Broken News

Another Fake Hoax

September 16, 2022

The unrelenting world-wide climate crisis hoax has exposed another major hoax. Dinosaur tracks. Apparently, some dastardly prankster had put fake dinosaur tracks at the bottom of a Texas river. Lying scientists are telling us that the giant make-believe footprints were left by a dinosaur 113,000,000 years ago. Yeah sure, and Donald Trump stole hundreds of classified documents when he left the White House after Joe Biden “defeated him” in the fake, stolen 2020 election. Who do these people think they’re kidding?

Alleged dinosaur tracks found after Texas “river” "dries up"

Fake drought conditions, like those we are being told are happening all over the world, caused the Paluxy River in a place amusingly called Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas to dry up, exposing the hoax tracks last visible in the year 2000. Of course you can see the bottom of the river – everyone knows that water is invisible. Next they’ll be telling us we don’t need fermented dinosaur juice to run cars because they can run on electricity…whatever that is.

Man caught making “dinosaur tracks” in “dried up” Paluxy River in Texas

Louis Jacobs, a fake vertebrate paleontologist at Southern Methodist University told a New York Times reporter, “Those footprints, they’re spectacular because they’re deep. You can see the toenails. There’s more than one kind, and there’s a lot of them.” I’ll believe it when I see a real dinosaur or when I hear Sean Hannity report it.

For now, I'm sticking with super-genius Herschel Walker who said, “At one time, science said man came from apes. Did it not? If that is true, why are there still apes? Think about it.” As many times as Walker was hit in the head playing pro football, and his multiple personality disorder, and the fact that there are heads of lettuce with more cortical activity, who would better know how science works?

You know what else is a hoax? Intelligent Ratpublicans.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled conspiracy theories.

Science Postscript:

Matt Wuerker

Marty Two Bulls

It's The Democracy, Stupid

Your Vote Counts, But Who Counts Your Vote?

September 14, 2022

We are a mere eight weeks away from the most important midterm elections in generations. If Democrats cannot hold on to both houses of Congress, this country will be thrown into reverse so fast the transmission will be blown to smithereens, the air bags will decapitate us and the seat belts will cut off circulation to the brain and most of the body. If Team Tmurp tips the scales, it’s back to American Carnage. This time, drinking bleach will be mandatory. And dozens of armed, mentally defective members of Congress will storm the Capitol in order to overturn the 2020 election next January. We risk having Moscow Mitch back in charge, Kevin McCarthy or some other demented troll as Speaker. Common wisdom holds that the party that wins the presidency typically loses ground in the subsequent midterm elections for the House and Senate. 

Now, stay with me here, this is admittedly a bit twisted, but we surely live in twisted times.

Most Ratpublicans, including no small number of office-holders, continue to insist that Donald Turnip beat Joe Biden in 2020, notwithstanding the unrelenting tsunami of facts, every pertinent court decision, including many by Turmp-appointed judges, to the contrary. And the inconvenient truth that Joe Biden currently resides not at Mor-on Lardo, or Badmonster or any other soon-to-be-bankrupt, tasteless Turmp property, but at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, which presumably, a large majority of Americans still believes to be the White House, and the seat of presidential power in the America that one assumes Turmp made great again during his astounding, albeit disgraced, impeachment-ridden, seditious single term.

I imagine this is not yet making any sense, or seemingly even thoughtful points, but again I implore you, hang in there; this won’t take much longer.

Since Ratpublicans believe they won the last presidential election, and since almost every Ratpublican running for re-election must continue to kiss Turmp’s ring, ass, and who-knows-what-else, should not the common wisdom hold that they be the ones losing ground in November?

Ratpublicans surely believe and fear this as evidenced by their frenzied attempts to disenfranchise as many Democratic and democratic voters as possible, lest they get their bloated white asses handed to them again in November 2022.

But Wait, There’s Moron

For his part mentally diminutive senator Rant Paul, when he is not busy managing his Medusa hairdo or haranguing and inspiring death threats against Anthony Fauci with his patented and patently insane conspiracy theories, has his own – let’s call them thoughts – on voting and elections. The dumbass doctor from Kentucky tweeted (and I promise you, I am not making this up):

How to steal an election: ‘Seeding an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results.’

Now, you are probably thinking to yourself, or saying to whomever is within earshot, or perhaps no one in particular, “What the fuck is wrong with this Kentucky fuckwit? This sounds strikingly like what used to pass for – what was that called, oh yeah – VOTING.” As Joe Biden recently said to the largest crowd ever assembled, that Ratpublicans’ endgame was “To turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore.” Ratpublicans long ago gave up supporting voting or democracy. They simply cannot win most elections by, as Runt Paul said, “convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results.” How could they? Their only actual policies are 1) tax cuts for the richest Americans, 2) stop people from voting, and 3) take away women’s right to choose.

Mike Lukovich

And Joe Biden is the one whose poll numbers are low.

Actual album cover from actual 1971 album

I. Mangrey, or else.

Quantum Limp

We Know What You Did Last Week...Do You?

September 13, 2022

Wow. Mr. Person-Woman-Man-Camera-TV may be having a wee problem with his very, very large uh-brain.

September 26, 2018

On September 3, 2022 while playing the old Oh-Yeah-If-I’m-A-Fascist-Then-You’re-A-Fascist card as a rejoinder to Joe Biden finally calling a fascist a fascist…well, a semi-fascist, the self-proclaimed Very Stable Genius seemed to have completely lost touch with the space/time continuum (you can add this to all the other things with which Il Douche has lost touch, like democracy, intelligence and reality). Trump’s hanging-by-fingernails grasp of reality was never anything but a flimsy façade. But now, even as he and his enablers loudly (in typical Ratpublican projection mode) question Joe Biden’s mental well-being, Trump tossed out this mind-bending little tidbit:

“Last week (italics mine, psychotic break, his), the weirdo — he's a weirdo — Mark Zuckerberg came to the White House, kissed my ass all night. “Sir, I'd love to have dinner, Sir. I'd love to have dinner. I'd love to bring my lovely wife.” All right, Mark, come on in. “Sir, you're number one on Facebook. I'd like to congratulate you.” Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it.”

Last week? Does he mean that, along with the thousands of documents, hundreds of which are classified, that Trump stole from the White House, he also walked out with a copy of the key to the front door. I wonder if Biden knows that the guy he beat like a dusty rug has been sculking around the White House meeting with Mark Fuckerberg nearly 600 days since he was unceremoniously tossed out like a cheeseburger that has gone undetected, growing moldier and moldier for six years under the bed.

More likely, what came out of Trump’s face sphincter was, as usual, just a verbal version of what emanates from the other end of his feeding tube and takes 10 flushes to eliminate from his gold-plated toilet – even when there are no added documents.

A very stupid genius, who is still – despite the odds – able to find his head

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled time warp.

 

Fascism: Love It Or Leave It

Is America Semi-Dead?

September 10, 2022

“We want all voting to stop.”
Donald Trump, November 3, 2020

Trump said this as it became clear to everyone outside of his cult and the voices in his head that he was on the verge of losing the election in 2020.

Fun fact: Trump and the majority of Ratpublicans are now saying this as a matter of course. This is the permanent status quo they envision for their new version of “democracy.” If they are being honest, and they most certainly are not, they would be perfectly happy if all voting would stop.

Lest you think this hyperbole, current state senator, Pennsylvania Ratpublican gubernatorial candidate and Confederate cosplay creep Doug Mastriano actually said this on purpose:

I could decertify every machine in the state with a stroke of a pen via my secretary of state. I already have a secretary of state picked out. It’s a world-class person that knows voting integrity better than anyone else in the nation, I think, and I already have a team that’s gonna be built around that individual.

If that’s not democracy then…wait a minute, that is totally and unquestionably not democracy or anything like it. And just for the record, here is Mastriano posing (while still on active duty) with fellow U.S. Army War College faculty waaay back in 2014:

Mastriano (left). Notice that no one else is dressed as a racist traitor.

Did we mention this picture was taken in Gettysburg, PA?

As if all this Mastriano malignancy was not enough, Rolling Stone just published a video of the fascist wanna-be-governor. The quote comes from a Zoom billed as a “Global Prayer for Election Integrity” on December 30, 2020 just one week before the January 6 insurrection that Mastriano attended. He allegedly did not enter the Capitol building, but was photographed (or whatever it is the kids call it these days) outside the Capitol that day. Make sure you’re seated, but not in the driver’s seat before attempting to read this perfect quote:

I pray that we’ll take responsibility. We’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution, and as well by You, providentially. I pray for the leaders also in the federal government, God, on the Sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.

Whatever could he have meant by “rise up with boldness?”

There’s No ‘Semi’ In Fascist

Not only are most Ratpublican losers refusing to concede defeat, but they are planning, if they do manage to get elected, to ensure that any subsequent elections can only be won by other Ratpublicans. One dipshit who lost a primary explained that he would have challenged the results even if he had won.

They are not semi-fascists, as Joe Biden called them. They are full-blown fascists who refuse to admit (at least publicly) and refuse to accept that there is any way they can ever lose any elections. That being said, it makes sense that, seeing how Ratpublicans have always been opposed to wasting money on anything other than tax cuts for the rich and government subsidies (i.e., welfare) to oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and the like, that they believe it is a waste of money to even have elections. They clearly believe that they should simply have each of their candidates appointed to whatever office they choose so we can get on with the fascism and racism and baby-making by rape and incest. And the end of a habitable planet.

copyright 2018 I. Mangrey

One More Thing

According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 

Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll – including one in four Republicans – said Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement is threatening America's democratic foundations.

It's about fucking time. This keeps me nauseously optimistic.

I. Mangrey reporting.  I hold these truths to be self evident.                                                 

                                                                                   

A Poem

Je M’accuse!

September 9, 2022

Interesting?

                              Ironic?

     Call it what you will.

The case is called “Donald J. Trump v. United States of America.”

                         Literally.

Has it not always been thus?

Two Questions For The Day

September 8, 2022

Today's questions are:

1) When was the FBI planning to search every single Trump property, including Ivana’s coffin by the first tee at his Badmonster Golf Club in New Jersey?

Master of the perfect phone call

2) Who will uncover the perfect phone calls between Il Douche and District Judge Aileen Cannon – the unqualified Trump appointee who issued the special master order, contrary to all reason and legal precedent, and halted the FBI investigation – to explain exactly what he needed her to do?

David Bromberg - Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair

These have been your Paying Attention™ Two Questions For The Day.

Thought For The Day

Civility Is Highly Overrated

September 7, 2022

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
President Joseph Biden to heckler, September 5, 2022

Taking a break from my usual tap-dancing around the issues, usually with too many words, let me be attempt to be brief. Fuck Donald Trump all the way to hell. 

This fucker is still whining about the FBI’s “unannounced raid” on Mor-on-Lardo. Maybe he should talk to Breonna Taylor about unannounced raids. Oh wait, Breonna Taylor is dead. And she did not even steal classified documents from the White House. In fact, Ms. Taylor never did anything wrong before the police came crashing into her home – unannounced – while she lay sleeping in bed. And she ended up shot to death. By police.

Oh, and that unannounced raid on Mor-on-Lardo? It was anything but unannounced.

When I wore this hat to the voting booth in 2020,

the initialism ITMFA stood for:

Impeach The Mother Fucker Already

I doubt Dan Savage who coined ITMFA would mind my slight adjustment:
                                       Indict The Mother Fucker Already
Fuck Donald Trump.

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

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

(Not So) Fun Fact For The Day

Something To Help Cheer You Down

September 6, 2022

Judge? Not!

In case you missed it, Donald Trump stole hundreds of classified documents (which is a crime), stashed them in various places (which is a crime), likely threatening national security (which is a crime), ignored repeated requests to return the documents and ignored a subpoena (which is a crime), lied about having more stolen documents (which is a crime), forced the FBI to search his Florida resort/home/fake office (which was not a crime), and then hand-picked a “judge” he appointed (after he had lost the 2020 election) who deemed it best to halt the FBI investigation (which is a shanda), because it might harm his reputation (what about America's reputation?). Now, ain’t that America.

Just thought you might like to know.

This has been your Paying Attention™ (Not So) Fun Fact For The Day.

Choosy Mothers

Eff You, You Eff

September 5, 2022

Whatever else may happen at Paying Attention, we pride ourselves on always trying to be fair and honest. With that in mind, it is important to own up to the fact that the anti-choice crowd on the Right deserves to be treated honestly. They are not just virulent misogynists taking away the right of women to choose what to do with their bodies. They really are much more well-rounded in their fear and loathing of choice.

These are the same fuckwits who are constantly caterwauling about cancel culture.

Ratpublicans across the country are hard at work eliminating all manner of choice. They are banning books in order to eliminate the choice of what children can read. They are banning choice for teachers and what they can talk about in class. They are trying to stop people from having the choice of who they can marry.

Is Being Stupid A Choice?

As if this anti-choice tsunami was not sufficient, Ratpublicans are attempting to eliminate the choice of who can win elections. Joe Biden laid out this agenda clearly and succinctly, speaking truth to bullshit in front of Independence Hall recently:

Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where the MAGA Republicans are today.
                 President Joe Biden, Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2022

Biden Drops The F-Bomb

A week before his very strong and powerful speech in Philadelphia, Biden went out on a very secure limb by calling Donald Trump and MAGA Ratpublicans “semi-fascists.” The semi-fascists did not take Biden’s sudden (and long overdue) truth telling very well. Despite many of them having labeled progressives as fascist repeatedly for years, they did not appreciate having themselves defined as such despite being the ones who refuse to accept the result of a free and fair election. Despite being the ones who idolize Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Il Douche himself – Donald Trump. And, despite being the ones who do not want anyone who thinks differently than they do to have any kind of choice to do as they please. Presumably, some resented the use of ‘semi’ as prefix.

In response to Biden’s Philadelphia speech, Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state.” The state that Trump believes belongs to him. The state that he sent his minions to overthrow on January 6, 2021. The state that decided four long years of Trump’s self-enriching, criminal, sociopathic, authoritarian regime was enough, and chose Joe Biden to rehabilitate. Words have actual meanings, though those meanings have been known to change. As of this writing, the word fascist does not mean “anyone who disagrees with me.” Fascism denotes an authoritarian, anti-democratic, corporate-dominated system of governance, where freedom is just another word for nothing to see here.

Where They Go One, They Go All

Ratpublicans were apoplectic when Biden accurately labeled “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans” as dangerous to democracy. They claimed he categorized all Ratpublicans as such. Guilty conscience much? In all fairness, where exactly is the dividing line between MAGA Ratpublicans and so-called non-MAGA Ratpublicans? Donald Trump continues to hold sway over Ratpublicans – if he decides to run again, he will be their nominee. 

The entire leadership of the party has enabled Trump since it became clear that he was crushing the pathetic field of candidates in 2016. That includes just about every rival that Trump nick-named, figuratively spanked and childishly humiliated during that campaign, all of whom have since made a cottage industry out of kissing Trump’s sorry ass. So really, just about every single Mitch-McConnell-ized, every single Kevin-McCarthy-addled GQP bastard is either a semi-fascist or a semi-fascist-enabler, or semi-fascist adjacent. Or a full-fledged fucking fascist.

More recently, Il Douche has claimed that he is financially supporting some number of insurrectionists (the number is most likely zero). He also told an interviewer, “I mean full pardons with an apology to many. I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons, full pardons.” Not one Ratpublican made a peep about any of this. Likely because they would never disrespect the Orange Goose that lays the giant democracy-goose-eggs. It’s the only choice they have.

Fair or otherwise, I leave you with a beautiful, trenchant quote from the man who nicknamed Trump Fuckface von Clownstick, the brilliant Jon Stewart:

I’m not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.

I. Mangrey reporting. I hold these truths to be self-evident.