Thought For The Day

When Thoughts And Prayers Are Not Enough

April 19, 2021

Yesterday I saw an interview with a woman who rescued herself from the radical, racist right. She had bought into all the bullshit and conspiracy theories and did not realize she had fallen down the rabbit hole. She finally decided to get out.

She described her turn-around and how she was now determined to help extricate others who might be willing to take a little taste of reality and rejoin normal society. She said she was trying to “stop hate by using love.” “What better way to stop hate than with love,” she asked rhetorically.

I immediately heard me asking myself, “A good guy with a gun?” Rhetorically, of course.

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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Who Couldn’t Have Guessed That?

The Mighty Q

April 17, 2021

Paying Attention is proud to bring you a hot new feature:

Who Couldn’t Have Guessed That?

Today on Who Couldn’t Have Guessed That? we have it on good authority that the societal arsonist formerly known as Q, who has been seeding the cuckoo clouds of crazytown with malicious, malignant malarkey, the lord and master of Qanon, is not a Washington insider with top-level security clearance, charged with saving the world for Donald Turmp after all.

Dim-bulb devotees exercising their First Amendment rights

Somehow, the nutbag plastering insane conspiracy theories across notorious right wing internet sites is as real as the non-existent basement under the Washington, DC pizza parlor where Hillary Clinton, Tom Hanks, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and of course George Soros, house their baby-eating/child sex trafficking ring. (As an aside, I can’t imagine the sex trafficking side of the operation could be very successful if these cannibals are eating all the product before it can get to market, but then, I’m no businessman. Or a baby-eater.)

No, the all-powerful Q, who has consistently predicted all manner of shocking events that never materialized in the slightest, is Ron Watkins, just another racist, neo-fascist clown with a psychotic imagination and a computer. Pay no attention to that man behind the keyboard. Most people do not pay him any attention. Unless they are part of the so-called Q army and therefore completely gullible gumballs-for-brains. Immune to facts. Unacquainted with reality. And just who is Watkins? Nobody. Nothing. A pathetic parasite.

Millions of equally pathetic people – not just American idiots as it turns out, but intentionally underinformed, mentally deficient cretins the world over – ready to buy into insane conspiracy theories. Mostly in the name of white supremacy. One after the other of these fabricated delusions came into existence as, and was ultimately exposed for all to see, utter bullshit. God’s factory seconds are ready to believe anything but that which makes actual sense based on available information. And now it turns out – Surprise, surprise! – that Q himself is some douchey dipshit. A fraud. Fake Qs. And probably not even the original Q. Whatthefuckever.

The Mighty Quinn

This has been Who Couldn’t Have Guessed That?

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A Lynching By Any Other Name

April 9, 2021

                                        Poetic? Justice?

White privilege.
   Will it ever be washed away?

White guilt.
   Can there ever be enough?

Is that why I cannot look away
every time they show the scene

How was it anything but
    murder
          in the first degree?

Slow motion
    in real time

Roll the tape
     over and over
          do not look away
                 over and over

D’rek Chauvin made George Floyd
     his soap box,

As he proclaimed for all to see,
     his blatant disregard
          for a human life
     his unapologetic,
          lethal racism

White judge,
     white jury,
          white executioner/murderer

The full weight of the law
     on George Floyd’s neck
          illegally

For more than three minutes
     after Floyd had been killed
          the knee remained in place

Apparently the unnecessary death
     was not good enough
          for the murderous cop

Absence of consciousness,
               versus
   absence of conscience

Chauvin kept killing the dead man.

He used his knee
     in place of a noose
For his horizontal lynching
         of George Floyd.

Trial And Tribulation

The Ballad Of George Floyd

April 2, 2021

I have been watching the trial of D’rek Chauvin, the racist seen round the world, who is allegedly alleged to have creatively lynched George Floyd on May 25, 2020, in front of numerous bystanders, video cameras and one young woman who did more good with her cellphone in 10 minutes than most of us do in a lifetime. Much of what I have seen is incredibly painful.

Over the course of the first three days, one of the most difficult scenes for me was the testimony of Christopher Martin, the 19-year-old store clerk who, when asked what he felt as he stood by helplessly watching Mr. Floyd’s dignity and then his life being brutally stolen from him by a deranged-killer-in-peace-officer’s-clothing, said he felt “disbelief and guilt.” When asked why he felt guilty, he explained it was because he could have just ignored the counterfeit $20 handed him minutes earlier by Floyd and taken the hit out of his own paycheck – a paycheck that he could surely ill afford to diminish by $20.

One of the most sickening parts of this otherwise gut-wrenchingly horrible episode, was the officers repeatedly urging Mr. Floyd to get in the car while three of these thugs-with-badges are kneeling on him, literally crushing him to the pavement, one of them, D'rek Chauvin, as everyone in the world has seen with their own eyes, putting his full weight on Floyd's neck with his knee. It makes me sick to my stomach and pained in my heart every time I see the video.

So, ex-officer D'rek Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to murdering George Floyd. What I want to know then is exactly what the fuck it is that he thinks he did to Mr. Floyd when he was putting all of his weight on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes while everyone around him was begging Chauvin to stop murdering George Floyd.

Chauvin must have felt very threatened as he kneeled on Floyd’s neck with his hands in his pockets, looking very relaxed, as if he did not have a care in the world. Apparently, even in death, George Floyd was seen as a threat to Chauvin, who remained with his knee on Floyd’s neck for some time after Floyd’s final breath. The EMTs had to persuade Chauvin to remove his knee so that they could remove Floyd’s lifeless body from the street.

Donald Williams, 33, a wrestler and mixed-martial-arts fighter who happened to witness the scene in progress described Chauvin's position with his knee on Floyd's neck as a “blood choke.” Williams later testified, “I called the police on the police. I believed I witnessed a murder.”

George Floyd was initially detained that day for (likely unknowingly) passing a counterfeit $20 bill. But let’s face it, Floyd’s real crime that day, at least as far as D’rek Chauvin – George Floyd’s judge, jury and executioner (literally) – was concerned, was being black.

I. Mangrey as ever.

Q and A(holes)

And You Thought You Had Problems

March 30, 2021

If you’re reading this, you’re probably too darn close, but that is not what I came here to talk about. If you are reading this, I would wager that there is a less-than-zero chance you are a follower of the all-powerful, all-knowing, albeit perpetually 100% wrong, alleged entity known as Q.

At August 19, 2020 press tantrum, Donald Tumrp replied to a question about QAnon, “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much. Which I appreciate. But I don’t know very much about the movement. I have heard that it is gaining in popularity…” Turmp then proceeded to explain at some length that he did in fact know quite a bit about them, particularly about them being very upset about all the Black Lives Matter protests across the country. He continued, “So, I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.” And after all, in his badly damaged brain, nothing else really matters.

This might be Q itself, or just another intellectual invalid

QAnon followers, who may number in the millions, are not only willing to believe anything other than what most sentient beings would consider to be objective reality, they are also mortal enemies of anti-fascists, as they revel in what they are sold is “The Great Awakening”. The favorite theme at the root of all QAnon psychoses is the conspiracy theory that a cabal of satanic pedophiles and cannibals controls world governments and the media.

One thing they believe is that people like Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Tom Hanks eat babies for their rejuvenative powers. My question, beside the obvious WTF, is how do they know that eating babies has rejuvenative powers unless they themselves have eaten enough babies to know it works?

And You Thought I Had Problems

It turns out that some research has unearthed something so unsurprising, so stunningly obvious one wonders why this bit of information – that almost 70% QAnon addicts are a little funny in the head (as opposed to 19% of the general population) – had not emerged sooner. I suppose most people always assumed that a large majority of those who admit to being part of the QAnon looney-bin, have been formally diagnosed with mental health issues – I know I did. And, we are not talking about just the lack of intellectual curiosity, capacity or character. We are talking about serious, often debilitating psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. You know, the kind of people you can really count on to run your government. This doesn’t make them bad people, just millions of dangerous mental patients who flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Nobody Expects The Stupid Insurrection

Clearly, many QAnon adherents are 51 cards short of a full deck. But they are frighteningly effective at making themselves heard. For those of you keeping score at home, their chief weapon is stupidity. Stupidity and brain damage…brain damage and stupidity…and ruthless racism…their three weapons are brain damage, stupidity, and ruthless racism…and an almost fanatical devotion to Donald Turmp…Their four…no…Amongst their weapons…Amongst their weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise...I'll come in again.

If you squeeze the Q shaman, be sure to
wash your hands and drink plenty of bleach

The only thing that surprised me was how low the number is. Could it really be true that more than 30% of the people who actually believe any or all of the provably insane bullshit coming from Q do NOT have serious, verifiable mental problems?

Stupid Is As Stupid Doozy

Garret Miller, the most recent arrestee from what Turmp described as just a bunch of “hugging and kissing the police and the guards” on January 6^th deserves a great big shout out. Having already tweeted “assassinate AOC” while defiling the Capitol, the FBI says Miller also posted a selfie on F*#$book with the comment, “just wanted to incriminate myself a little lol”. Who’s LOLing now?

Federal agents found this very-stable-genius-lover sporting the perfect attire when they showed up at his house to “congratulate” him for his brilliant choice of endeavors on January 6^th. The feces icing on this fuckwit’s shit cake, was his shirt with a photograph of Turmp, which said “Take America Back” and “I Was There, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021.” We know you were there asshole. Everyone knows you were there. You posted pictures of yourself at the scene of the crime. That, oddly enough, is how you got caught, genius. If I were you, I’d hurry up and eat a bunch of babies – you’re gonna need your strength in prison.

I. Mangrey regenerating.

Question Of The Day

Asking For Some Friends

March 28, 2021

• Does anyone really think that Ratpublicans would be generating hundreds of laws to make voting harder if Turmp had won in 2020?
• Does anyone think Ratpublicans would be doing this if Turmp had successfully committed the widespread voter fraud he and they continue to claim, sans evidence, that Biden and Democrats had committed?
• Does anyone believe that Ratpublicans give even a hamster-sized shit about protecting the integrity of our electoral system?
• Does anyone think Ratpublicans actually need any excuse to ramp up their decades-long, constant efforts to keep people (especially Black people) from  voting?

Okay, so that was actually four questions. Blame it on Passover.

Questions, Questions, Questions, flooding into the mind of the
concerned young person today (as they have for thousands of years).

However, one answer is more than sufficient for all of these questions: FUCK NO.

This just in: Our alternative sources are saying that Georgia Ratpublicans are floating new legislation to make the votes of Black Americans worth 3/5 of white votes.* Why does this sound so familiar?

This has been your Paying Attention Question Of The Day.

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Do you have any questions today?

*This may not be true in the non-alternative sense…yet.

Fables Of Facism

Fabulous As Faubus*

March 26, 2021

Georgia fascists – not the former Soviet republic (which is objectively less fascist than the American state of the same name) – under the ill-gotten leadership of Gov. Brian Kemp passed an omnibus bill transparently aimed at intimidating and disenfranchising Black Georgians. The bill was rushed through the Ratpublican-majority state senate in less than a day, and immediately signed into law the Ratpublican governor.

After the secret, male-whites-only signing ceremony, Kemp went full Orwell, claiming that the new laws clearly designed to cut the legs out from under Georgia’s Black electorate would make voting much easier. Shortly before these racist laws were signed into law, President Joe Biden commented on Georgia’s new laws, “What I’m worried about is how un-American this initiative is. It’s sick. It’s sick…The Republican voters I know find this despicable.”

Kemp further disgraces himself at hoods-optional signing ceremony to stop Blacks from voting

Ratpublicans across the country are flexing their anti-democratic muscles with new legislation to squash the ability of Black Americans to vote. Georgians have just made it illegal, among other blatantly racist, draconian measures, to provide food or water for people waiting in line (sometimes for up to 10 hours) to vote. And why, you might ask, are so many people waiting so long to vote? Because Georgia has continuously made it harder to vote by shuttering polling locations. And where, you might ask, are most of these polling places closed, and the consequent ridiculously long lines to be found? Mostly in heavily Black districts.

To be fair, Ratpublicans in Georgia just had their fat, white asses handed to them – losing the 2020 presidential election, and then losing their two senate seats to a Black man and a Jewish man. Kemp who “defeated” Stacey Abrams in 2018 by purging tens of thousands of Black voters knows that the only way Georgia can possibly stem the Blue Tsunami overtaking their electorate is to stop as many Black people from voting as possible.

Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon – a Black woman – attempted to witness the shameful display and knocked on the door. She was quickly handcuffed, physically removed from the building by a phalanx of State Patrol Troope “by use of threats or violence” and a charge of disrupting the meeting (By knocking on the door?).

Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon, arrested for attempting democracy while Black

Compare this to the initial response to the brutal terrorist insurrection at the nation’s Capital on January 6^th by mentally defective white people at the behest of the president they worshiped. Most of the traitors were permitted to simply leave the scene of the crime and return to their homes – some of them to clear their homes of amassed weapons in case authorities happened to come after them some day. Many of the white attackers were released from custody, one permitted to travel to Mexico while awaiting trial. Lucky for them they were not a Black woman politely knocking on a door.

Charles Mingus - Fables Of Faubus

*Orval Faubus, Democratic Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, refused to comply with a unanimous Supreme Court decision in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education and subsequently ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School.

In Other News Of Sociopathic Racists…

Disgraced, Twice-Impeached-One-Term-Ex-president Whatsizname, never one to pass up an opportunity to show off his psychotic chops, told Fux News’ Laura Ingraham, “It was zero threat, right from the start; it was zero threat. Some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards... a lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out…They’re persecuting a lot of those people.”

So much hugging, kissing and winning

I. Mangrey for a change.

Thought For The Day

Stolen Dreams, Stolen Trees

March 25, 2021

Biden, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the three crab apple trees planted by Jacqueline Kennedy and removed by Melanoma Turmp that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

As you may recall, Turmp’s Stepford wife put her signature, personal  curse touch on, among other horrifying things, the famed Rose Garden at the White House. In the vein of Mrs. Turmp’s dreadful, ghoulish blood-red Christmas Tree gauntlet, her destruction of the Rose Garden took something beautiful and remade it in her colorless, tasteless, other-than-human image. Just as her horrific husband did with the nation he pretended to lead in between golf outings.

Of all the things she choked the life out of, why could not one of them have been the father of her son?

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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Thought For The Day

Two Thoughts For The Price Of None

March 22, 2021

Minority Leader/Hater Mitch Fucking McConnell took to the Senate floor in response to threats from Democrats to tweak or trash the filibuster. The Senate rule known as the filibuster was instituted by mistake in the early 1800s thanks to Aaron Burr, and has been frequently used to obstruct progress on civil rights and voting rights for African Americans. In response to the Democratic threat to make the Senate an actual democracy where 50 out of 100 votes wins the argument, McConnell issued a threat of his own: “Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched earth Senate would look like.”

Is he fucking kidding? Nobody living in this country even has to try, even has to try to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate looks like. We all witnessed first-hand exactly what it looks like for the past 12 years while Fucking McConnell ran roughshod over this country – stealing two Supreme Court seats, stopping Barack Obama from filling more than 100 federal court vacancies, in what some scholars have described as a “blockade,” and generally obstructing everything that Democrats tried to achieve during Obama’s presidency. Because he could.

Fucking McConnell spent Turmp’s single term filling the courts with young, stunningly unqualified (a number received the lowest rating from the American Bar Association, who recommended against them serving Big Macs and fries, let alone on the federal bench), nearly 90 percent white, nearly 80 percent male, and about two-thirds white men, inept ideologues who are poised to poison the judicial branch for decades with their white/male privileged ignorance.

I suppose Mitch could do worse if Democrats dared cross him, but maybe he will drop dead before he gets the chance. Not wishing this of course, just acknowledging the prospect.

This miserable excuse for a fuming pile of shit McConnell made clear that if Dems piss him off by using actual democracy, and if he were to regain his grossly undeserved power as “majority” leader (Across the country, Democratic candidates routinely garner more total votes than Ratpublicans, but thanks to gerrymandering end up with fewer seats.) he and his Ratpublican rabble “would move swiftly to defund sanctuary cities and Planned Parenthood, add new protections for the right to life of the unborn, work on concealed carry laws, and a new era of domestic energy production.” A disgusting, power-mad sociopath, but at least he is consistent.

Non-Sequitur Ahead

Basketball player Meyers Leonard recently poked the public eye by using an anti-Semitic slur. He claimed he did not know the word was considered hate speech, wanting us to believe he is not only dumb, but blind and deaf. Leonard was suspended by his Miami team and fined by the league for his philological infraction. He was subsequently traded from Miami to the team in Oklahoma, presumably because anti-Semitism is more acceptable in Oklahoma than it is in Miami.

Update/full disclosure: apparently Leonard will not play for Oklahoma and is just being used as trade fodder. We’ll see where he ends up. We wish him continued tsuris.

 

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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