Extremely Broken News: New Year’s Eve Edition

They Shoot Idiots, Don’t They? No? Maybe They Should.

December 31, 2021

As if we needed one last thing to make sure we kick another soul-smashing year to the heavily-trafficked curb. I thought I would be taking the night off, but alas neither news nor nitwits allow.

A moron breached an off-limits area after the zoo had closed for the day, then went the extra mile to shove his arm through a fence, extending his arm into the wrong side of the tiger enclosure with very expected results. The endangered Malayan tiger, Eko saw the meat stick for what it was – a late-night snack attached to slow-witted prey.

Eko – cut down in his prime for trying to rid the world of one more idiot

Police were summoned and ended up putting the wrong creature down with a single shot. There is no way this irresponsible idiot’s life was worth more than the very dependable cat.

Oh, and this...

Another endangered species faces extinction:
Doomsday Glacier – has a nice ring to it

Don’t look up. Don’t look down. Don’t look now. Don’t worry, these climate models are always wrong. They always get updated to show it’s much worse than they previously thought. Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. If you ain’t got ‘em, go out and get some.

And Lastly…

Television trailblazer and icon, and animal welfare advocate Betty White passed away today, to put an egregious exclamation point on another year that will not show up in my scrap book.* White would have turned 100 this coming January 17^th.

Betty White (Jan 17, 1922 – Dec 31, 2021)

I’m going to bed now to avoid finding out anything else until next year.

*I actually do not have a scrap book.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled revelry…and gnashing of teeth.

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

Predictions, Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle

They say Elba is lovely in January

The End (of The Year) is (Mercifully) Near Here

December 31, 2021

I Can See Next Year From Here

Well, here it is. The final installment of what to expect in 2022. Well, according to some 60 percent of Americans we got ourselves a new president this past year. Even though the last guy still refuses to admit defeat. Unfortunately, in democracies the pathetic loser, even one who was impeached twice – once for colluding with Russia to successfully steal a presidency, and once for accusing his opponent of doing what he actually did, stealing the next election and then planning and inciting a coup – is not rounded up along with his criminal cronies and thrown in jail. Pardon us while we indulge in a little dream candy…

Some very fine people on both sides…of the bars?

Turmp and fiends still have 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 enemy – the Ratpublican Party, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Donald Turmp. Hopefully, it will attain a fate similar to so many of Turmp’s other fraudulent business ventures.

Ed Venture
Unmanageable Editor

 

July 21, 2022

Interactive Prediction

Choose your own Donald Turmp lies under oath prediction: 

Pick a venue
A. Southern District of New York
B. Georgia
C. House Jan 6 Select Committee
D. Grand Jury, Washington, DC
E. International Criminal Court

Turmp takes a witless stand on the witness stand

Pick a topic
A. Decades of fraudulent business practices
B. His phone records are under audit
C. He never asked Georgia Sec. of State to manufacture votes
D. He never said COVID was a hoax
E. All of the above

September 24, 2022

Goon, But Not Forgotten

After lying to numerous judges, juries, news outlets and even his most devoted, most gullible, most anti-intellect cult members, Donald Turmp is finally found hiding in the same warehouse where Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley’s parents were caught cowering. The elder Crumbley psychos were attempting to avoid appearing in court, while their son languished in prison. The Crumbleys, for enabling their mentally ill son’s killing spree by purchasing their under-age son a gun for Christmas, giving it to him several weeks early and ignoring warning signs that he was poised to commit mass murder. Turmp, who already committed mass murder with his handling of the COVID pandemic, was avoiding a series of subpoenas, both federal and various states – some for financial crimes and some for plotting to overthrow the government he once “led.”

Shut Him up! Shut him up! Shut him up! Oh, and lock him up.

November 1, 2022

The Dropouts

Five candidates across the country lauded as “very fine people” by disgraced, twice-impeached ex-fake-president, who is currently facing dozens of subpoenas for various crimes in several jurisdictions, suddenly “suspended” their candidacies. Incredibly, all five – all angry, white men – were alleged to have committed either physical or sexual assault on spouses. Only two of these Turmp wannabes, used the I-am-stepping-down-to-spend-more-time-with-my-family dodge to explain their sudden, untimely departures from their races.

When their spouses were reached for comment, the two wives who were tracked down having drinks together, told a reporter, “Yeah, we don’t know whose family these assholes are planning to spend time with, but it sure as hell ain’t ours.”

“Tell those assholes the two of us are moving in together and keeping both houses.”

 

November 25, 2022

I. Mangrey And You’re Not

Despite worldwide efforts to revive him, 47 years later, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. 

November 30, 2022

Bleaching A Conclusion

It’s called an Orange Gas Cloud:

4 oz. Clorox

2 oz. Cointreau

1 oz. Old Grandad

2 spritzes tanning spray

and a twist of lemming

To be fair, it does prevent you from getting COVID. Viruses prefer live hosts.

Convinced they will fail to bring racism and discord back to pre-Civil War levels, decide it’s time to show everyone how great Chrump really was, hoping the Radical Left will finally realize what a stupid mistake they made. Thousands of Chrump loyalists, despondent over the fact that their man-baby was tossed out after a single term/tantrum, and worried they will be unable to complete his mission to destroy American democracy by refusing to accept any electoral defeats in the coming midterms, drink disinfectant en masse on TikTok in order to keep themselves safe from the tyranny of masks and the coronavirus. Most of them die quick, albeit horrible deaths, with very few views and no likes. The survivors claim victory over the virus, wokeness, and Joe Biden.

 

December 31, 2022

This Will Have Been The Year That Will Have Been

We are predicting that the year 2022 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 2022.

Out With (ano)The(r) Bad Year, In With The Good

So, that’s it for Paying Attention in 2021 and now we all know what to expect in 2022 – or at least some of it. For now, sit back and pour yourself a beverage; a nice hot cup of tea, a martini, maybe something from the hemp family. Whatever you do, stay away from people. They can be very dangerous, sometimes maliciously, sometimes inadvertently. Many of them are rife with disease. If you have to go near people, make sure you are appropriately masked and try not to breathe. It they are people you know, or if you are feeling brave, ask them to also consider not breathing in your presence. However you roll, make sure you have your Rent-a-Coma on hand, just in case. It’s flying off the shelves. And, you never know when it might come in handy. For now, let’s party like we’re all in quarantine and for now, forget the future ever happened.

From Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff and Shay King, and our research and legal team:

Don’t let the sun, the moon or any other

proximate Celestial body catch you crying

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

Predictions, Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle

The End (of The Year) is Near

December 29, 2021

Where We Will Have Gone From Here

It is time to pick up where we laughed off. Hopefully, you are sufficiently soused, fittingly fried, tenuously toasted, or otherwise appropriately altered as 2021 melts away like Greenland’s ice sheet and 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.” In any event, welcome to Part II of our annual three-part series on the way it will be in 2022. Buckle up, good chance of turbulence, and definitely some Turmpulence and his verbal flatulence ahead. Though with this malignant martinet, it is difficult and dangerous to get one’s hopes up, there is a laundry list of potential charges and more than a few active investigations poised to puncture this hot-air buffoon.

“It makes me mildly nauseous to think we
might have had some impact on the election.”
James Comey May 3, 2017

“What do you mean we, white man?”
Ed Venture December 28, 2021

January 21, 2022

State Of The Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Joe Biden nods off in the middle of his SOTU

Actual President Joe Biden, delivers the State of The Union after completing his first year in office, despite those who claim he was never elected, and belongs to a baby-eating pedophile ring headquartered in the basement of a pizza shop that has no basement. Though Biden began with great energy, insisting he was still going to make a deal with the recalcitrant Joe Manchin and his twisted side-kick Kyrsten Sinema, and touting the importance of beefing up voting rights, he did not last long. Fortunately, Speaker Pelosi and VP Harris caught on quickly and woke him by loudly applauding while he was still on his feet.

 

February 25, 2022

More An Assumption Than A Prediction

Donald Turmp lies to a grand jury. Pick one. Pick a topic.

Remember when Donald said, if you throw them in the paddy wagon,

“Please don’t be too nice."? You do now.

 

April 12, 2022

The Mouth Shall Rise Again

On the anniversary of the First Battle of Fort Sumter, a rabid crowd of MAGAts, determined to mollify Daddy Turmp’s Big Lie, launch one more attempt at taking over the United States from the majority of its citizens. Thinking it is the true seat of power, and unable to get within a hundred miles of the actual Capitol, the wayward throng attempts to take over Fort Sumter – now essentially a tourist attraction off the coast of South Carolina.

Ft. Sumter amusement park, or whatever it is. I guess they opted

for no flag, rather than the Confederate one they preferred

“The first attack on this fort was a great day for America. It was a cry for freedom. Today, our Gray Pride Movement is saying we want to be free from vaccines and masks. Back then the best Americans wanted to be free from not being allowed to own slaves. It’s hard to tell which is worse. This nation was founded on the God-given right to own slaves. How else could we have built such a great nation without slaves. We didn’t have no Mexicans back then. Slaves was all we had to do the work that whites were too good to do. We are here today to tell the world that we are here to win. Just like they did back in the day, right here at the Capitol – Fort Sumter. The great slave owners of America were finally free. The great war to protect slavery. The great Robert E. Lee finally obtained a great victory when he surrendered to Ulysses Grant in Philadelphia, or wherever. After today, Donald Turmp and the South shall rise again. This flag I’m holding is the one that marched proudly through the Capital last January 6, when the great patriots took over our Capitol to make America great again, just like when the traitor Abraham Lincoln was removed peacefully from office.”

 

August 10, 2022

Joe Manson

West Virginia Senator Joe Machin finally comes out of hiding after having disappeared for several months. He says he has been reborn to help win the race war. Claiming he now wants to be known as Joe Manson, he hints that after much internal deliberation he is ready to vote for President Biden’s signature legislation, the Build Back Better Act. “I just spent six long months in deep contemplation. I stopped listening to the voices from the coal mines and listened only the voices coming directly from inside my head. They all agreed about what it is I must do to save the world and they are not to be questioned.”

Old King Coal once again took to Fux News to make the big announcement. As you may recall, Manchin last took to the friendly Ratpublican confines of Fux to inform everyone that he could not support this terrible bill that dared attempt historic help for needy Americans and even token help in fighting the relentless human recklessness behind Climate Catastrophe. Though Manchin had earlier teased his big announcement, it turned out to be nothing like what folks expected.

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. Get ready for the end of 2020 Part II, aka 2021. We’ve got the Magic 8 Ball in overdrive – we asked again later, survived countless hazy replies, and celebrated a surprising number of “Signs point to yes”. These are not fake predictions.  

Making predictions takes intense preparation and concentration

Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff and Shay King continue bringing you the future before it gets away.

Thought For The Day

Radiation Can Kill You, It’s Like Eating A TV Set*

December 27, 2021

Back in 1952, a young Navy Lt. and nuclear expert, named Jimmy Carter – yes, that Jimmy Carter – was lowered into a melting nuclear reactor in Ottawa, Canada to help avoid a major nuclear disaster.

According Carter’s memoir, “The reactor core was below ground level and surrounded by intense radioactivity. Even with protective clothing, each of us would absorb the maximum permissible dose with just ninety seconds of exposure, so we had to make optimum use of this limited time. The limit on radiation absorption in the early 1950s was approximately one thousand times higher than it is sixty years later.”

Apparently, as is often the case with dangerous exposure to radiation, Carter became a kind of super hero. That is how he eventually got elected president, though was then treated like shit by the country he tried to help.

I’d like to see Turmp try lowering himself into a nuclear reactor. Seriously. He has a very good brain, and his doctor said he could live to be 200 years old. Jimmy Carter is now 97 years old. Turmp could live another 100 years if bathes himself in radiation, and it would fully immunize him from any viruses – fake or real. Or, maybe his artificial coloring will neutralize the radiation. Who knows? What the hell has he got to lose? Can we start a GoFundMe campaign to hire the giant crane needed to support his weight? I’m sure he would do it for a few bucks.

*Albert Brooks

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

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day? 

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, 2021

Where Will We Have Gone From Here

Despite completely missing the boat by not predicting a coup led by the lame-duck, disgraced, twice-impeached, wantonly-criminal, COVID-loving 45^th president, the gang here at Paying Attention™ is once again poised to try our hand at divining the year to come. With Joe Biden finishing up his first year in office, and America barely surviving the attempted coup led by the huge loser of the last election, said loser’s ongoing attempts to destroy the democratic process, the continuing saga of the ever-mutating Turmp virus and the unsuccessful attempt to hang Mike Pence. But at least we seem to be rid of Kim Jong Turmp…for now...sort of. Unfortunately, many predictions for 2022 still involve the former guy, since he still looms bigly, like a species-ending asteroid, over the national psyche. 

However, the stupidity is so overwhelming and so widespread that our entire system of political and social norms, such as they are, risk collapsing into chaos and fascism. It is not hyperbole to imagine long-term irreparable damage to civilization itself if these medieval morons have their way. This is not one of our predictions (Or is it?), but just something think and gnash your teeth about.

Save America From Americans 

Turmp did not concede his extremely, very strong and powerful, landslide loss as was customary until Turmp, the Russians, the white supremacists and the Ratpublican Party writ large conspired to end democracy. Earlier this month Donny Dirtbag fake-tweeted this gem:

__________________________________

This is how the very stupid and very corrupt, banned-from-social-media failed

blogger taints the public discourse now that he has no other recourse

Those of you familiar with the English language undoubtedly noticed that Il Douche didn’t not employ one of the most Freudian of double negatives never not used.

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 2022

Here we are, at the end of 2021, the year many feared might never happen, and for more than 800,000 – in large part due to Donald Turmp’s anti-mask, pro-bleach-ingestion, do-nothing approach to the pandemic – it never did.

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

 

January 6, 2022  Happy Insurrection Day?

Turmp “Enacts” Ex-Executive Order

Donald Turmp returns to the scene of the crime, surrounded by hundreds of loving lunatics, most of whom are heavily white and armed, visibly struggling to breathe due to COVID, and struggling to think due to…well, you know. The disgraced, twice-impeached, Russian-stooge, ex-president announces that he will be designating January 6 as a national holiday: Turmp Reinstatement Day – A Day That Will Live in Infamy. Apparently, he doesn’t know what infamy means.

The white, the proud, the furiously ignorant

“What an amazingly huge crowd, probably the largest crowd in the history of crowds. This will be a big day in America. Maybe the biggest ever. I’m calling it “Turmp Reinstatement Day – A Day That Will Live in Infamy.” I was hoping my very good friend Mike Pence would be here to hang with me, or maybe to just hang. Even though he screwed up bigly, I mean, what a pussy, he’s still my very dear friend – one of so many, no one could count them all. No matter what anyone says, this is my country, I won it fair and square.

I never conceded to Sleepy Joe. Why should I, when I clearly won every state. Everybody knows I won, and if they don’t, they’re bigger liars than I am. As your real and true and favorite president, I am today going to issue my greatest executive order, finally bringing a stop, a very big, very powerful stop to the fake presidency of Joe Biden. I call him Sleepy Joe. Sleepy Joe. That’s what I call him. I have let him pretend long enough. I’m sure my loving military will gladly reinstate me in the great and wonderful White House. Then we can get back to ignoring the fake COVID flu, and start drinking bleach again, and most importantly of all, saying Merry Christmas – a greeting I invented so people would be free to exercise their Second Amendment right to be religious, Two Corinthian Leather, am I right – which was not allowed last holiday season thanks to Sleepy Joe who hates Christmas…and white people. Make America drink bleach again – that’s what I say…”

Turmp went on like this for another two hours or three hours – no one really knows how long. Even as the crowd dwindled down to just a few homeless, racist zombies who had nowhere else to go, and were hoping to land some cushy cabinet positions, seeing as no one but them and creeps like Lauren Boebert, Margie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz and Madison Cawthorn were interested. Once Turmp’s mouth stopped moving, he opened fire before finally being subdued by Capitol Police and using tranquillizer darts and one desperate, brave citizen with a blimp-sized butterfly net.

January 11, 2022

Mike Drop

Despite insisting he won the 2020 election, spearheading an insurrection that culminated in a murderous assault on the Capitol which failed to stop the wheels of democracy, Turmp announces he is still running in 2020 and running again in 2024.

“Mike Pence and I will never forsake our mission to make America as great as Donald Turmp. The stolen election of 2020 is not over until I say it’s over. And, since I have been deprived of almost a whole year in my White House – a place I call the summer Mor-on Lago – I am entitled to run again in 2024. Unfortunately, since Mike Pence stabbed me in the back by not telling Joe Biden to take a hike, after our sort-or-second term is up, I will be running again in 2024 with a new, improved Mike. One who will do anything I say, because he’s a brain-damaged crackhead. I love the crackheads, and I hear they love me very much. That’s right, my running mate in 2024 will be none other than the great pillow guy, who is almost as smart as me, Mike Lindell.” 

A newer, dumber, Turmpier Mike

Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff and Shay King bringing you the future before it’s too late.

Go and get a stiff drink and gird your loins folks, we’re just getting started.  It is predicted that Part II will be appearing very soon.

Thought For The Eve

A Multi-Cultural Thought For This Eve From Everyone at Paying Attention™

December 24, 2021

Merry Christmas to some, and to all a good night.

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

Hark, The Herald Assholes Whining

Flinging Feces The Fifth

December 24, 2021

Nixon’s nitwits claimed to have been overzealous in their pursuit of squelching democracy after being caught trying to cover up the Watergate break-in. Their collective testimony was a riot of recollection. “To the best of my recollection…” was the favored phrase among the criminal rats scurrying to avoid jail time.

Today we have Turmp’s lackeys serenading the American public with a Fifth Amendment Festival in their hopefully futile attempts to save themselves and their brainless leader from getting plooked in the pokey (and maybe poked in the plooky). A number of coup-conspirators in the January 6 insurrection attempting to avoid a date with the Fifth, are simply refusing to show up for their subpoenaed testimony, preferring to take their chances with the somnambulant Merrick Garland Justice Department.

Turmp’s last chief-of-staff, super-genius Mark Meadows, who had just published The Chief's Chief, a book about his time serving at the foot of his beloved monster, handed over 9,000 pages of documents before recoiling in horror after his lard and master waggled his tiny finger at Meadows, at which time Meadows called his own book fake news, and told the congressional committee to book him a room at the Fifth Amendment hotel. Unfortunately for Meadows, one of the documents he bestowed upon the committee was a PowerPoint presentation entitled “How To Overthrow The Duly Elected Government of The United States... For Dummies” – or something like that. This, it seems is still  frowned upon in certain circles. How was he to know? I wonder if, after all is said and done, Meadows will write a book about his time served.

Meadows and Turmp in happier times

Rep. Jim Jordan was outed as a coup-conspirator who tweeted fellow traitor and Turmp lackey Mark Meadows in support of having Mike Pence illegally obstruct the certification of the 2020 election. He will be pleading the Fifth very shortly…if he shows up.

Jim-Jordan - When he's not busy protecting

sex offenders, he’s busy treason texting

Everything’s Bigger In Texas…Especially The Stupidity

It also appears that long-time dumbass Rick Perry (one of the top three leading dumbass governors of Texas – and its longest serving) texted fellow dumbass Mark Meadows the day after Turmp got his over-sized ass handed to him in the November 3^rd election:

“HERE’s an AGRESSIVE [sic] STRATEGY: Why can t [sic] the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it to the SCOTUS.”

The only reason Perry is suspected of sending this text? It came from his personal phone. I’m guessing Perry was not wearing the glasses he thought made him look (but obviously not think) smart when he put this together and then decided to hit ‘Send’. Second-grade F-student spelling and grammar aside, why does Rick Perry hate democracy? Is it his medication? His pea-sized brain? We may never know.

And who can forget when Perry said, “Make no mistake, Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.”? Apparently, Rick Perry can.

Roll Away The Stone

Another very fine Turmp “friend” and con…fidant Roger Stone, the first high-profile insurrectionist to actually appear in front of the January 6 Committee in response to a subpoena, did what every innocent witness always does. He invoked the Fifth Amendment. Stone, a professional scumbag and inveterate liar, and very close advisor to Turmp, insisted that invoking the Fifth in no way implied that he was guilty of anything. One would be wise to ask, “When has Roger Stone ever not been guilty of something?” Stone, you may remember was pardoned by Turmp, one assumes for not doing anything. Pelosi called Stone’s pardon “an act of staggering corruption.” Funny thing though, accepting a pardon means, by its very nature that one was guilty of whatever one was pardoned for. Stone was indicted for lying to Congress about his efforts to swindle the American public into electing Turmp.

I believe it was one Donald J. Turmp himself who said, “If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

I. Mangrey rejoicing. “It’s a republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”*

*Benjamin Franklin, when asked what kind of government he helped bring forth on this continent                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Fraught For The Day

Tilting At Windbags

January 6 December 22, 2021

“[e]ither we’ll have clean elections, or we won’t have elections.” 
Donald J. Turmp Jair Bolsonaro

Oops, wrong authoritarian shithead.

While Donald Turmp and his band of merry mutants continue to perpetrate his big lie, and pretend that he believes he is still president, or at least should be, he continues his windmill-tilting-esque attempt to hide the evidence of his long-running criminal enterprise, as opposed to his more recent treasonous enterprise. After a circuit court denied Turmp’s absurd claim of executive privilege, something only actual, current presidents can exercise, a federal appeals court has given The Orange Guy what most believe is a temporary reprieve. So instead of the National Archive releasing Turmp’s insurgency communique on November 12 as planned, we will have to wait until a little longer to have his perpetually-under-audit (not a thing) tax returns.

Don Revolty & Stencho Panza

Cloudy With A Chance Of Death Threats

Currently, Turmp’s malignant minions are threatening anyone who disagrees with Dear Ex-Leader. Members of Turmp’s terror squad are visiting death threats upon members of Congress, election officials, school board members (and like and competent terrorist, also threatening their families), and other public officials, like Katie Hobbs the Democratic attorney general in Arizona. Turmp’s very fine people have also threatened (and occasionally carried out) violence against government facilities, law enforcement, and religious communities (i.e., Jews).

Some MAGAts are demanding books they don’t like (which they have almost certainly never read) be not just banned, but burned. There is not yet confirmation that there have been calls to fashion crosses out of these books before setting them ablaze. Get ready for a round of witch trials in the near future.

Ratpublicans in Congress are frantically working to strip committee assignments from any in their caucus who committed the heinous sin of voting in favor of the Senate’s bipartisan, and critically important infrastructure bill, which will help every single American…even corporate Americans. As always, the raison d'être of the Ratpublican Party is to stop Democrats from succeeding at all costs, not least of which is the survival of America, our economy, our democracy and literally, any number of lives. They have no plans, no policies themselves anymore. They and their voters have no interest in policy, just hatred, division, racism and holding power permanently.

Despite all of this, and despite irrefutable evidence that he fully intended and unquestionably incited his cultists to carry out the overthrow of the government, Turmp is still permitted to lumber through our streets, constantly yelling FIRE! in the crowded theater of American society.

It Ain’t Over ‘Til The Fat Man Swings

As of now, New York State Attorney General Letitia James wants Turmp, who everyone knows is incapable of telling the truth about anything – at a molecular level, to testify under oath about his lifetime of at-best-shady business dealings on January 7, 2022.

On the same day James announced her intention to depose him, another federal appeals court threw out Turmp’s baseless attempt to shield the evidence of his complicity in the January 6, 2020 attempt to overturn the repeatedly scrutinized and verified presidential election. This court is the final stop before the Supreme Court, which most experts believe might refuse to hear the case. While there is much to loathe and fear about the six radical right-wing Justices, I believe that since Turmp is not a fetus, they will have little interest in helping him destroy the Constitution in this case.

Fun Fact: Disgraced, twice-impeached, murdering traitor Turmp has announced that he will holding another, very special “press conference” at Mor-on-Lago, on January 6, 2022 – the first anniversary of the attempted coup he led. Turmp intends to use his bullshit pulpit to re-up his Big Lie and attack those who have not supported his treasonous treachery. Should be fun.

I am choosing to remain nauseously optimistic as the walls appear to be closing in on the man who should be #1 on the FBI’s most wanted list. We should be seeing his picture in the Post Office…and not on a stamp. Unfortunately, thus far Turmp has seemed like Kreeptonite to the American system of justice. Hopefully, one of the current cases against him – from the state of New York, the Southern District of New York, the state of Georgia and/or the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation – will prove to be a lead shield.

This has been your Paying Attention Fraught For The Day.

You're welcome.

What has you fraught for the day?

Broken News

Manchin's Malarkey Makes Many Mad 

December 20, 2021

It now appears that the Build Back Better legislation, which a huge majority of Americans elected Joe Biden by a wide margin to enact, is all but dead in the water. BBB includes child care support for parents, protected the environment with climate change actions, expanded Medicare, lowered the cost of prescription drugs – like capping insulin at $35 – provided for universal pre-K, and created affordable housing, among many other programs Democrats, including President Joe Biden, ran on.

Most components of this essential package are supported by an even wider margin than the margin by which the guy Biden crushed lost by when he got a minority of the votes and won on a technicality in 2016. And we all know exactly why the bill appears dead. It is thanks to Joe “Coal In Your Stocking Is A GOOD Thing” Manchin and his partner in fuck-poor-and-middle-class-Americans, Kyrsten Sinema. So…

It’s that time again boys and girls. It’s Fuck Joe Manchin (and Kyrsten Sinema) Time. Like a broken clock, Manchin is right twice a day…about the time of day. He is dead and deadly wrong about everything else. One hopes that one day his non-corporate, non-coal constituents will notice that he is doing nothing that is in their best interests, and everything that is in his best interest. Don’t let Manchin’s kindly façade or the homey-houseboat façade on his massive yacht fool you, he is nothing more than a slimy weasel, stuffing his pockets at our expense.

Manchin, speaking to no one in particular, prefers coal to people

Manchin continues to do his best Mitch Fucking McConnell impression by obstructing a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president. Unsurprisingly, Ratpublicans love Joe. Manchin said he just wanted to take enough time to get his colleagues across Grand Canyon-esque aisle to work together to pass legislation. He waited. We waited. We aged. Nothing happened. Manchin insisted that Ratpublicans would come along and do the right thing (something even Manchin himself won’t do) eventually. The Sun will go super nova eventually. Probably before one single Ratpublican – even the very helpful, very concerned Susan Collins – does anything that puts country above party. They are all, especially Manchin, full of, how do you say it…shit. There has been no compromise other than that exhibited by progressives. Fuck Joe Manchin.

Manchin already helped scam progressive Democrats into voting for the “bipartisan” meager infrastructure bill before passing the real infrastructure bill – the one that addresses the current climate catastrophe, and human infrastructure – that he said would get passed. The original demand by progressives was to pass both bills simultaneously, a promise they got from conservaDems. Once progressives finally agreed to trust the process, and their “colleagues” and allowed the first bill to go on its own, they got screwed by Manchin and Sinema.

Sanders recently told MSNBC host Chris Hayes: “I respect other people's points of view, but I do not respect the arrogance of any member of the senate who says, ‘You know what? I'm going to torpedo this entire bill, supported overwhelmingly by the American people’ You've got two people saying, ‘You know what? Hey, if you don't do it my way - I don't care what the president wants, I don't care what 48 of my colleagues want - it's my way or the highway.’ And that, I regard as arrogance.”

I’m as full of shit as hell and I’m not going to fake this anymore

Arrogance? Assholery? All Of The Above?

Manchin recently went on the insurrectionists’ favorite, Fux News – where all Ratpublicans go for succor and uncritical thinking, and where truth is a four-letter word (This is literally true; most Fux viewers think truth has four letters.) – to explain that he will not support Biden’s signature legislation. and said, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. If I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia I can’t vote for it.” I believe he meant, if he can’t go home and explain it without lying about it.

Naturally, Manchin ran to Fux where a large and aggressively disinformed audience tunes in to hear the worst of the Ratpublican insurrectionists lie about one thing or another. Manchin fit right in, telling the gullible millions, “I've done everything humanly possible.” I have no doubt that he agonized over exactly when to place the knife between his “fellow Democrats’” shoulder blades. And he came up with Christmas Eve.

Old King Coal gave the White House only 30 minutes warning that he was taking a shit on the Democrats and America. Then he refused to return a phone call from the White House before waving his coal-fired pecker around on Fux.

“I mean come on, if I voted for this bill, what would my wealthy donors think of me?

And I’m heavily invested in dirty, deadly coal mines for goodness sake.”

Despite Manchin’s home state of West Virginia having 20 percent of their children living in poverty (7^th highest in the nation), Joe remains steadfast in his opposition to continuing the Child Tax Credit, which has already lifted millions of children out of devastating poverty.

A quarter of West Virginians 65 and older have no natural teeth, the highest rate of any state. Naturally, Jo(k)e opposes a plan to give seniors dental coverage as part of Medicare. Silly, I know. It’s not like teeth are important, or part of the body, or if not cared for can kill you.

Ari Berman of Mother Jones

To be fair, he’s not against everything. He supports coal. Fuck Joe Manchin.

However, let us not forget than not one single fucking Ratpublican will vote for legislation that does not heavily favor Wall Street and the bloated military. Not one.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Fuck Joe Manchin.