Thought For The Day

We Can’t Handle The Truth, Or The Fake

April 29, 2019

America, meet the “deep fake” – coming soon, everywhere

 

 

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Close Mind, Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Qu'est-ce Que C'est?

April 26, 2019

Donald Chrump has relented on closing the Mexican border, but he still shows no sign of opening the impenetrable border between his brain and his mouth.

Grandpa Psycho, as if he ever had it, is really losing it.  As Chrump continues his 2020 campaign/disinformation tour, one wonders what lies beyond ‘unhinged.’  Chrump began his campaign like a passenger jet in mid-air having just lost one wing.  And like that plane, it was all downhill from there.  And now we are all passengers on that plane.  And oddly, the wing is not growing back.

Not long ago, on a stop in Chrump’s never-ending campaign of chaos and carnage, he bemoaned the fact that the speech he was delivering…in public…in front of cameras – as tends to case for public appearances by presidents, even grossly incompetent and incoherent ones – would likely be “leaked” to the media.  Chrump told the assembled mob, “The fake news will, as usual, try to use the words I’m saying to say I said the things I said.  SAD.  They are the enemy of the people folks, and as I’ve said, I would never kill them.  I’ve never told you to kill them, but if you did, it would serve them right.  They’re always repeating what I say to make me look like an idiot.  Very unfair.  I rarely say things on purpose.  Most geniuses do this as you know, since most of you are also geniuses, which is why you love me.  Poorly educated geniuses, my kind of people.”

Der Furor is appalled that Democrats are demanding to see the unadulterated Mueller report that he himself has on numerous occasions said should be made public.  The same report he celebrated for totally exonerating him.  This is understandable, I would never admit to winning a Pulitzer Prize for my terrific blogging – probably, I would say, the best blog of all time, but that is not for me to decide.  Or is it?

On another occasion, Chrump went on and on about the “oranges of the Mueller report,” “the beginnings” of the Mueller probe. “I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges, the oranges of the…uh, uh, the investigation, the beginnings of that investigation…the Mueller Report I wish covered the oranges…”

Speaking of oranges, Chrump also showed off his rapidly progressing dementia by telling reporters that his father (who was born in New York City) was “born in a very wonderful place in Germany.”

The oranges of Chrump’s “hair” color? Is it Crayola or Tang?

And what is the deal with Chrump's hues.  He and his “hair” change color more often than a chameleon traversing a Jackson Pollack painting.

I. Mangrey refraining.

Our Pornographic President

WARNING

April 25, 2019

Several senators’ wives formed the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985.  Their stated goal was increasing parental control over children’s access to music deemed to have violent, drug-related or sexual themes – censorship.  Senate hearings were convened with the hope of labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers.  The committee heard from opposition witnesses including musicians from John Denver to Frank Zappa.

Zappa v. Gore, et al.

Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religious Thought, and the Right to Due Process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain.
             Frank Zappa: Statement To Congress, September 19, 1985

We now have an ignorant, amoral, potty-mouthed president who is alleged (yeah, right) to have spent some adulterous quality time with at least one star of pornographic films and one Playboy playmate.  We know for a fact that Chrump is well-versed in sexual assault.  Apparently, Chrump provides the type of sexual assault that has the blessing of many very religious folks just like the folks who comprised the PMRC.  I have yet to hear anyone accuse Mr. Zappa of sexual impropriety, though he was known to enjoy the company of ladies on the road, and he managed to pass away well before the #MeToo era.

Those very religious folks who are so willing to support The World’s Greatest Sinner – Donald Chrump, self-described grabber of pussies – do not tolerate people such as Frank Zappa, whose very essence raised many hackles among those same very religious folks during his time.  Ironically, more than anyone involved, Zappa clearly had a better grasp of the social and political implications involved, and exposed the entire exercise for what it was. 

On the other hand, Donald Chrump has repeatedly incited violence and has been credibly accused of sexual misbehavior by over a dozen women.  To be fair, Chrump has not been accused of any drug-related behavior – if you discount all the Adderall, and whatever he is taking to fend off the worst of his syphilis symptoms – so, two-out-three ain’t bad.  However, Chrump is known to have paid $130K to each of two women (that we know of) to buy their silence over affairs, one of which occurred shortly after his third wife gave birth to his fifth child.  We will not even talk about Chrump lurking backstage at Miss Universe pageants while women were undressing, or about his repeated, public assertions about his desire to have inappropriate relations with his daughter. 

During the PMRC hearings, the recently departed Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-Dogpatch SC) mentioned that one of the requirements of the definition of pornography was that it had “no redeeming social value.” 

Under that definition one would be correct, if not lauded, for recognizing that this definition of pornography would surely apply to Donald Chrump, who has exhibited precisely zero redeeming social value.  Someone should slap – and I do mean slap – a warning sticker on that thing if only to protect the children.  Some of you might remember Dumbass Donald regaling the 2017 Boy Scout Jamboree with tales of rich men, yachts and one man who, “had a very interesting life. I won’t go any more than that, because you’re Boy Scouts so I’m not going to tell you what he did.”

Donald Chrump: ignorant, inappropriate, incompetent,
with no redeeming social value

I. Mangrey remembering.

Thought-For-The-Earth Day

Every Day, Especially Today

April 22, 2019

Today marks the 50^th observation of Earth Day.  Fortunately, despite unrelenting effort, Republican’ts still have not defeated Planet Earth.  This stubborn little blip of an orb in a mind-bogglingly vast universe, continues to support life even though the alleged top-of-the-intelligence-food-chain exerts excessive effort evicerating ecosystems everywhere. 

For our special Earth Day edition, rather that write more thousands of words, Paying Attention will instead regale you with pictures.

The one and only (as far as we know)

Chrump explains his environmental policy

Impressed as always that he can make a signature, one of his very few abilities

Republican’ts in Congress, selling us all down the river they polluted

Hot air/methane machines drowning us in CO₂

This has been your Paying Attention Thought-For-The-Earth Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the Earth Day?

Constant Collusion Causes Consternation

Clownish Criminal Chrumps Consistently Committing Crimes

April 20, 2019

Now that America has been granted permission to see most of the Mueller Report by Donald Chrump’s new chief protector and ersatz Attorney General Bill Barr, we can finally begin to see the official version of all the bizarre behavior, incessant insanity and dastardly dishonesty that we were already sure we had been witnessing since Chrump’s escalator descent and the subsequent descent of the United States as a nation.  Oddly, there is literally zero resemblance between Mueller’s findings and Bill Barr’s description thereof.

Though Donald Chrump and all the sociopathic sycophants pretending that what everyone else saw – a stunning case for further investigation and continued prosecution of an overtly lawless and amoral Chrump campaign/administration – was a total victory for Chrumpy the Clown.  Chrump and his Republican’t lemmings, who seem to be blind, deaf and incredibly dumb, are unable and unwilling to deviate from their chosen path: To the cliff!  To the cliff! Everything is fine.  Keep running straight ahead and don’t look back.  I for one applaud their unwavering sense of purpose in this instance.  I say, stay the course.  Stand by your man.

“I win. Mueller loses. I’m totally excoriated.”

In the words of Robert Mueller, “…if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.  Based on the fats and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.”  Mueller’s poor excuse for a “witch hoax” unquestionably clears Chrump of exoneration.

I was under the impression that ignorance of the law was no excuse, but it seems that just plain ignorance might be.  Apparently, Robert Mueller determined that Don, Jr. was simply too stupid to realize he was breaking the law by coordinating with a foreign adversary to use hacked information against his father’s opponent in order to interfere with our elections.  Presumably, Eric Chrump was too stupid to even be included in this particular criminal enterprise.

To be fair, Junior probably had no idea that Russia was an adversary since his father was up to his fake “hair” line in Russian money.  As our criminal president’s namesake told an interviewer in 2008, “… in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.  We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”  To the Chrump family, the United States is more of an adversary than Russia since U.S. banks turned off the money faucet to the Chrumps in the 1980s.  This of course, was due to the criminality and tendency to welch on debts that was the essence of Chrump’s business model. 

Daddy Chrump can do nothing but continue to pretend that he is winning, and winning bigly.  Even if he had a choice, he is incapable of assimilating any information that runs counter to what goes on in his syphilitic brain.  While everyone around him is playing 3- dimensional chess, Chrump is playing Solitaire.  And he is cheating...and losing.

I. Mangrey reporting.  Chrump is fucked.

 

Mueller, Mueller Everywhere And Not a Drop To Drink

Dial M For Mueller

April 18, 2019

“Oh my god.  This is terrible.  This is the end of my presidency.  I’m fucked.”
Donald J. Trump, an obviously innocent man, to Jeff Sessions
on learning of the appointment of Robert Mueller

There is an old saying in the world of jurisprudence often attributed to Abraham Lincoln – “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.”  I have allowed myself to update this old saw: He who represents Donald Chrump has a fool for a client and is himself a pathetic schmuck.

Fool or idiot? You make the call.

Under our system of justice – such as it is – everyone (your mileage may vary) is innocent until proven guilty and is entitled to legal representation.  Though it can be tempting, it is wrong to denigrate an attorney for defending even the most heinous perpetrator – Donald Chrump for example.  This is a tough job, but someone has to do it.  Besides, there are plenty of other reasons to heap scorn on lawyers. 

In 1770, a young lawyer by the name of John Adams defended eight British soldiers accused of murder during a riot in Boston on March 5, 1770.  That riot became known to some as the Boston Massacre, and that young lawyer became America’s second president.

I have no illusion that Donald Chrump knows better than to defend himself in a court of law.  He has certainly been trying non-stop to defend himself in the court of public opinion.  If Chrump had not blatantly and repeatedly shown himself to be guilty, he too would be considered innocent as of this moment.  According to the Mueller Report, the only reason Chrump is not already in jail is because a number of people around him refused to carry out his clearly illegal orders on numerous occasions.  Der Furor is fortunate to have his newest personal attorney posing as Attorney General of the United States.  Barr is clearly and exclusively protecting his boss, and as he has done in similar situations in the past, completely omitted any mention of damaging information that permeates the Mueller Report.

This Is Not Going Well For The Orange Poopstain

Chris Wallace of Fux News had this to say after Barr’s fake news conference, which was designed to mislead the public about when lay hidden within the Mueller report, “The Attorney General seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the attorney general, talking about his motives, his emotions.  Really, as I say, making a case for the president.”  This is an actual quote from one of the top newsmen on Chrump’s personal propaganda machine.

During his pre-emptive press event, Barr moaned that Poor Donald was not obstructing justice by firing Comey “because of the Russia thing” and instructing his lawyer to fire Mueller and threatening witnesses against him and attacking the investigation over and over and over on Twitter and elsewhere, he was just frustrated.  He was frustrated?  WTF.  We have been watching the TOTAL COLLUSION EXPRESS live, on national television and Twitter every f*%king day for over two years, riding roughshod over this country while the Colluder-in-chief whined and lied every minute about how innocent he was.  To paraphrase Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting survivor Emma Gonzales, we call bullshit!

It is interesting that the man who has said he has “one of the great memories of all time” (which he subsequently insisted he did not remember saying), provided 37 instances of “I do not recall”/“I do not remember”/"I have no independent recollection," etc., in his brief, one assumes lie-ridden written responses to Mueller’s questions.  I’m kidding, it is not interesting, it is pure unadulterated bullshit, as we have come to expect from one of the great sociopaths of all time.

Mueller has provided ample evidence – more of which is certain to come – to begin impeachment proceedings against a criminally ill-suited president with consistent malicious intent to obstruct justice. 

I. Mangrey recalculating. 

Thought For The Day

SPOILER ALERT: Bill Barr is Bogus

April 18, 2019

We recently learned that Chrump’s personal attorney general was even sleazier than we thought, a monumentally high or appallingly low bar, depending on your perspective.  Barr used the same exact language and technique to misrepresent the findings of another special investigation, then into the possible abduction of Manuel Noriega in Panama when Barr was head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 1989.  This was shortly before Barr became George HW Bush’s Attorney General and provided the smoke screen for pardoning Republican’t convicted felons from the Iran-Contra criminal operation under Ronald Reagan.

As reported by Ryan Goodman, “Members of Congress asked to see the full legal opinion. Barr refused, but said he would provide an account that “summarizes the principal conclusions.” Sound familiar? In March 2019, when Attorney General Barr was handed Robert Mueller’s final report, he wrote that he would “summarize the principal conclusions” of the special counsel’s report for the public.”
 

It was later found that Barr’s summary of findings completely misrepresented the conclusions of the investigation.  According to Goodman, “When the OLC opinion was finally made public long after Barr left office, it was clear that Barr’s summary had failed to fully disclose the opinion’s principal conclusions. It is better to think of Barr’s summary as a redacted version of the full OLC opinion. That’s because the “summary” took the form of 13 pages of written testimony. The document was replete with quotations from court cases, legal citations, and the language of the OLC opinion itself. Despite its highly detailed analysis, this 13-page version omitted some of the most consequential and incendiary conclusions from the actual opinion. And there was evidently no justifiable reason for having withheld those parts from Congress or the public.”  Now we know exactly what to expect…in case we had any doubts.

Members of Mueller’s team, wrote their own summaries of their findings (meant to be shared with the public), summaries that Barr has kept hidden.  These prosecutors have reportedly said that they were uncomfortable with Barr’s original summary of principal conclusions, as it did not accurately portray what they found.  And that is putting it mildly.  Barr’s entire raison d’être as Chrump’s AG is to protect his boss from the facts.

Barring Anything Unusual

Today Barr will release his colorfully redacted, transparently partisan and deeply dishonest version of the almost two-year-long Mueller investigation.  Barr has already given his Orange Overlord a head start on access to what is coming.  This provides Team Chrump extra time to manufacture the obligatory lies that will help his credulous sheep understand what they are supposed to swallow schnook, whine and stinker.  Those of us in the reality-based community do not need any extra time to prepare the requisite contempt due Chrump's and Barr’s attempts to baffle us with their bullshit.  America will need a long, hot shower after being soiled by Barr's latest defecation.

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Figuratively Flinging Feces

So It Goes

April 17, 2019

Bernie Sanders took on Fux News single-handedly in an hour-long town hall.  Turns out Bernie has a wider appeal than those Fuxheads might have wanted.  Bernie’s platform is extremely popular across America, as evidenced by everyone from Hillary Clinton and one Donald J. Chrump mimicking much of the Sanders agenda after seeing how popular it was early in the 2016 campaign.  The difference being, Sanders meant it, Clinton meant some fraction of it, and Chrump’s word is as valuable as used toilet paper.  As has been scientifically proven, he lies more often than he eats, golfs, tweets or breathes.  Chrump will say anything.  He will tell you 140 times, “I love Wikileaks” and then say, "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing.”  He had me at ‘I know nothing,’ and then he lost me.

I. Mangrey reproaching.

The Full Mueller

Bill’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Redactions

April 15, 2019

It seems clear that Bill Barr, on his second stint as faux Attorney General, is looking to stop crime in its tracks.  However, not in the customary way.  Rather than stopping crime from occurring, Barr prefers to stop crime from actually being crime.  If there was anyone who thought Barr was going to be Attorney General of the United States, and not just another attorney for Donald Chrump, they were sadly mistaken and/or severely brain damaged.

One cannot help but wonder how much Barr is getting paid under the table by his Orange Overlord.  This one also wonders if Chrump pays more to speak for him or to shut up about him.  It is hard to imagine Barr settling for a measly $130K.  Barr is not just some semi-popular porn star; he is clearly a very high-end prostitute.  Like any successful prostitute, Barr had to strut his stuff in order to attract the right John…or Don in this case.  In lieu of flashing some leg, Barr penned an unsolicited 19-page diatribe insisting that the president (presumably only when he is a Republican't) cannot obstruct justice.  The good old “If the president does it then it is not illegal,” Nixon delusion/defense.

Barr's 19-page fantasy dwarfs the four-page misdirection he spit out while buying time for the Chrump team of legal lightweights to process the report Barr continues to hide from the American public.  For his part, Barr is racking his damaged brain trying to determine the best way to redact enough of Mueller's report to keep his new boss out of prison and America from reinstating our democracy.  Barr, in his usual role as apologist/protector of Republican’t presidents, decided to fall back on the Bush II color-coded terror alerts by redacting the Mueller Report in a variety of colors, presumably with circles and arrows on the back of each page explaining every obfuscation.

Barr’s next stab at the heart of America’s democracy…I mean, at rationalizing one of his predetermined outcomes, will be to prove that Chrump’s thoroughly and repeatedly disproven conspiracy theory of being spied on by the Obama administration really happened.

It’s all very taxing.

I. Mangrey reporting.