BOOMSDAY

The Doomsday Gap

February 27, 2025

Trump’s SOTU got terrible ratings, down 12% from the crappy ratings he got last year. With such low, horrible, really bad ratings, shouldn’t Trump be cancelled? And despite Fux News mouths claiming it was the greatest speech of all times, it was actually rated as the least popular speech this century. It was also completely and objectively bonkers. 

As noted here previously, I did not subject myself to the spectacle. I have however, since then seen a significant number of segments covering a sufficiently varied array of topics to get a sense of the senselessness, and to know I had seen more than enough. I'll spare you the details, but it was chock full of creepy, kooky, scary, racist, gory, provably dishonest, psychotic, and ultimately pathetic gibberish.

But we are taking a break from our coverage of Trump’s Hate of The Union rant starting right now.

On A Lighter Note

Some of you might find comfort in the following non-Trump (though intimately Trump adjacent) Broken News story from those zany folks over at science.

It's time for another exciting episode of...

The Donald Trump Memorial Epstein Files…
OOPS, I meant…

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK

I’m guessing this is not a particularly fun job

The Doomsday Clock measures how close the human race is to being obliterated, and not like Trump’s claim of obliterating Iran’s nuclear program six months ago, only to now be preparing to start a shooting war with Iran because Trump says Iran is a week away from building intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which could strike the U.S. Trump’s claim that Iran will soon be able to strike US is unsupported by U.S. intelligence (Trump’s very existence is unsupported by every type of intelligence).  Time to call in Colin Powell with a vile of ICBMs.

Clearly Trump is desperate to 1) push the Doomsday Clock to midnight before he ends up in jail, 2) distract everyone from everything else he is fucking up (HA! You thought I was going to say distract from the Donald Trump Memorial Epstein Files), and/or 3) preparing the ground for a reason to disrupt the midterm elections by declaring wartime powers and a national emergency in order to keep from ending up impeached a third time and finally being convicted. Or he’s just a violent, vengeful, demented shithead. Take your pick. You can choose more than one.

Speaking of which, this imminent war popped up before the good folks at the Doomsday Clock pushed that second hand a few seconds closer to midnight.

Scientists say that the Doomsday Clock is closer to striking BOOM than ever before. We are now at 85 seconds to midnight. You should know, if you don't already, that there will be no 12:01 AM once this clock strikes midnight.

By the way…

All of the threats to humanity pushing the clock to closing time – the careening climate crisis, the threat of nuclear war, disruptive technologies and biosecurity – are being relentlessly magnified and accelerated by the very-nearly-dead Donald Trump, who could not give a smaller shit about what happens to all of us.

From the keepers of the Doomsday Clock

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board (SASB), which sets the Clock, called for urgent action to limit nuclear arsenals, create international guidelines on the use of AI, and form multilateral agreements to address global biological threats.

All I can say to that is, so long and thanks for all the fish.

The Chambers Brothers – Time Has Come Today

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled final preparations.

Radio WTAF with U2

A face for radio

February 26, 2026

“The power of the people is so much stronger than the people in power.”*
Bono/U2 – from American Obituary (February 2026)

Just a quick how-do-you-do from WTAF and U2.

Bono and U2 added their voice to the avalanching chorus of displeasure with the fascist fuckwit flop-sweating all over America. By now, you’ve probably heard Bruce Springsteen’s powerful Streets of Minneapolis homage to the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti and the brave patriots of Minnesota who braved dangerous temperatures and Trump’s ICE ICE death squads to tell Trump to get the fuck out of town.

 U2 – American Obituary

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*Let’s fucking hope so.

As always, send us your requests and dedications and we’ll get ‘em on the air.

Ramble Off

Oh, What A Blight

February 26, 2026

Prior to Trump’s Klan rally in the House Chamber on Tuesday, his cult members ransacked on January 6, 2021, in their murderous attempt to stage a coup, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) felt it was incumbent upon him to help educate the dimwitted dipstick on his way to the podium.

Daffy Don, who had recently posted a video which included a depiction of Barack and Michele Obama as primates and refused to apologize, did not appreciate this lesson, and immediately turned away from Rep. Green, who was then escorted from the Chamber.

In addition to the early exit of Rep. Green, 80 other Democratic members of Congress boycotted Trump’s travesty tantrum. Trump’s viewing audience was also smaller than last year by four million. There has never been a lamer duck. Keep up the good work, sir. 

Trump must have been so honored to stand in the same spot where once stood his beloved Qanon shaman, who Trump later pardoned in exchange for his Flintstone’s Era Water Buffalo Lodge hat.

There was no mention of Ukraine, Epstein* or the brutal occupation of Minneapolis, during which two white American citizens were executed by Trump’s personal squad of masked, armed, unaccountable, murderous racist paramilitary operatives.

No one knows why Trump avoided talking about the famous Donald Trump Memorial Epstein Files (he did not even bellow repeatedly that he was totally exonerated...he was anything but), especially since they contain this very flattering picture of someone very close to Donald. Below is the very real, albeit very illegally redacted literal page out of the files. 

This was not Photoshopped…at least not by me

As the evening wore on and on and on, President Tinkerbell threw several hissy-fits – he chastised the Democrats who bothered to attend for not clapping enough, and for refusing to give him standing ovations when all the Fascist/Trump Party trained seals raised up and clapped their flippers. Trump did not reprise Jeb Bush’s groundbreaking “Please clap” plea during Bush’s dismal 2016 campaign.

During his State of The Tantrum, Trump also declared, “I am officially announcing the War on Fraud…and in that same spirit, after this speech is over, I will be kicking myself in the nuts several times. Obviously, both of these things are equally likely to be successful.”**

Trump doing a rendition of Al Jolson’s Mammy***

Trump presumably did not get down on one knee; he cannot bend his knees due to all the fluid in his brain…I mean, legs.

So, this is the state of our fucking union as we celebrate year two-hundred-and-fifty of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. With a Declaration of the Indefensible.

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*Trump clearly forgot to mention the missing files, including those regarding credible allegations leveled by a woman who alleged to the FBI (back when it had a mammal for a director) that Trump sexually abused when she was a13-year-old girl. I wonder why he’s not talking about this. Can you say burn-bag?
**The section preceding the ellipsis is actually true.
***I assume, since I did not watch this trainwreck. 

Radio WTAF – Black History Month Edition

February 25, 2026

Apparently, Donald Jeffrey Epstein Trump survived the longest, most dishonest, most divisive, disgusting and racist State of The Union in history. We’ll have to wait and see if the country manages to survive his continuing presence or not. Only time will tell. I'm sure he is very proud of himself, which places him firmly in a very small minority of Americans. He did nothing to help pull his still-sinking and royally-stinking poll numbers out of the metaphorical Mariana Trench. Trump is truly the POTUS. I did not watch Trump's disingenuous diatribe. I did however see enough snippets to cause a raging headache and some mild internal bleeding.

Meanwhile, Trump’s White Power Crusade is hard at work scrubbing all mentions of slavery, all mentions of contributions by Black Americans, from government websites, from national parks and monuments. They want to erase anything that might cause anyone to think there should be any sense of guilt or shame related to our shameful, guilt-ridden history, particularly as it relates to the over-arching racism at the heart of this nation since before its inception.

Despite the current regime’s ugly, malignant and metastatic racism and blatant and unrelenting attempts to whitewash this nation’s history and whiten this country as it now stands, we here at Paying Attention™ remain steadfast in our support for reality, for all people oppressed by those undeservedly in power, and Black History Month in particular during this shortest of months.

Supreme Court Chief Justice and longtime racist John Roberts, in gutting the Voting Rights Act several years ago, proclaimed that racism in America was dead. Well guess what-the-fuck, if it was dead back then (SPOILER ALERT: it most definitely was not) it is now a fucking zombie. Eating brains and dismembering democracy and civil society. How else can you explain Trump and his entire cabinet of brain-damaged dipshits. Hell, one of them even admitted to having his brain eaten by a worm…or was it a racist fucking zombie? Either way, all those brains in the West Wing have been gnawed, munched and chomped beyond any ability to function worth a shit.

But, I digress…

Can you imagine if everything we had came only from white people? I happen to be a white people and I can’t imagine having only music by white people. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are white, but much, if not most of my favorite music is either by or heavily influenced by Black artists.

I. Mangrey perusing the playlist

Enjoy some scratching of the surface…

Oscar Brown, Jr. – Forty Acres And A Mule

Gil Scott-Heron – Whitey On the Moon

Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Blacknuss

Living Colour – Open Letter To A Landlord

Rage Against The Machine – Killing In the Name

Hope you're having a good Black History Month.

Send us your requests and dedications and we’ll get ‘em on the air. 

Second Thought For The Day – The Union Is In A State

Dead Man Talking

February 24, 2026

Today’s Second Thought For The Day is brought to you by

The Donald trump
memorial EPSTEIN FILES^*

As you may know, tonight Donald Jeffrey Epstein Trump is scheduled to give the STFU…I mean SOTU. This will be Trump’s first SOTU since becoming the first convicted felon/insurrectionist and adjudicated rapist to be elected president, and a second term no less. As of this moment, Trump is losing his base, his grip and his last remaining marble. Trump is killing our democracy, our economy, our standing in the world and our fellow citizens. He is a lame duck, a big schmuck and a dumb fuck. The only things lower than his poll numbers are the odds he will live long enough to steal the 2026 midterms.

Normally, we all sit in front of the tv with a tub of popcorn and watch these things. Not this time. We are joining some 50 Democratic members of Congress and people all across the country who are boycotting what promises to be a steaming pile of poop from a smaller pile of poop. Hopefully this will be the least watched State of The Union address ever. Hopefully, there will never be another convicted felon/insurrectionist delivering one of these.

Dirty Donald will be joined in the House Chamber of the Capitol – the scene of the Trump-incited attempted kidnapping/murder/coup – by Supreme Court justices who dared put the Constitution above their boy one fucking time, several survivors of Trump’s best friend Jeffrey Epstein’s Island of Pedophilia, at least one survivor of Trump’s ICE ICE death squads, and a significantly diminished group of Democrats.

Please Don’t Take This The Wrong Way

We at Paying Attention™ would never (well, almost never) wish anyone (well, hardly anyone) harm. That is why we want to go on the record stating unequivocally that it would be a terrible shame if poor, demented, sickly, out-of-shape, badly aging, heart-attack-waiting-to-happen, supremely stressed out Darn Old Trump were to suddenly clutch at his un-dyed chest and keel over while he is whining his way through tonight’s major, lie-blame-and-hate-filled address to the nation he cares nothing about except how it can stroke (oops, did I say stroke) his over-inflated ego and fill his blood-soaked (oh dear, did I say blood-soaked) pockets.

Anyway, we wish our feckless leader everything he deserves.

Let us pray.

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*Man, whatever is in those files must really be bad for old Fartenstein, because his flying monkeys are really working their little tails off trying to figure out how to protect him from letting the public in on it.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Second Thought For The Day.
Thoughts and prayers.

Thought For The Day – Tyranny Of The Minority

An Inconvenient Truth

February 24, 2026

As Black History Month winds down, we present one of the smartest statements ever, presented here without further comment*

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*Except to say I have no idea who this woman is.

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

Question For The Day – The Worst Of The Worst (Not An Immigrant)

Go Back Where You Came From Whitey

February 23, 2026

Another disgruntled American allegedly attempted to do harm to Donald Jeffrey Epstein Trump. A 21-year-old white male was found inside the security perimeter at Mor-on-Lago. With a gas can and a shotgun. He ended up shot dead by Secret Service.  

We expect to learn that he was a rabid Trump supporter (not an immigrant) who was pissed off at something Trump did. After all, his supporters are almost all white (not immigrants), mostly male and are more likely to sleep with guns than with women. Maybe because Trump’s name (and thousands of pictures and/or videos we haven’t seen yet) appears one million times in the tiny fraction of The Donald Trump Memorial Epstein Files he has permitted us to know about. Maybe it was because Trump keeps fucking around with his stupid tariff/taxes that are making life so much harder and less affordability-er for all except the wealthiest of Trump’s supporters. Anyway, not an immigrant. Time to deport all the white Trump supporters.

Today’s Question For The Day:

Has anyone noticed that none of the WHITE MALES who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump were white males and not immigrants who were not white?

Bonus Question:

Has anyone noticed that 99% (at least) of all the mass shooters in this country were WHITE MALES and not immigrants who were not white males?

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

UPDATE

The now dead young man was a rabid Trump supporter who was disillusioned by the lies and cover-up related to The Donald Trump Memorial Epstein Files, and finally blamed the appropriate party. Not saying his response was the proper one, but that is none of my business.

Broken News CORRECTION – Nobody's Perfect

Mistakes Were Made

February 23, 2026

During our report one week ago, covering The Donald Trump Memorial Epstein Files, the following appeared:

Our interns are hard at work starting a rumor that within those millions, possibly billions, of Epstein Pedo-files still being held hostage by Trump (who, it must be remembered has the authority to release anything he wants to), there are hundreds, possibly thousands of photographs of Trump with underage girls. Allegedly. Or so it is said.

Whatever you do, please resist the temptation to spread this rumor, as it is completely unfounded. Or is it? We may never know.

Upon further investigation, our non-existent sources have informed us that this is not a rumor. The fact that photographic evidence of Donald Jeffrey Epstein Trump with underage girls at one of Jeffrey Epstein's pedophile parlors exists should in fact be treated at absolute fact. Or at the very least as alternative fact.

We apologize to anyone who was offended by this grave error. We hope that our sincere apology in the face of this miscue will allow you to retain your faith in our high-quality reporting, which many people are saying is the best quality, perhaps in all of recorded (or at least blogged) history. Rest assured, nothing like this will ever happen again…until it does.

This is Ed Venture, managing editor, once again apologizing. The duck stops here.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled snow removal.

Pic Of The Day – No Country For Black Men

Flashback Olympic Moment   

February 22, 2026

John Carlos and Tommie Smith 1968

Bonus Pic

At the 2026 Olympics

This has been your Paying Attention™ Pic Of The Day.