Broken News

 Massive Mistakes Meet Maker

February 18, 2021

Yesterday, long time eyesore and public hazard, the Turmp Plaza Cheesy Hotel and Bankrupt Casino in Atlantic City met its fate and was imploded and reduced to the rubble its namesake attempted to make out of the United States. Today, the Plaza, tomorrow with any luck, Turmp himself.

Turmp Plaza, Atlantic City never really saw better days

Speaking of white elephants in need of elimination, in other news from yesterday, another long time eyesore and threat to public safety, the morally, ethically and socially bankrupt mass of tissue known as Rush Limbaugh was mercifully, if much too late, removed from the rolls of the living. every other news source referred to this poison pill as "conservative radio host" or something similar. Limbaugh should more accurately been described as "lying, misogynist, racist hate-monger". I believe this is known as truth in advertising, the likes of which you can always find here at Paying Attention, if nowhere else. Limbaugh was one of the most pervasive sources of filth throughout his career. May he rot in place.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Profiles In Damage, Part I

Trial And Error

February 17, 2021

Democratic IMPEACHMENT managers won the day but lost the vote

When I saw Mitch Fucking McConnell’s post-vote-to-acquit statement decrying the obvious guilt of the man he just let off for committing treason – a president of the United States, no less – I thought I was either hallucinating or had been unknowingly transported into an alternate reality. I was not watching live, so I simply had no way to process what I was seeing. I almost considered that Turmp had actually been prophetic when he said, “What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.” I pinched myself so hard I hurt my face and my hand. I wish it could have been Fucking McConnell’s face I was pinching.

Mitch Fucking McConnell votes to acquit, then talks shit

Obviously, it is not just Mitch Fucking McConnell behaving badly; that of course, is a given. It cannot be said too often how disgraceful it is that Mike Pence, who was a primary target of Turmp’s wrath and therefore the murderous insurrectionists who answered Turmp’s call to harms, refused requests to testify on behalf of American democracy. Like all loyal Ratpublicans, all he cares about is his political future, country be damned. And thanks to Pence and his ilk, it certainly is.

Remember, Turmp’s minions were chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and “Destroy the GOP!” the disgraceful coward Pence, despite almost becoming a casualty of Mad King Donald’s deluge of douchebaggery, still cannot pry is lying lips away from Turmp’s unwashed ass. He should not be hanged; certainly not before receiving a fair trial for withholding evidence in the trial of his former boss. The chants of “Destroy the GOP!” however, should be ringing from every mountainside, and polling place from Wallagrass, Maine to Miami, Florida to the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota to San Antonio, Texas, to San Francisco, California for at least a generation. With any luck they have destroyed themselves; if so, let us work with them to make sure it is done correctly.

Many pundits, most of whom are Ratpublicans – those who have either left the party entirely or have spent the last five years bemoaning their wonderful political party’s loss of its soul under the inestimable leadership of Donald Jerkstore Turmp – insist that it is time for their party to move on from Turmp. Well, fuck them and fuck all that. They are reaping what they have long been sowing.

What the Ratpublican party needs to do is suffer the consequences of nominating, enabling and finally, condoning his racism, fascism and attempts to a) maim and/or kill Mike Pence, b) maim and/or kill Nancy Pelosi and any number of legislators on both sides of the aisle and, c) overturn the legitimate, repeatedly certified election of Joe Biden by inciting his feckless followers to take over, if not burn down the Capitol. They need to wander the political desert for 40 years, think about the damage they have done to this nation. They should not be allowed out of their room until they can demonstrate that they know what they did wrong and are willing to apologize profusely and constantly. What once was a political party is now nothing more than a cult of borderline personality.

I. Mangrey reflecting. Another perfectly good IMPEACHMENT shot to hell.                              

                                                                                   

Hard To Get Happy After That

The Manson Gambit

February 14, 2021

Yesterday was likely the second worst day in at least the last 160 years of American history. The first of course being January 6, 2021. It is possible that February 13, 2021 was even worse. On that day, the Constitution was defeated by one of the two major political parties in America. Ratpublicans pressed on undaunted by the truth, uncaring of their oath of office, and loyal to their disgraced leader who now holds them hostage for the foreseeable future.

Lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin tried to explain 

the obvious to Ratpublican senators, his next, much easier 

challenge is reported to be teaching astrophysics to actual weasels

Despite Turmp’s Charles-Mansonesque prodding of the malignant mental patients comprising his extended family of racist revolutionaries, who did his bidding and murdered police, literally shit all over the Capitol and inflicted an as yet undetermined amount of damage to our Union, video evidence of which was available absolutely everywhere anyone (with the possible exception of Ratpublican Tommy Tuberville who apparently goes deaf and blind during snowstorms, in addition to being perpetually dumb), 43 Ratpublican senators let Turmp off the hook on a technicality manufactured out of thin air by Mitch Fucking McConnell and no one else.

Turmp’s lead defender, the previously manic Van Der Veen who chases ambulances in Phillydelphia (sic) when he is not masturbating in front of the U.S. Senate, switched gears to depressive as he trudged through his closing dirge. The ambulance chaser’s closing argument was less painful than it was disingenuous and poorly prepared and delivered, and it was excruciatingly painful. Lying at every turn, in order to reinforce the Turmpian delusion of victimhood and fake revolution in the name of white supremacy – which after all, is the single common thread of all the insurrectionists the Inciter-in-chief summoned to the Capitol on January 6. The frequency of his mispronouncing of words surely made his client blush with affection. And the “pretty good” ending Van Der Veen assured at the start of his deluge of dishonesty was coming, landed with a pfffffffffffft.

Turmp defense closer Van Der Veen wondering if it’s safe to 

start his one-man lying douchebag show for the Senate

Notwithstanding having made their case against the traitor Donald Turmp as well as any case has ever been made, 43 Ratpublicans shamelessly voted to acquit the Orange Offender. The twice-IMPEACHED ex-Fake-president now holds not only the record for number of impeachments – and in only a single interminable term – but additionally, can now boast (and you know he will) first and second place for the most lopsided (such as it is) votes to convict, the second impeachment outpacing the first with 57 out the necessary 67 voting in favor.

Meanwhile Mitch Fucking McConnell continues pissing on our legs and telling us Nancy Pelosi is pissing on our legs. After his historically rat-fucking vote to acquit Turmp, Fucking McConnell took to the Floor telling America that the man he just voted to acquit on a non-existent technicality was guilty as sin of what he was IMPEACHED for. But because McConnell himself refused to accept the articles of impeachment in a timely manner (a fact he somehow neglected to mention in his cynical soliloquy), McConnell insisted he and the rest of Turmp’s hand-picked jury needed to vote to acquit. You would be excused for coughing up your cookies from the dizzying…we’ll call it logic…grunted out by the reptilian McConnell. As always, McConnell moved the goalposts in the final seconds of the game. Once again he and the Ratpublicans slam their knee on the neck of democracy.

I wonder if Manson’s lawyer whined and lied so much. At least Charles Manson was convicted for the mayhem and murder committed by his family.

I. Mangrey recalculating.

Do The Wrong Thing

Profiles In Bullshit

February 13, 2021 (Before the vote)

Not sure what to say. You would end up homeless and forehead-deep in debt betting on Ratpublicans doing anything other than the worst thing imaginable in any given circumstance. On today’s menu is what should be the obvious conviction of Donald Junta Turmp for incitement of insurrection, which as everyone knows, is one of his better traits.

Turmp was correct when he called Mike Pence a coward, just not for the reason Turmp was claiming. Turmp was also not wrong for saying Pence betrayed the Constitution, just not for the reason Turmp was claiming. Pence was not acting cowardly when after being whisked away from Turmp’s lynch mob he returned to his seat in the Senate chamber to fulfill his mainly ceremonial Constitutional duty to formally certify the votes of the Electoral College.

Pence, in a cowardly assault on the Constitution and our democracy, continues to keep mum about the depredations visited upon him by the man he had been obsequiously loyal to for five long, humiliating years. Mike Pence has pertinent and likely damning evidence of his boss’s state of mind leading up to Turmp’s months-long road to incitement which almost got Pence killed. We now know that Turmp continued to focus the wrath of his murderous, traitorous mob on what he perceived to be Pence’s Judas to Turmp’s Jesus, even after he was told what he likely already knew, that Pence had been spirited out of harm’s way.

Speaking of cowardly liars, after both sides presented their cases and all questions from the jury were answered, we learned that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a heated perfect phone during which he begged Turmp to call off his psychotic horde. Turmp responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” Furious, McCarthy told Turmp that the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows. According to a Ratpublican lawmaker familiar with Turmp’s latest perfect call, McCarthy replied to the delusional dimwit, “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?” Where is Kevin McCarthy’s voice confirming or denying this story?  

The noose that Turmp built: while inside the Capitol Turmp’s mob 

chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” a gallows awaited Turmp’s VP just outside.

The “defense” put on by Turmp’s team of lawyers whose previous experience comprises representing mobsters and rapists and the newest litigious lunatic on the team who is a personal injury lawyer (who sued Turmp last year) was nothing more than an attempt to deflect, distract, dissemble and please their client’s perverse needs in order to get paid by their well-known serial-deadbeat client. Turmp would have been much better off being represented by Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga, and McCormack. He should have told his awful attorneys to stand back, stand by and shut up.

To be fair, Turmp’s lawyers did manage to dial the stupid they displayed during their opening statements way down during the rebuttals. Bereft of facts, they battered the audience with out-of-context videos of Democrats – after raging about Democrats relying on out-of-context videos (which of course was untrue) – using the word “fight” relentlessly in order to shock and awe people into submission. Rather than defend their indefensible client, they knew they had to be louder, ruder and mispronounce as many words as possible in order for their client to like them enough to consider paying them for their public humiliation. The defense was reduced to supplying the cowardly, anti-democratic Ratpublicans the cover they needed to vote for insurrection, criminality and racism, which after all have all been the Ratpublican Party’s raison d'être for a very long time.

I. Mangrey retaliating.                                                                                                    

                                                                               

The Defense Reeks

The Most Offensive Defense

February 12, 2021

It is only thanks to America’s latest black hero Eugene Goodman that there are no dead or maimed members of Congress and the Capitol was not awash in blood after Donald Turmp sent his mindless minions to attack the Capitol, kill Mike Pence and any number of legislators. Like Frank Wills, the security guard at the Watergate Hotel who discovered the presence of Nixon’s plumbers and started in motion the wheels of justice resulting in the resignation-in-utter-disgrace of Richard Nixon, Goodman saved the lives of legislators being hunted by bloodthirsty Turmpers on January 6^th.

Goodman, another black man who saved America from itself, risked his life as he diverted an angry racist mob away from what could have been a Manson-esque encounter with senators, representatives and the ultra-cowardly Mike Pence (who has maintained absolute silence despite knowing that his ex-boss essentially put out a hit on him for not forsaking the Constitution and helping Turmp overturn the legitimate election, and knowing that there was a gallows with his name on it erected just outside the Capitol).

Eugene Goodman distracted and then diverted Turmp’s crazed traitors, saving
countless lives during the Turmp-incited insurrection on January 6, 2021

One cannot help but wonder whether instead of only five dead, two subsequent suicides and more than 140 injured officers, that there were some number of their colleagues dead and injured at the hands of Turmp’s traitors, that they would then have to at least consider acting like real jurors rather than co-conspirators in Donald Turmp’s second impeachment trial. With any luck, Turmp will soon be facing real juries for real crimes in the real world.

Despite mountains of video, Twitter evidence, including countless idiots insisting that all the did they did for Turmp, when half of the jury was either complicit in the crime or simply unwilling to hear the evidence, not to mention literally conspiring with the defense. In Ratpublicans’ defense, many of them were AWOL while the evidence they already knew proved that the defendant they worshiped was guilty as hell was being presented. Many of these seditious senators warned us against electing the man whose ass they just can’t quit kissing just a few years ago.

After the Democratic House managers made their devastating case against Turmp’s months-long incitement of his fascist/racist followers, the twice-IMPEACHED, ex-fake-president’s broken-brained, bargain basement bozo barristers made will make what passes for their case to keep their client from being convicted of the crime everyone in the entire world could easily see he committed. They are expected to kkkeep their remarks brief since, a) they have no actual defense, b) their opening statements were ridiculed by every single person who witnessed them and, c) they have already settled out of court with their loyal jurists whose numbers are sufficient to squash what would otherwise be the inevitable conviction.

Though he is full of shit, they will acquit

The defense of Turmp’s blatant, shameless, irrefutable incitement of insurrection harkens back to something Turmp said several years ago: “What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.”

I. Mangrey reporting.                                                                                                       

                                                                                        

Thought For IMPEACHMENT Trial II Day

February 9, 2021

Turmp's Cult Of Borderline Personality

First let me wish everyone a Happy IMPEACHMENT Trial II Day. Donald Turmp has become the Tom Brady of being IMPEACHED. Being a Turmp fan, I’m sure Brady would not mind this comparison. With his record breaking second IMPEACHMENT trial, Turmp will surely go into the rotten presidents Hall of Shame.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled angst, already in progress…

Maybe this is semantics, but I am definitely not anti-semantic. I keep hearing Ratpublicans whine about the unconstitutionality of impeaching a president once he is out of office. Turmp was impeached while he was in office (they apparently did not believe he could be impeached while he was in office either), In fact he was impeached twice WHILE he was in office.

Someone should remind them that first comes IMPEACHMENT, which is followed by an IMPEACHIMENT trial. Maybe these fucking nimrods like Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, et al should take a few minutes out of their busy whining and dining with Turmp and read the fucking Constitution they took an oath to defend. Freshman senator from Alabama Tommy Tuberville (yes, that’s his real name) could not accurately name the three branches of government. Someone should also remind Ratpublicans that their boss, Mitch Fucking McConnell refused to allow the IMPEACHMENT trial to begin WHILE Turmp was in office, and now has joined the chorus of cretins who say Turmp cannot be IMPEACHED because he is no longer in office.

Turmp's Cult Of Borderline Personality

I understand that the idea of a literacy test for voting dates back to Reconstruction, so I would never recommend such a thing today, though maybe we should at least require a PET scan to test for brain activity. However, there is no reason we should not have a literacy test before being allowed to serve in Congress or the White House, and there should definitely be a quiz on the Constitution.

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For IMPEACHMENT Trial II Day.

You're welcome.

What is your thought for IMPEACHMENT Trial II day?

IMPEACHMENT II: The Sequel

Throw The Bum That Was Thrown Out Further Out

February 7, 2021

Impeachments used to be so much fun, but it seems all the devastation and mayhem has taken some of the joy out of kicking a national malefactor in the cajones. After all, this treacherous cretin spent four years tuning on America at every turn. He sided with Russia, he sided with murderous dictators, he sided with homegrown Nazis, bigots and mentally defective conspiracy theorists, he sided with the deadly corornavirus and finally, he sided with – no scratch that – he led the charge of (figuratively speaking of course) the mob of mutants to overturn the 2020 election and ultimately lay siege to the Capitol.

This impeachment could be even less satisfying when the object of our rejection has already been removed from the playing field. However, it might be worth making an exception since Turmp apparently still believes – or believes he believes – that he won the election, won the insurrection and thus deserves a special cocktail injection – all within the confines of due process and the law of course. This psychotic simpleton, this phantasmagorical fuckwit will not allow anyone around him to call him a “former president.” Turmp has done the impossible; he has degraded the Ratpublican Party further than any dared imagine, leaving them beneath whatever disgusting substance was under the filthy, slimy rock that was turned over in searching for their soul.

Now, the Ratpublican Party appears poised to cement their place in history. A place so close to Hell, Jefferson Davis seems almost quaintly patriotic. They have, after all, been burnishing their bona fides for the better part of a century. This is the party that nominated a malignant narcissist, authoritarian conman to be their standard bearer. They looked straight into the eyes of a misogynistic racist sleazebag and shouted, “That’s our guy!”

Death to America

Thanks to their relentless, decades-long destruction of the democratic process by gerrymandering, purging voting rolls of non-whites, and generally taking every possible opportunity to make voting a Herculean task for as many people as possible, they catapulted the most vulgar, hateful, criminal to the highest office in the land. Mitch Fucking McConnell used this simpleton to get what he wanted as let this country go straight to hell with all the racism, fascism and then the utter, purposeful incompetence leading the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who simply refused to drink enough bleach to stop the virus.

The American public and House of Representatives had him dead to rights after his perfect phone call to the Ukrainian president – which turned out to be just the first step in Turmp’s plan to destroy his rival (and democracy) and assure himself a second term. Despite being impeached, and because his obedient minions in the Senate refused to permit a fair trial, Turmp never took his fake-bone-spurred foot off the gas pedal in his attempt to steal a second term. Culminating in the shameful, degrading, deadly assault on the Capitol.

This was not enough for the Ratpublicans. They further disgraced themselves by quickly trying to whitewash the whole sordid affair, telling us to move on and hold hands with them, to forget that anything happened.

It was love at first Fuck-you-America

This Tuesday they will begin to write the final chapter in their century-long run from grace. They still have an opportunity to salvage some tiny shred of decency by seeing to it that Donald Jurassic Turmp can, at the very least, never hold elected office again in the land of the free and the home of the brave – words entirely unfamiliar to the 45^th (and in his mind still) president of the United States. If there is ever a worse president in the land of my birth, I can only hope I am not around to witness it.

Famous scene from Jurassic Pork

I. Mangrey reporting. Remember, those who do not learn from history are doomed to fuck everything up for the rest of us.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Cuts

The Face That Launched A Thousand* Lies

February 4, 2021

After four disastrous years of Turmp’s crimes and our punishment, culminating in his Klux Klan Koup, it remains difficult to hear anyone’s call for unity above the relentless shouting of the GQP, many of whom still insist that Biden stole the election and Turmp won. That is, when they are not busy threatening the lives of their colleagues.

Despite the almost universal recognition – even among Ratpublican legislators – that Turmp was guilty of inciting insurrection against the United States, in between their anything-but-sincere, cynical whining for unity, Ratpublicans are mewling to anyone who will listen that it’s time to get over that whole violent coup thing that happened so long ago, and move on. Presumably, to a few dozen more Benghazi hearings, or maybe just one or ten or forty-seven more investigations into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Of course, when Ratpublicans call for unity they mean: do what they want you to do and there will be unity.

While many among them are now trying to pin the blame on Nancy Pelosi, McConnell’s Minions are blubbering that holding a Senate IMPEACHMENT hearing is just a silly waste of time, and will cause division in our nation. They are anxious to get on with relentlessly obstructing Joe Biden’s agenda to pull America up out of the hundred-foot-deep dung heap under which they allowed, no encouraged, Turmp to bury us.

Agreed: There has been a significant improvement in quality of life since Turmp has been banned from Twitter and other antisocial media platforms, not to mention the White House. Disinformation regarding the outcome of the 2020 election dropped by 73% in the days after Turmp’s Twitter ban took effect.

Agreed: Stress levels have greatly diminished since Turmp has lost his bullshit pulpit and we do not have to wonder what existential threat to democracy he will perpetrate every single day. The almost total elimination of having to hear his whiny voice has brought considerable healing to a sickened nation (excluding of course, the tens-of-millions of whoever the hell voted for this poison pill).

Needed: In a desperately needed effort to wipe Turmp off the face of our political landscape (I bet you thought I was going to say Earth, but that would be inappropriate in so far as it might catch the attention of authorities trained to monitor such dangerous talk unless it is uttered by radical right-wing lunatics who believe that Jewish space lasers started the California wildfires and that Anderson Cooper eats babies.) and the well-earned erasure of this fascist fuckwit from our memories, the media must stop showing pictures of his fake fucking face. That is, unless it shows him responding to a subpoena, being escorted in handcuffs, sitting in a courtroom next to some doofus attorney he hired out of the Yellow Pages after all his third-tier attorneys quit because they refused to work for a raving lunatic who still thinks he won the election, or on his first day in prison, or next to his very brief obituary that somehow leaves out the fact that was president. Otherwise, these are the only pictures we should have to endure now that the White House has been liberated:

This is more than sufficient to let us know not to bother looking

Or this…

Objectionable in mirror is closer than is healthy

Or this…

This would also be acceptable…

Gregor Samsa's got nothing on this vermin

And of course, this…

America’s happy place

His voice is painful, his words are stupid and/or lies, his fake fucking face hurts to look at. Stop subjecting us to any of it without good cause and/or proper protection.

* Actually, it was 30,573 false or misleading claims in four years. Nearly half in his final year.

I. Mangrey recovering.

Phonies' Phone Call

Perfectly Great

February 2, 2021

Turmp finally turns on fellow conspiracy-soaked mental defective Marjorie Taylor Greene after squawking with her on the phone.

Phone-y genius

“Queen Greene must be very proud of herself. She told the fake media that we had a “great phone call.” I don’t have to take that kind of crap, not even from a great Q American, without all that LGBT nonsense. Maybe if she was hotter things would be different. And if Melania was out of town. And I can say ‘crap’ now since I’m still waiting for Sleepy Joe to concede. I can say all kinds of shit right now because, since my election was stolen, I have many rights that many people are telling me are in the Constitution. Many people who know lawyers are telling me I still have absolute power since I still believe I’m president. Anyway, I tried my best to keep Margie – I call her Margie – in Congress by blessing her with a perfect phone call. Many people are telling her to quit, but I think she should do what I think is right. I like that she wanted to impeach Sleepy Joe even before he took my office. And she thinks Crooked Hillary eats babies. Plus, that Jewish lasers starting wildfires in Califoria thing is terrific, not as good as sweeping the forests, but I like it. But she better get her stories straight, especially when it comes to having a perfect Turmp phone call. Did you hear what I said? A perfect phone call. Perfect. Not good. Not great. It was perfect, just like all of my phone calls. I am not only the king of debt, I’m the king of perfect phone calls. If Marge – I call her Marge – publicly apologizes, I might have to reconsider. Otherwise, I just might have to sue her. Assuming I can find a lawyer.”

Speaking Of Lawyers

Has anyone seen my lawyers?

In an interview with the Atlanta Jewish Times, one of Turmp’s C-team lawyers, David Schoen, who defended Roger Stone (Stone was convicted on all seven counts brought against him.) and consulted with Jeffrey Epstein days before his death bragged, “I represented all sorts of reputed mobster figures: alleged head of Russian mafia in this country, Israeli mafia and two Italian bosses, as well a guy the government claimed was the biggest mafioso in the world.” Obviously, this guy has plenty of experience with operators like Turmp. We do now know how well he represented these monsters, he clearly knows all the best people. Turmp’s other new legal slug Bruce Castor, Jr. declined to prosecute Bill Cosby in 2005 and was forced to resign (Cosby was later found guilty of rape.). So, both of these new guys are good with sex offenders as well. Turmp has found his dream team.

To paraphrase O.J.’s dream team, “If he’s full of shit, you can’t acquit.”

I. Mangrey, scooping the news with a pooper scooper.

BONUS NONSENSE:

Prediction from Dec 2016      

  February 2, 2017

Pennsylvania legend and powerful prognosticator in his own right, Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his winter nap somewhere in the depths of Chrump’s “hair”, sees his shadow and runs back into the tangled mass of cordage, signaling another nine months of executive branch insanity. The American public immediately decides the smaller rodent should be the 46^th president.