Paying Disrespect

DarnOld Trump v. America's KIA

September 1, 2024

Approximately three thousand solemn memorials are held at Arlington National Cemetery every year. Not one of those events has ever required any intervention by ANC authorities since participants are always and only there to pay respects to loved ones who perished defending America, our democracy and our Constitution.

That is, until some ignorant MAGAts invited the Orange Ghoul to dance on the grave of their departed loved one. Trump has never shown a whit, or even a half whit of respect to anyone in the military, living or dead, not privates, not generals. Plus, no one expects Trump to do anything that does not benefit him and involve him as the center of attention, so cemetery authorities provided explicit ground rules to Trump’s team in advance of their incursion. We have not been able to verify exactly how many of those rules Trump broke during his assault on the resting place of countless fallen Americans at Arlington. The smart money says all of them.

Good times at gravesides for DarnOld Trump

Not only did Old Bonespurs flout the cemetery’s rules against campaign photography amid the gravesites, he ignored the wishes of one of the families who similarly did not want their loved one’s grave photographed. Naturally, Trump’s team immediately posted a campaign ad misappropriating ANC on TikTok. Scumbags gonna scum.

We do have it on good authority that one of Trump’s goons verbally and physically assaulted a female cemetery official who attempted to stop Trump from breaking the law by abusing his time at ANC to film a campaign ad. The assaultee opted not to press charges out of fear of retaliation by Trump-addled maniacs, so we will never get the full story.

Trump claimed ignorance (finally something bordering on truth) of the clearly delineated just before the event regulations, insisting that there just happened to be cameras right near him  

Fat, Furious and Fucked In The Head

We have acquired advance screenings and posters of upcoming scams from Trump’s latest soon-to-be-failed “businesses” – Trump Studios, whose mission is to remake B-movies in his own festering image. 

After shamelessly (as always) and illegally (no surprise there either) soiling the memories of thousands of those he considers “suckers and losers” buried in Arlington for another in an as-yet-unending series of distasteful and disgraceful photo-ops, crimes and unbridled buffoonery, DarnOld Trump decided to turn his unwanted attention to plagiarizing a popular movie franchise. Not that we here at Paying Attention™ could give even half a shit about the seemingly endless iterations of the Fast and Furious pantheon, but crime is crime (theoretically, unless you talk to the Supreme Court regarding Trump) and we feel a responsibility to bring you any news that washes up on the shores of our secret undisclosed, non-existent headquarters.

  

I. Mangrey reporting.

Summer Rerun - Not a Chance

Being There Now

Nowhere in particular
August 20, 2017

The main character in Jerzy Kosisnky’s 1970 novel Being There was named Chauncey Gardener.  He was affectionately called Chance. Chance was a gardener. He grew up and then remained in the household of his wealthy employer, and had no exposure to the outside world with the exception of the substantial amount of time he spent watching television. Chance was evicted after his benefactor died. All he knew of life came from watching TV. Sound familiar?

Peter Sellers masterfully portrayed Chance in the 1979 movie based on and named for the book. Everyone who meets him, including the president, interprets Chance’s gardening-based utterances as profound philosophical life lessons. The movie ends with high-level movers and shakers deciding that Chance is the only man they could back as the next president, convinced that his lack of personal history, his down-home “wisdom” and lack of political experience would be tremendous assets for getting him into the White House. Sound familiar?

The main difference of course between Chance and the person we are currently all still forced to be thinking of, the man we cannot stop thinking of as hard as we might try, is that Chance was a pure innocent. There was no pretense to him. He was what he claimed to be – a gardener. He did not know how to read. When asked what he read, he would answer honestly as always, “I like to watch TV.” People read into that what they wanted. Chance understood nothing of the world he lived in. And Chance had absolutely no interest in being famous, unlike his real-life doppelganger, who wants attention, fame and adoration above all else…with the possible exception of the ability to maintain a candy-corn-colored hair-like substance atop his empty cranium.

Being Chrump

Chance’s evil twin – No-Chance – demonstrates a complete absence of innocence. He is 100% artifice. From his fake wealth, to his fake words, to his fake hair and hue. Like Chance though, he knows only what he gathers from television (and the occasional intellectually disabled conspiracy addict). He has no idea how any of it applies to real life. He has no interest in real life. He has never had to. He never had a real job, grew up in the house of a wealthy man – except while sequestered at a military academy, due to his utter lack of ability to have non-sociopathic interactions with other humans. He was a bad seed, now grown into a fatally-diseased plant, sowing its seeds to the four winds with wreck-ful abandon.

It is long past time that everyone ridicule everything this so-called alt-president says. Every. Single. Word.

Anyway, the picture below was meant to be worth a thousand words. Apparently, it was only worth about 450.

“I like to be watched on TV.”

I. Mangrey reporting. I’m getting sick of watching.

Paying Attention™ Special Feature: Context Unnecessary

Always Avoid Awkward

August 30, 2024

Jeff Timmer, a political strategist and Lincoln Project senior advisor snarked, “I leave out a roughly 30-year period where I helped elect Republicans. Instead, I say I was in prison. Makes things less awkward.”

For The Context Obsessed

Timmer was responding to an unsurprisingly idiotic “exposé” on Kamala Harris’ early work history and why her time at McDonalds wasn't on her resume.

This has been a Paying Attention™ Special Feature: Context Unnecessary

Question For The Day – Pick A Side Already

What, Me Racist?

August 28, 2024

You know, it’s just possible that Droopy J. Trump had a point. (Just kidding, that could never happen, it’s just a vehicle to set up a mediocre joke.)

You might recall that during Trump’s unmitigated disaster at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, ABC News’ Rachel Scott asked the self-proclaimed “least racist person anywhere in the world” (yes, he really said this)* the first question: “Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only on the ticket Because she is a Black woman?”

Trump’s now infamous and horrifyingly ignorant and racist response concluded with, “So I don't know, is she Indian, or is she Black?”

Sorry, we couldn’t resist giving this another airing

Somehow Trump neglected to include yet another minority of which Harris is a member. And that, my friends is why we here at Paying Attention™ get paid the big bucks.** So here it is, without any further ado…

Today’s Question For The Day:

So which is it? Is Kamala Harris a Black, an Indian or a woman and when did she decide to be whichever one she is or claims to be? And exactly whatthefuck is Donald Trump and when if ever is he planning on becoming a man?

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*Full disclosure: Trump and his father were sued by the Justice Department of housing discrimination in rental properties in New York in 1973. As became commonplace, the Trumps settled, avoiding any admission of guilt. When confronted with this inconvenient truth by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, Donald lovingly threw his father under the bus. Spoiler Alert: they were not discriminating against White people.

**For the record, we have gotten exactly zero bucks up to this point. Did we mention that we’re really rich? No, we did not. Because we are not. It is only out of badly misplaced pride that we are not constantly asking for money with which to run this slipshod operation.

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

Paying Attention™ Secret Word

Loudy With A Chance Of Leaks

August 25, 2024

Convicted Felon Donald Trump, who has a sordid history with classified information and documents, says he has decided to forego security briefings during the run-up to the November 5^th election. You would be excused for wondering why Trump would pass up a way to cash in on leaking our secrets. You would also be excused for not believing a single word that oozed out of that man’s face sphincter, and that he is in fact being denied access to any and all classified information seeing as he is still under indictment for stealing classified documents. And inciting insurrection. And was impeached for making a "perfect phone call" attempting to extort Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fabricate dirt on Joe Biden. And that sort of thing.

According to the lying, traitorous turd, “I don’t need that briefing. They come in. They give you a briefing, and then two days later, they leak it. And then they say, 'You leaked it.' The only way to solve that problem is not to take it – I don’t want it.”

And it doesn’t want you.

Surely it couldn’t be because from the early days of his ruinous time in the White House, Trump has shown more allegiance to Russia than to the United States. In the early months of his administration, Trump hosted Russian “diplomats” in the Oval Office sans witnesses, and he blabbed national security secrets to the “diplomats.” As everyone knows, on his way out the door following his disastrous single term, Trump made off with a shitload of classified documents, then tried to hide them from authorities when he was caught tiny red-handed. If it was not for his pet judge Aileen Cannon protecting him from justice, Trump could very well have been facing the consequences of his grossly illegal actions as we speak.

Donald the delusional dipshit added that he doesn’t need any briefing because he already knows “what’s happening” around the world. As if. 

He doesn't even know where the fuck his wife is.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Secret Word. 

Fun Fact(s) For The Day – Older ≠ Wiser

Are Who Experienced?

August 24, 2024

Even though Donald Trump spent four painful (for us, that is) years doing alternative-reality-TV in the White House, his opponent Kamala Harris has much more experience to do the actual job of being president in our shared reality. Plus, she is not a demented moron. And she has bigger balls.

I’d say that Harris is eating Trump’s lunch, but she is much too smart and healthy to go anywhere near whatever the hell he eats.

Bonus Fact

Speaking of experience, do you realize that after Tim Walz has completed his two terms as vice president, at which time he will likely run for president, he will still be 10 years younger than the other guy running for president today?

This has been your Paying Attention™ Fun Fact(s) For The Day.

Do Not Capitulate

Unconventional Conventions

August 23, 2024

There is a giant chasm between the two parties vying for control of our federal government. One party is offering a positive vision of the future where everyone is free to carry out the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. They are the party of diversity and inclusion. The other party will not be satisfied merely controlling the government; they also want control over every single aspect of our lives. It is a party full of white nationalists and exclusion. It is the hate and carnage party, that offers nothing but fear and loathing.  Remember, not all Trumpers are racists, but all racists are Trumpers.  

Love, joy and happiness

The DNC was a rip-roarin’ party. The RNC was like a funeral march. And not one of those New Orleans Second Line celebrations of a life well lived. More like a gathering of families after a Ratpublican-sanctioned mass murder at an elementary school. This funerial feel is not without good reason. After all, the Fascist/Trump Party’s candidate has one foot in the grave (fingers crossed) and the other in his mouth. And they are hell-bent on burying democracy in the USA.

Death, destruction and douchebaggery

The Democracy Party brought out the brilliant and uplifting Stevie Wonder who sang his ageless anthem of hope and personal growth Higher Ground. The Fascist/Trump Party dragged out an older-but-no-wiser Kid Rock who amped up the hate and personal stagnation as he led his fellow lemmings in raising their fists and yelling “Fight, fight, fight.” The Dems offered up the likes of Oprah Winfrey, while the Ratfuckers exhumed Hulk Hogan who ripped his shirt off to expose another shirt. Whatthefuckever dude.

The Fascist/Trump Party has a new Bible; it was built by more than 100 ex-Trump administration veterans vermin for their and their tool Donald Trump’s take-over of American democracy. It’s called Project 2025: A Mandate For Leadership. To quote Gil Scott-Heron (below), “Mandate my ass.”

Gil Scott-Heron - B-Movie

I. Mangrey, Do Not Capitulate

Won’t Get Trumped Again

Fuck America First

August 22, 2024

Hey, remember when Ronald Reagan before him and Richard Nixon before that, it appears that life-long criminal – now new and improved with 34 felony convictions – Donald Trump is working feverishly, making more of his patently absurd ‘perfect phone calls. These calls are going to none other than Bibi Netanyahu.

Leading up to the 1980 election, Reagan secretly worked to keep the Iranian hostages in captivity to scuttle Jimmy Carter’s reelection bid, and like Nixon’s sabotaging of Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks to help him win election in 1968, an early entry in Dicky Dick’s shit-list of crimes against the United States. Trump wants Netanyahu to avoid agreeing to a ceasefire until the election is over…whatever that means to Trump.

PBS’ Judy Woodruff during coverage of the first night of the DNC, revealed something as unsurprising as it is despicable and murderous. And by most accounts, if true, bigly illegal. As Woodruff spoke about how much the Harris-Walz campaign would love a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Woodruff casually added a mind-blowing scoop, which if true might eclipse all of Trump's other assaults on our democracy and on morality:

“The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the prime minister of Israel urging him not to cut a deal right now because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign.”

The former president, current candidate to reclaim the office he once disgraced, and unrepentant sociopath allegedly made his latest perfect call on August 14, according to Axios, which cited two unnamed “U.S. sources who were briefed on the call.”

One cannot help but ponder whether the mainstream media will follow up on the story or not. I’m not holding my breath…or my food down.

The next day, Netanyahu's office denied that the call took place. Of course, Netanyahu, like Trump is desperate to stay in power in order to avoid prison time just like his good buddy Trump, a private citizen with whom he recently visited at Mor-on-Lago. In a statement quoted by The Times of Israel, a Netanyahu spokesperson said: “Contrary to media reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not speak yesterday with former President Donald Trump.” Aha! So the call took place on a different day, or maybe during their very private in-person meeting a few weeks ago.

Trump making one of his patented perfect phone calls, hopped up on covfefe

We already know that Trump made another frenzied batch of perfect phone calls to his allies (i.e. slaves) in the Fascist/Trump Party. These calls were designed to convince (i.e. coerce) his soulless minions to avoid passing the bipartisan border security bill poised to pass both Houses of Congress until Der Furor put his tiny foot down on the throats of his loyal lackies. Surely there were very fine people on both ends of the call.

All of this was and is totally and perpetually predictable as part of Trump’s ostentatiously Orwellian America First chant – a slogan first adopted by American Nazis in the 1940s. As everyone but Trump’s cultists knows, Trump is only and forever meaning ‘Trump First’ as he cares nothing at all about America, or his followers, who he thinks are losers. So, keep those dollars – you know, the ones Trump insisted he didn’t need because he’s “really rich” and would very easily fund his campaign all by himself – rolling in you morons. Give the rich guy all your money.

It is clear that Trump buried the lede* and a key word describing his true intent; what he really means is Fuck America First. If you do not know this, seek immediate medical attention. When Trump thinks of Fuck America First it is his manifesto. We use the phrase to describe how we feel about the whole America First attitude.  

If you can think of a single Democratic candidate for president – or anything else for that matter – who even considered sabotaging America for their own selfish, narcissistic, sociopathic desires please let me know and I will gladly stand corrected.

This bullshit is guaranteed to snowball (don’t get all excited Don, Jr., this refers to actual snow, not the white powder you seem so fond of shoveling up your nose) should Trump and his 34 felony convictions slither back into the White House.

Or maybe…

Leonard Cohen – Democracy

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*But we did not.

I. Mangrey, not phoning it in. 

Thought For The Day – Is It Art?

The Not-So-Great Escape

August 21, 2024

I was desperate to escape our dystopian present for a bit. I thought I’d enjoy going to the art museum. But I found it was just like watching dry paint.

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