it were.
Another dangerous leak from a
not-so-anonymous leaker
July 21, 2024
TRUMP = MUD
As part of the
settlement for E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation suit – the one she filed after
Trump was found liable and forced to pay $5M in the first civil trial,
immediately after which Donald went out and defamed her again – Trump was
required to change the marquee on every property festooned with his name. The
judge thought a new name would be appropriate
Trump lobbied the judge to go with “MUGSHOT
TOWER” instead
Ironically,
though figuratively his name is now “Mud,” revenues went up as soon the TRUMP
logo came off those buildings that had still been saddled with it.
Nap
Time
Go
and have a nap or a concussion, maybe some Prozac or a quick round of
Rent-A-Coma. There is a good chance Part III is coming soon.
We’ve
got the Magic 8 Ball in overdrive – we asked again later, survived countless
hazy replies, and a surprising number of “Signs point to WTF”. These are
not fake predictions.
Making predictions takes intense preparation and concentration
in order to get oneself in touch with the spirits
Ed
Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff and Shay King continue bringing you the future
before it gets away.
This past Tuesday,
the world said good-bye to one of its finest. Entertainer. Activist. Mensch. And
Tommy Smothers was the Yo Yo Man.
Yo Yo Man
I grew up watching
the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour every week for three years – after which they
were canceled for being too controversial. Mostly, too politically
controversial. Whatever else might have been at play, Tom was a comedic genius.
Tom as Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show
I had the good
fortune to see the Smothers Brothers live in 2001. Less than one month after
the events of 9/11. The brothers were in fine form, hadn’t lost a step. Despite
the world practically falling off its axis at the time, they were able to bring
great joy and laughter. Funny, topical, talented as ever.
Here are the
Smothers Brothers, joined by George Seagal, doing Phil Ochs’ Draft Dodger
Rag
And here are Tom and
Dick doing The Impossible Dream
And when you watched
them perform, you just knew that Tom always liked you best.
