Screw The Economy, It’s The Environment, Stupid

I Hate to Have to Keep Bringing This Up

August 30, 2019

“It’s the economy, stupid.”  Bill Clinton campaign mantra, 1992
“It’s the environment, stupid.”  Hopefully, the Democratic campaign mantra, 2020

Chrump’s Environmental Prevention Agency (EPA) is poised to roll back regulations on methane.  Because, what better way to show China who is boss than by making it crystal clear to them that we do not give even a tiny little rabbit poop about their pathetic climate hoax, and pumping more carbon and filth into the atmosphere.  Take that Chairman Mao, or whoever it is that runs that fake country. 

This latest attack on everything Obama comes right after July 2019 became the latest month to become the hottest month on record since we started keeping such records.  Even Exxon, Shell and BP oppose Chrump’s latest roll-backs.  Of course, these Earth-fucking behemoths are mainly concerned that their market for fracking the Earth to death and selling natural gas might be negatively impacted.

But Wait, There’s More

The Chrump Crime Syndicate is rolling back 84 environmental regulations in order to ensure we have as much toxic waste spewed into the air, water and directly into your face, as possible.  Who cares that 67 percent of the American public believe the U.S. should do more to fight the climate crisis, and 56 percent say climate crisis is an emergency.

Chrump told a horrified press conference at the G-7 Summit (after having skipped the climate meeting at the summit and lying about why):

“In a nutshell, I want the cleanest water on earth.*  I want the cleanest air on earth.*  I’m an environmentalist.**  A lot of people don’t understand that.***  I’ve done more environmental impact statements than anybody that’s ever been president or vice president or anything even close to president.  And I think** I know more about the environment than most people.**”
                          Donald J. Trump, August 25, 2019

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Donald Chrump – an amoeba among presidents, the man who has clearly taken the ‘mental’ out of environmental.  And he is doing everything he can to take the environment out behind the barn and shoot it in the back of the head.

Our single-celled president, and spawn

Somewhere, over the (Randy) Rainbow

If Chrump is the second coming of God, this time the Big Guy is skipping right to the Great Flood.

______________
* He means for himself, of course.
**Bullshit.
***Because it’s an out-and-out lie.

I. Mangrey sweating and choking.  I blame China.                        

                                                             

 

SPECIAL BONUS VIDEO FUN

 

Thought For The Day

Not All Walls Appall

August 29, 2019

Donald Trump's lies are getting more frequent, more brazen and in some cases even more bizarre, if that is possible.  I will have to agree with him on one issue though; we really need to build a wall.  We may differ, however, on the precise location of this very, very important, beautiful wall, and if it can be built properly and it a timely fashion, I would gladly pay for it.  We desperately need this wall to protect our nation from the horrific onslaught that threatens our sanity, our health and our very way of life.  There is a dangerous hole allowing poisons to inundate America.  Everyone knows what it is, everyone knows where it is.  We need to plug it up right now before another single toxic emission leaches out into the world.

Build the wall!  Shut that hole! 

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Burnin' Down The House

Is It Hot in Here, Or Is the Fucking Planet On Fire

August 26, 2019

When autocrats speak, significant numbers of people listen.  Some number of those act on what they hear, and it is anything but hilarity that ensues.  All of the most brutal, murderous dictators in history had loyal, sizeable followings.

America has birthed her own dictator; he is not yet brutal or murderous, just moronic, greedy, narcissistic and insufferable.  When Donald Chrump speaks, armed white nationalists listen.  Sometimes they go and shoot up a bunch of innocent people.  Sometimes they target certain people that Chrump constantly denigrates – to put it nicely.  Fortunately, there was someone around to convince him (and it was no easy task) that setting off a nuclear weapon inside a hurricane to stop the hurricane was not a good idea.  Apparently, Chrump has brought this up more than once.

Chrump explaining how to stop hurricanes and windmills with nuclear weapons.

When Brazil’s Bolsonaro (which I believe is Brazilian for Chrump) speaks, farmers set fire to the Amazon forest – our planet’s “lungs” – because their deranged leader decreed that the forest is in the way of profits – specifically, growing soy beans to feed to cows.  Fires are fairly common in this part of the world, but fires in the Amazon are up 77 percent since last year.  It is much less common to have 48 lightning strikes over the Arctic Circle and massive fires in Siberia…oh yeah, and in Greenland, the Canary Islands and Alaska.

At least Brazilians have relegated their madman to an under-30 percent approval rating, unlike their American counterparts, who still rate Chrump in the 40s.  This, despite the fact that Chrump continues his war on the reality of the ongoing climate crisis.  SAD.

The Chinese are really playing this whole climate hoax thing to the hilt.  Fortunately, our mayonnaise-brained leader, whose election victory was a Russian hoax, is still having none of it.  He knows a hoax when he thinks he sees one.  A big reason Chrump was throwing one of his countless hissy-fits – this time about having to attend the G-7 summit – is that there is too much talk about the environment. 

Someone was able to talk him into going, probably by promising to Tivo Fux and Friends and the rest of the reality-challenged Fux line-up so he could watch all of it when he got home.

While at the G-7, Brainless Leader skipped out on the Climate Crisis meeting so he could tweet some more insane bullshit.  Reporters were told that Chrump instead was busy in bilateral meetings with Angela Merkel and Narendra Modi, both of whom, oddly enough, were at the very meeting Chrump was definitely not at.

Der Furor was again asked if he believed there was a climate crisis.  Naturally, he replied with psychotic lies and raving idiocy we have come to expect.  “In a nutshell, I want the cleanest water on earth. I want the cleanest air on earth.  I’m an environmentalist. A lot of people don’t understand that. I’ve done more environmental impact statements ... than anybody that’s ever been president or vice president or anything even close to president.”

We’ll meet again, don't know where, don't know when

I. Mangrey reporting. 

BONUS BONUS

Karl Wallinger/World Party



 

Thought For The Day

 

The Broken One

August 24, 2019

Chrump continues his death spiral trade war with China.  The war he was apparently born to wage.  He said he was “the chosen one.”  He told us trade wars were easy to win.  Yes I know, Chrump also told us he was a “very stable genius.”  And then, that he was “an extremely stable genius.”  He also assured us that he was “the least racist person in the world.”  You cannot take him at his word.  Or his “hair.”  In fact, if you are anything like me, you cannot take him.  Period.

“I am the chosen one and I hereby order you to evaporate.”

Chrump knows, in whatever way it can be said that our single-celled president knows something, that he is responsible for the current burgeoning economic melt-down.  This only bothers him because it might hinder his re-election bid.  Despite this existential threat to his precipitously inflated ego, Chrump is not the least bit interested in, and in any event wholly incapable of fixing the problem.  Instead, his talent – again, such as it is – lies in convincing the easily convinced that everything is whatever he says it is.  Chrump knows how to work the ‘con’ in convincing.

“Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading
is not what's happening.”
Donald J. Trump, July 24, 2018

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

King of The Cuckoos

Get Ready to Duck and Cover: Chrump is About to Go Noocular

August 23, 2019

While yelling at reporters about his mission to win his holy trade war with China, Donald Chrump turned his Orange Dye #2 kisser toward the sky (someone apparently told him where people of faith believe God is) and said, “I am the chosen one.” 

One cannot help but wonder who he thinks chose him.  It clearly was not any of the raft of Gods in whom Chrump does not believe.  It is no longer all the farmers and truckers and American consumers his trade war is crushing.  It absolutely was not a significant majority of the American electorate.  But, I digress.

Coming hot on the heels of him re-tweeting some brain-dead conspiracy nut insisting that Chrump was like “the King of Israel” and “the second coming of God”, Donald has become America’s very own Idi Amin.  Or perhaps the second coming of Charles Manson.

A re-tweet from the qresident

Chrump’s brain is going up in flames faster than Brazil’s Amazon rain forest and Siberia (yes, Siberia is on fire), it is melting faster than the Polar Ice Cap and is less predictable than a horde of wild, rabid monkeys hopped up on goofballs. 

“No global warming, no recession and by the way…excuse me, NO COLLUSION.”

It’s not like Chrump was ever a very stable genius or anything, but he is almost completely gone now.  You need not take my word for it, instead enjoy his latest word-expelling lollapalooza: “But we also have to remember, a gun doesn’t pull the trigger, a person does. We have great mental illness.”  Yes, we have great mental illness here in the good old U.S. of A.  Some would say we have the best mental illness, maybe in history.  A large percentage of which currently roams the White House.

Making mental illness great again.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thought For The Oy Vey

Oy

August 22, 2019

“There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.” – Goethe
“Yes there is.” – Ed Venture

Il Douche, who just looked to the skies and declared, “I am the chosen one,” is now insisting that Jewish people who vote Democratic are “being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.”  In case he was not clear enough, and despite many calling his comment anti-Semitic, the next day he reiterated, “And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty, alright?”  Alright.  I guess this means he believes Jews are loyal to Israel and not America, but does not think they should go back where they came from. 

A reporter asked Chrump if his comments were anti-Semitic (Hint: they were), he replied, “No no no, it's totally in your head. It's only anti-Semitic in your head.”  That might be true, but only after they were anti-Semitic in your mouth.

 

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Oy Vey.

You're welcome. 

What is your problem?

Not a Chance

The team is back from our Wallowing in Woodstock 50 Weekend.  It was a wild ride.  Hope you had as much fun as we did.  Apparently that peace and love shit can only last so long.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled sturm und drang. 

Being There Now

Nowhere in particular
August 20, 2017

The main character in Jerzy Kosisnky’s 1970 novel Being There was named Chauncey Gardener.  He was affectionately called Chance.  Chance was a gardener.  He grew up and then remained in the household of his wealthy employer, and had no exposure to the outside world with the exception of the substantial amount of time he spent watching television.  Chance was evicted after his benefactor died.  All he knew of life came from watching TV.  Sound familiar?

Peter Sellers masterfully portrayed Chance in the 1979 movie.  Everyone who meets him, including the president, interprets Chance’s gardening-based utterances as profound philosophical life lessons.  The movie ends with high-level movers and shakers deciding that Chance is the only man they could back as the next president, convinced that his lack of personal history, his down-home “wisdom” and lack of political experience would be tremendous assets for getting him into the White House.  Sound familiar?

The main difference of course between Chance and the person we are currently all thinking of, the man we cannot stop thinking of as hard as we might try, is that Chance was a pure innocent.  There was no pretense to him. He was what he claimed to be – a gardener.  He did not know how to read.  When asked what he read, he would answer honestly as always, “I like to watch TV.”  People read into that what they wanted. Chance understood nothing of the world he lived in.  And Chance had absolutely no interest in being famous, unlike his real-life doppelganger, who wants attention, fame and adoration above all else…with the possible exception of the ability to maintain a candy-corn-colored hair-like substance atop his empty cranium.

Being Chrump

Chance’s evil twin – No-Chance – demonstrates a complete absence of innocence.  He is 100% artifice.  From his fake wealth, to his fake words, to his fake hair and hue.  Like Chance though, he knows only what he gathers from television (and the occasional intellectually disabled conspiracy addict).  He has no idea how any of it applies to real life.  He has no interest in real life.  He has never had to.  He never had a real job, grew up in the house of a wealthy man – except while sequestered at a military academy, due to his utter lack of ability to have non-sociopathic interactions with other humans.  He was a bad seed, now grown into a fatally-diseased plant, sowing its seeds to the four winds with wreck-ful abandon.

It is long past time that everyone ridicule everything this so-called alt-president says. Every. Single. Word.

Anyway, the picture below was meant to be worth a thousand words. Apparently, it was only worth about 440.

“I like to be watched on TV.”

I. Mangrey reporting. I’m getting sick of watching.

Happy 50th Woodstock – Day 3

Happy 50^th Woodstock – Day 3

August 17-18, 2019

As it turns out, I am getting to relive Woodstock for the first time.  Rhino Records has released a 38 CD set, documenting nearly 100 percent of what happened on the stage.  University of Pennsylvania’s radio station WXPN is doing one of the greatest things (for my money) ever.  They are broadcasting the entire weekend to the minute.  The whole shebang – not only that, they are synchronizing start times, so right now I’m getting ready for “morning maniac music” – as Jefferson Airplane starts their set at 8:00 this morning.  Almost every band played incredible sets of music – most of which we have never heard before.  I have also enjoyed much of the stage banter and announcements.  Tune in for some freaky flashback fun.

Jimi Hendrix closing the show. You can leave if you want, he’s just jammin’.

Here are few more choice tunes from 50 years ago today and tomorrow. 

Butterfield Blues Band – Love March

The Who – See Me, Feel Me

Jimi Hendrix – Villanova Junction

I. Mangrey reminiscing.  Now I can really remember Woodstock.

SPECIAL BONUS TRACK

Joni Mitchell - Woodstock

Happy 50th Woodstock – Day 2

Happy 50^th Woodstock – Day 2

August 16, 2019

Today marks the second day that I spent not being at Woodstock in 1969.  I don’t remember the day very well at this point, which is the only thing I have in common with many actual attendees.  I will treasure that connection always.

A great picture of 500,000 people, none of whom are me

Joan Baez & Jeffrey Shurtleff - Drugstore Truck Drivin’ Man

Janis Joplin – Summertime

Crosby, Stills & Nash – Suite Judy Blue Eyes

Ten Years After – I’m Going Home

We are stardust, we are golden.  We are billion year old carbon.  

I. Mangrey reminiscing.  And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

When Boomers Roamed the Earth

Happy 50^th Woodstock

August 15, 2019

Max Yasgur was an upstate New York farmer and the largest milk producer in Sullivan County, New York in 1969.  Yasgur was a Republican who supported the Vietnam War, but he went against the wishes of his sleepy rural community of Bethel, and rented out his farm for a weekend music festival in August of 1969, thinking it would be good for the local economy and would help bridge the contentious generation gap. 

What could be so bad about having a few thousand kids listen to music in the fresh air for a few days?  Though the local folks for the most part wanted nothing to do with a bunch of hippies coming anywhere near their peaceful environs, no one imagined the size of the crowd or the ultimate notoriety of what was about to.  It was like an invasion, a caravan if you will, of unfamiliar outsiders, whose differences frightened these simple people.  In the end, it was, as Max Yasgur would tell the crowd on his farm, “three days of fun and music, and nothing but fun and music” that rocked the world. Literally and figuratively. 

I did not make it to Woodstock.  I really wanted to go, but I was not of driving age and my parents would not let me.  Especially now that I have fewer days to look forward to than the number I have already seen, I cannot blame them. 

I did see the movie the moment it came out because I was not willing to wait for it to come out on Netflix.  And I played the album many times on my cheapo turntable which I sometimes foolishly set up on my suburban back lawn (Surprisingly, that album still plays almost perfectly).  Since then, I have been a bit obsessed with what many have called “three days that defined a generation.”

The Woodstock Music and Art Festival began on this day 50 years ago.  The line-up of musicians was and is legendary, if not unequaled.  From Richie Havens to Ravi Shankar, from Janis to Jimi, The Who, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence, the Dead, CSNY, Country Joe and many others.

Here are a few of my (many) favorite performances.  I'll probably throw a few more choice tunes on here over the next couple days.

Richie Havens – Freedom

John Sebastian – I Had a Dream

Max Yasgur

The Ultimate Star Spangled Banner

It is said, “If you can remember Woodstock, you weren’t there.” 

I. Mangrey reminiscing.  I remember Woodstock.

SPECIAL BONUS TRACK

Country Joe & The Fish

Thought For The Day

Requiem For the Camel’s Back

August 14, 2019

There is no limit to Donald Chrump’s hatred of nature (and people of color, and women, and democracy, and laws, and truth and reality, and anyone who ever disagrees with him).  Chrump’s re-election campaign (or his personal bank accout – it is impossible to tell them apart) is selling plastic straws (I am not fucking kidding) because “Liberal paper straws don't work” and because Conservative plastic brains don't work.  I do not know exactly how many of these overpriced ($1.50 per straw before shipping and taxes), under-thought, ego-encrusted hate-straws have been sold, but I do know it is too many.  And, how do they have the cajones to use a person of color, a child no less?  I guess it was easy and cheaper since they already have so many caged up in their torture camps.

This is real.  A large portion of this country is sociopathic.

If you have not seen the video of the sea turtle with the plastic straw painfully shoved deep into its nostril, you are lucky.  This video provided a major boost to the movement to eliminate single-use plastics, the poster child of which is the plastic straw.  I will not post the image here, but if you are fond of using plastic straws, you need to see it.  Legally, I have to say that I hope Donald Chrump never gets a plastic straw, especially one with his name laser engraved on it, shoved so far up his orange marshmallow-y nose, that the unseen end lodges itself in the festering remnants of his very, very small uh-brain.  Or, I suppose I could just say nothing.  I will let you know what I decide at the appropriate time. 

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

Ma America Gritte Again



with apologies to Rene Magritte



Thought For The Day

 

Resignation Day(s) Redux

August 10, 2019

Still a bit hung over from all the Resignation revelry, but I could not resist one more wafer thin post.

Gimme Some Truth

Oh, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler – the guy who holds the keys to the Impeachment-mobile – told CNN, smack dab in the middle of the Resignation Day(s) holiday, “This is formal impeachment proceedings.  We are investigating all the evidence, gathering the evidence. And we will [at the] conclusion of this – hopefully by the end of the year – vote to vote articles of impeachment to the House floor. Or we won’t. That’s a decision that we’ll have to make. But that’s exactly the process we’re in right now.”

This is formal impeachment proceedings.  There you finally fucking have it.  Have a nice weekend.

I. Mangrey reporting.  Don’t bring me down.

Happy Resignation Day(s) - Day Two

One More Kick to The Dick

August 9, 2019

Well, here we are again, winding down another great holiday season, and the culmination of the celebration of the obliteration of the Nixon cancer on our nation.  Though that was long ago, it is not far away.  I can still smell it in the air, right here, right now.  We seemed to be in remission, but survival is by no means certain with this latest relapse.  Hatred, division, racism and intentional ignorance are metastasizing at breakneck speed.  Fascist chants, racist tweets, Chrump-inspired mass shootings.  Moscow Mitch McConnell having his way with all three branches of government.

The ultimate in FAKE NEWS, straight from the horse’s ass

At least Nixon, if only for a moment, took responsibility for his actions, even if it was without clearly admitting it was all his idea.  Donald Chrump will never, not for one single nanosecond, come close to admitting any wrongdoing.  Honesty, integrity, self-reflection are traits absent from Chrump DNA.  Not one of them has any of these abilities.  It is entirely possible that Don, Sr. is incapable of understanding that laws also apply to him and his Chrump crime family.  The point is moot, he needs the boot.   

All this Chrump shit is making me feel old(er)

Before we bring you the latest stanzas of this hallowed verse, please enjoy last year’s offering.

2018

Well, you got that covered. 

How about treason? Collusion/conspiracy? Obstruction of justice? Racism/fascism?

I was not sure I had it in me at this point, but I have managed to add a few new verses for 2018.  I don’t think it can be considered post-traumatic while the horror persists, but I have no doubt that many of us have a clinically significant stress disorder at this very moment.  I look forward to the day when it can be truly post-traumatic.  For now, I hope I am able to bring a little distraction your way on this lovely Resignation Day(s), and every day.  Enjoy!

Lock her up, drain the swamp, I won, build the wall
He screams and he tweets, he hates us all.
Though he loves his Nazis and supremacists white
And watches himself on TV ev’ry night. 

The people’s true enemy, that Electoral College,
Gave us Bush and then Chrump, two goons with no knowledge,
Of democracy, Constitution or language,
Less at home with working than swinging a sand wedge.

Chrump’s brain is so bad, his words so much worse,
We hope against hope that Bob Mueller’s his curse.
When he finally goes down, wants to take us all with him
Chrump cares about nothing but his toxic nar’sism.

He bashes the media, though than him no one’s faker
We need him to just go and jump in a lake…Er,
I meant for a swim not to drown, that’s no shit.
Such talk is illegal, unless the president does it.

Impeachment, resigning once more fill the air,
Now dash away blob with your FAKE orange “hair”,
This Chrump works for Putin, and amplifies hate,
He’s racist, he’s fascist; ain’t America great? 

Though mostly Chrump’s tweeting and golfing galore,

He’s doing great damage, let’s show him the door.

Fake “hair”, phony color, his face sphincter speaks,
Let’s vote like we mean it and be rid of this freak. 

Colluding, conspiring, with Russia, oh no!
Won’t tell his own people what he said to our foe.
This treasonous cretin makes us all sick and tired,
Let’s pray the next Congress will tell him, “YOU’RE FIRED.” 

And now, without further ado, the latest addition to

‘Twas the night before Resignation

Impeachment in the air once more, how pungent the aroma,
The White House is inhabited by a malignant carcinoma
The Toxic Orange Gas Cloud is mushrooming wildly,
It’s suffocating democracy; and that’s putting it mildly. 

All Chrump all the time, on the news, Fox and Twitter
The most lyingest, narcissist, most full-of-shitter.

He claims that his “rhetoric brings people together”
He’s racist, psychotic, and a frequent bed wetter. 

The best people Chrump promised all sucked, now they’re gone,
We’re left with the C Team, and two of his spawn.
Conspiring, colluding, obstructing our justice,

Yet he yells, “It’s a hoax”, doesn’t know what the fuss is. 

Manafort and Cohen in jail, Flynn’s on his way
Dozens of Russians indicted, found guilty, hooray!
Still Chrump sides with Russia, not American intel,
Get his taxes, make him testify, what the fuck, what the hell.

We heard from The Mueller, in a manner of speaking
He said there were crimes, he said there was sneaking
He all but said, “Congress, it’s time to impeach, ”
He said indicting and punishing was out of his reach.

Still helping the Russians help him get re-elected,

With his treason, stealing children from their parents and torturing them, denying climate crisis, treating international allies like dirt and generally threatening global stability, we all are infected.

His crimes are innumerable, his racism steady

Impeach The Mother Fucker Already!

 

From all your unimpeachable sources at Paying Attention: Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff, Allison Wundarland, Ann T. Soshal and our new intern – Yuno Hoo, we hope you enjoyed Resignation Day(s) 2019.  Here’s hoping we can begin a newer better Resignation Extravaganza starting very soon.  In other words it is time to Make Impeachment Great Again.

Make him resign! Make him resign! Make him resign!

BONUS RESIGNATION DAY(S) TREAT