As if we needed anything more to celebrate, after the Inflation Reduction Act passing in the Senate, and the first day of Resignation Day(s), we have just learned that the FBI has executed
an unannounced raid pursuant to a search warrant on the residence of disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous,
ex-one-term-president and failed blogger Donald Trump’s at Mor-on-Lago. Trump was not at Mor-on-Lago at the time of the raid, so unfortunately we will not get the
satisfaction of seeing him dragged out in his gold lame boxers.
If nothing else,
this event has resulted in Trump making the only known statement he has ever
made that does not contain at least one lie:
“These are dark times
for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is
currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.
Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States
before.”
Okay, so he called Mor-on-Lago
beautiful. That’s kind of a judgment call. And yes, he said he was “under siege”
and “occupied.” Technically, those are exaggerations. This one time, I’m
willing to cut fucker some slack. This is as close as he has ever come. And yes,
“Nothing like this has ever
happened to a President of the United States before.” I wonder why. I hope they
searched the plumbing.
Those Who Don't Celebrate History Are Doomed To
Regret It
August 8, 2022
Told you so
The favorite holiday of
everyone here at Paying Attention™ is upon us once again. Sure, many people
prefer Festivus, or some of the older, more mainstream holidays, but
Resignation Day(s) have long held a special place for everyone here since that
fateful night, August 8, 1974. We were enjoying a pleasant evening in the
Philadelphia suburbs watching the great Bonnie Raitt perform. A little after
nine o’clock, Bonnie stopped the show to announce that the war criminal, lying
crook, anti-Semite, and all-around vengeful, paranoid scallywag Dick Nixon had
announced that he would be resigning as of noon the very next day. Raitt played
Auld Lang Syne and then finished her planned set. We went home afterwards and
celebrated in style. Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Dick Nixon’s idiot henchmen got
caught breaking into the Watergate offices of the DNC by security guard Frank
Wills, whose life was ruined because he did his job by reporting the break-in. Nearly
47 years later, Donald Trump’s idiot henchmen got caught – though they made no
attempt to hide anything – breaking into the Capitol. It did not take a
security guard to uncover this break-in. Trump’s malignant minions were caught
in the act by everyone watching the whole thing on live tv.
A number of Ratpublicans have
suggested that Mike Pence, who aided and abetted Turmp for five years, was a
hero on that day and deserved a medal. Why? Because he, like Frank Wills, did
his job? Pence spent much of Jan 6 running away from his boss’ angry mob (a mob
Pence still hopes to woo for a presidential run). The same mob who wanted to
hang him by his neck. Pence eventually carried out his constitutional duty,
though beforehand Pence was hoping he could carry out Turmp’s wishes and
overturn the legitimate election that made it clear he and his boss had lost
bigly. Frank Wills died in abject poverty, unable to afford water or
electricity. Mike Pence thinks he is running for president…of an imagined
Christian nation where the Bible trumps the Constitution.
Can Things Possibly Get Any
Verse?
As we have done most years
since 2008 when a wonderful poem was rescued from obscurity we present those
now famous stanzas with new verses being added yearly.
Here is the original long-lost
text as presented in 2008…
I stumbled across a bit of this
very old, well-known verse that I thought would be fun to share with everyone
at this special time of year.It’s an
age-old seasonal ditty and this being my favorite American holiday and
all.I’m not sure I remembered all of
the words correctly but I’ve rendered them to the best of my recollection, and
I may have been overzealous and inadvertently added a few verses that didn’t
exist at all.But, it’s full of holiday
magic and joy – a favorite of children and adults throughout the ages so read
it to your children and grandchildren to keep the tradition alive.Now without further ado, in honor of August
8-9, 1974, a moment in history, which our Founders would surely have savoured,
I bring you…
‘Twas the night before Resignation
‘Twas the night before Resignation, when all
through the house
Richard Nixon was cornered, like a trapped diseased mouse.
His burglars had screwed it tho they burgled with care,
His cover-up in ruins, soon the end would be there.
The Congress were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of impeachment danced in their heads.
Sam Irvin with his gavel, exposed all the crap,
And roused our democracy from a long winter’s nap.
So all o’er the land there arose such a clatter,
Even the public could see what was the matter.
And there it was every day on TV like a flash,
Then everyone knew the president was trash.
It was hard to imagine this crook being regal
Tho he said, “If the president does it then it is not illegal.”
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But his lies all exposed and the end of his career.
A great day for democracy, it happened so quick,
What could be worse than that horrid old Dick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And all those were sentenced and each one by name!
"Now Haldeman! now, Erlichman! now, Mitchell and Dean!
On, Colson! On, Liddy!, oh my what a scene!
They all came a tumbling from the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"
August 9, 1974 reimagined: Two
great tastes that taste great together: Nixon’s very victorious shameful resignation and Bush’s equally iconic/ironic MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
We hope this helps get you in
the mood. Keep the party going while there remains any glimmer of hope for the
future. All the aforementioned crises are not going away any time soon. But we
can take these two days to reflect on the past, take a deep breath knowing that
the political career of Donald Trump is melting away like the Wicked Witch
after Dorothy doused her with a bucket of water (the same thing might be
literally possible with Trump – has anyone tried it?), and duct tape our fingers
crossed for the future.
In the meantime, enjoy Day One, but be sure to get some rest.
You’ll need all your strength to get through Resignation Day(s) Two.
It was 48 years ago today that headlines like the one below appeared
all across the United States and the world. The 37th president
seemed to be in a bit of hot water, but was determined to ride out the storm (as he said during his resignation speech, “I have never been a quitter.”*). Some
say it was the booze talking. The headlines were very different the next day.
New York Daily News
August 7, 1974
Spoiler Alert: Yes, he fucking did.
Tune in to Paying Attention™ as
we interrupt our thoughts on current traumatic events – from the Climate
Crisis, to the Ukraine Crisis, to the Trump Crisis, to the Fascism-in-America
Crisis, to the nascent China Crisis, to the oceans, white with foam (of some
sort) – to celebrate, commiserate and cogitate over the glorious,
one-step-ahead-of-the-sheriff resignation of Dick Nixon, who we here at Paying Attention™
insist on having to kick around some more. Sure, Nixon only faced the threat
of impeachment. And it was only that one time. We would never have anticipated
that the next president to face the threat of impeachment would actually be
impeached for getting a blow job. Many people still think this is crazy…depending
on what their definition of “is” is.
Even more shocking, who could
have imagined back then that something like Donald Trump would come along and
ride his racism, insults and authoritarian cult bullshit to an Electoral
College victory? But that’s a tale for another day. Many other days. Too many
other days.
For now, go make your
Resignation Day(s) preparations: pre-order your wings and pizza, get the
popcorn ready, stock your bar, clean out your vape, and break out your Nixon
bong one more time…for Auld Lang Syne.
_______________________________________________________________ * Oddly, thirty-some years
later, Republican mental defective Sarah Palin also said she was "not a quitter" during her resignation speech (more on her soon).
Ed Venture
(Barely) Managing Editor
BONUS TIP
In case you have not seen this movie,
it’s a favorite around here:
As
will come as absolutely no surprise, we are getting real death panels. And guess who is preparing to
roll them out. Good guess. It’s anti-choice Ratpublican sadists, who are
generally fine with women dying, but are being forced to maintain at least some
limits or at least a façade on their misogyny and death fetishism.
According
to Slate:
After
Roe's fall, ethics committees are taking on a new responsibility: determining
whether a pregnant patient suffering a medical emergency may lawfully obtain an
abortion. This task is actually a throwback to the 1960s and early 1970s, when
states required hospitals to use "abortion committees" that decided
when a pregnancy was dangerous enough to merit termination.
Abortion
committees my ass. These are real, live, fucking DEATH PANELS. They will be purposed
with deciding who is to die – the mother or the fetus. These committees…I mean
DEATH PANELS will determine if the mother is sufficiently at risk of death –
whatever the fuck that means – to terminate the pregnancy or elsewise, to watch
the mother either suffer-but-survive or die, if their Magic 8-Ball was
insufficiently clairvoyant to predict the mother’s demise.
This Just In…
Voters in Kansas surprised pundits with a massive turnout to decisively squash an attempt to completely illegalize abortion in
the Sunflower State. Hopefully this bodes well for the forces of freedom and
sanity in November’s midterms.
Fight the Stupid!
This has been your Paying Attention™ Fraught
For The Day.
We
recently learned that the Secret Service, Trump’s Secret Service it should be
said, “lost” an unknown number of potentially pertinent text messages.
Trump’s
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari kept secret
the fact that his guys disappeared texts from January 5 and January 6, 2021.
Those dates might ring a bell. He simply, as was the raison d’etre of all Trump
appointees, ignored everything.
Actually,
that may not be entirely accurate. It is reported that in fact Cuffari actively
engaged in making sure this evidence would never again see the light of day by
putting a stop to planned recovery of the data. And the Secret Service houses
the premier
Trump’s
acting Department of Homeland Security (which oversees – overlooks? – the
Secret Service) Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli –
both unlawfully appointed – also seem to have “lost” evidence in the form of
texts from the days leading up to January 6, 2021. Thank goodness they weren’t
emails. They blame their dog, or something to that effect.
All
three of these fuckers – Wolff, Cuccinelli and Cuffari – apparently took Trump’s
loyalty oath more seriously than the one they took to defend the Constitution from
all enemies foreign and domestic.
To
quote Jon Stewart, “If this is America First, then America is fucked.” I love
it when he speaks French.
This has been your Paying Attention™ Question
For The Day.
Last
December Manchin told colleagues he believed parents would use
child tax credits to buy drugs and people would abuse paid leave to go hunting.
That would still put them well ahead of Mansion when gauging their impact on
society. We haven’t heard such tone-deaf bullshit since Mitt Romney. It’s not
that there aren’t examples of people misusing safety-net funds for
non-essential purposes, but when was the last time you heard some obscenely
rich douchebag like Mansion or Romney decrying the billions of taxpayer dollars
doled out to uber-profitable, deceptive, murderers like Exxon and their ilk?
You
just can’t beat these arrogant, out-of-touch, self-serving, blood-money-made
assholes. Seriously, you can’t beat them. Unless of course you yourself are
rich enough to beat the assault and battery rap.
UPDATE:
Defying all odds, Mansion was somehow persuaded by Chuck Schumer to sign on to
what’s left of Joe Biden’s signature legislative agenda. Such as it was.
Mansion spent months wrestling, wheedling, whining and whittling down Biden’s plan,
formerly known as Build Back Better.
Apparently,
in order to get Old King Coal to go along with wasting a bunch of money to keep
the Earth habitable for humans (I hear some of Mansion’s best friends are human,
very rich, but supposedly human) Democrats had to agree to include money to
help speed up the environment’s demise by making it easier to mine, drill, frack
and otherwise stay as busy as possible defiling as much of the Earth as he and
his buddies can while we try to save it. Who was it who said, “You cannot
simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”? I think it was that Einstein guy,
but what the hell did he know.
Oh,
and the package is now known as the Inflation Reduction Act. Excellent marketing
move.
So,
for the moment at least Democrats have enough votes to move forward. Except for
one thing. They don't. There remains one unpredictable, unreliable, irresponsible head case that goes by
the name Kyrsten Sinema. She is not commenting. And Mansion could change his
mind at any minute. It’s entirely possible he only relented knowing that Sinema
would not, thereby taking the heat off of himself. Who the fuck knows?
Bobby Darin – Call Me Irresponsible
Special Schmuck-Of-The-Day shout out to
another repeat offender – the entire Ratpublican caucus. They just voted
against the PACT Act to help veterans suffering from health problems related to
toxic burn pits – something they voted for just a month ago with an 84-14 margin.
Jon Stewart v. Rafael "Ted" Cruz
Also, Susan Collins
warned that same-sex-marriage talks are in jeopardy due to a Ratpublican hissy fit over Democrats winning on
addressing the climate crisis and a tiny tax increase on corporations. Sore losers, sore winners. A canker sore on the
body politic. And the nation.
So many schmucks, so few days.
This has been your Paying Attention™ Schmuck Of
The Day. Fuck Joe Manchin, either way.
UPDATE #2 (3:00 PM):
When asked by fellow idiot Chuck Todd, “Do you want the
Democrats to keep control?” Manchin dodged the question and started babbling
about politics Joe Manchin style. When asked if he would support Joe Biden in
2024, Joe Blow again slipped into a response coma. Democrats really need to
pick up two more senate seats in order to render Manchin and Sinema moot.
Walker lying about being an FBI agent while
sporting a Cassius Clay t-shirt.
A Cassius Clay t-shirt, you ask? Don’t ask. He might answer.
There
are also other fun facts about Walker’s past. Besides lying about being in the
FBI, and threatening to blow his wife’s brains out while pointing a gun at her
head, Walker has been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. What has
not been widely reported is that he also has singular-personality disorder. It seems
unlikely that any of Walker’s personalities can form a intelligible sentence or
manufacture a coherent thought.
Just thought you might like to know.
This has been your Paying Attention™ Fun Fact
For The Day.
The Clodfather
continues his pathetic coup attempt. On July 19 – as in just over a week ago,
as in 18 months after his miserably-failed agent-assaulting, lunch-hurling insurrection
– Trump placed one of his patented Perfect Phonecalls, this one to Wisconsin
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Vos brushed it off as just another day at the
office. According to Vos, “It’s very consistent. He makes his case, which I
respect. He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin. I explained
it's not allowed under the constitution. He has a different opinion.” Something
you respect? Really? He has a different opinion? Are you fucking kidding me?
Yeah, he has an opinion that differs from the fucking law and the Constitution.
That does not simply qualify as “a different opinion.” That qualifies as
BREAKING THE FUCKING LAW. Wait, don’t tell me, you would vote for him again
should he become your party’s nominee in 2024. Read my lips: go fuck yourself.
Many
people are talking about the fact that the January 6 Hearings are beginning to
take their toll on Ratpublicans. Even some Trump supporters are starting to
turn awayfrom the disgraced, twice-impeached, treasonous,
ex-one-term-president and failed blogger.
Finally,
we hear that Attorney General Merrick Garland is turning his attention to the
previous White House and what appears to be a vast, illegal and unavoidably
stupid conspiracy to defraud, dismember and destroy democracy. Garland seems to
be signaling that there is no one immune from his Justice Department’s
investigation. Don’t hold your breath, but do keep your fingers crossed. And stay
tuned.
The
problem is, even though most if not all of these foul weather friends might
slink away from Der Furor, they are in no way losing their taste for Trumpism,
i.e., anti-science, anti-social, theocratic authoritarianism, with a heapin’
helpin’ of racism on the side.
Without
a doubt, Donald Trump belongs in the dustbin of history. Right now. He needs to
be in the rearview mirror, fading from view. But that will only solve the
problem of Trump itself. Our eyes have seen the carnage of the coming of the Turd.
His stench goes marching on. Gory, gory, how he do ya.
Richard Nixon tried to write his attempt at
democracide off as “a third-rate burglary” though Watergate ended up being his
Waterloo. Donald Trump’s attempt to end the American Experiment finally put
truth to Nixon’s lie. Compared to the deadly Trump Insurrection, Nixon’s
Watergate begins to look like a third-rate burglary indeed.
The January 6
Committee is taking a break from regaling us with their soon-to-be-Emmy-winning
series of public hearings. Their work is nowhere near complete. It appears we
will be hearing from them as they prepare the next season of The Old and The
Feckless. One teaser being tossed around is the possibility of a subpoena for fascist-adjacent
conspiracy aficionado and all-around crackpot Ginni Thomas.
Hey, remember when
Ginni Thomas said of the January 6 Committee, “I can’t wait to clear up
misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them.”? It was only five weeks
ago, but it may not have gotten the airplay it should have. It should have been
#1 with a bullet…as they say in the biz. Remember her riveting testimony? Me
neither. I’m sure the committee would have made some time, maybe even primetime
if she was serious about clearing up misconceptions.
And then, remember
when 10 days after Ginni, thinking she would outsmart everyone, said she was
looking forward to setting us straight, her lawyer sent an eight-page letter to
the committee asking for justification as to why his client should appear? Did
her lawyer remember that his client proudly volunteered to testify to “clear up
misconceptions?” Does her lawyer know that Miss Ginni has something to hide? Maybe
something she is too stupid to realize she should be hiding?
And remember when
Ginni’s hubby and most corrupt justice in the Supreme Court’s history Clarence
Thomas was the lone dissenting vote in a decision that forced Ginni’s hero and
disgraced, twice-impeached, one-term president and failed blogger Donald Trump
to turn documents over to investigators? I guess being the most corrupt justice
in Supreme Court history affords one greater freedom to be a scumbag than the
average Supreme Court justice.
Ahhh, the good old
days.
But here’s the real
question for tonight:
How long before
Clarence offers Ketanji Brown Jackson the same Coke can he offered to Anita
Hill?
These have been your Paying Attention™ Questions
For The Night.
