Bringing You the Future Before It’s Too Late, Part I

Predictions, Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle

The End (of The Year) is Near

December 26, 2024

Where Will We Have Gone From Here

Well, here we are once again. One year dies a painful and horrific death, another poised to take its place. The year 2024 will perhaps be best known for two things. The first being the spun-as-heroic-albeit-much-too-late exit of Joe Biden from the presidential race, leaving the nomination to Kamala Harris. Harris insisted on being a woman of color throughout the campaign, which all but assured her defeat, though she fought a smart valiant fight.

The second thing that has made 2024 so special is that Trump, running on a platform of rich-getting-richer-poor-getting-poorer, fascists getting fascier and shit getting shitter, squeaked out a popular vote victory along with winning the unpopular/Electoral College vote. As it now stands, American democracy has been knocked to the canvas, without the refs noticing the low blow that achieved this end.

One wafer-thin mutiny

Sure the Climate Crisis catastrophes accelerated in number and degree across the globe as oil companies and assholes like Donald “Drill, Baby, Drill” Trump continued to sabotage all attempts to reduce human impacts on global conditions.

If this was the America that Donald Trump is looking to make, he would have either been locked up pending trials or found himself briefly looking up at the 15^th-story window from which he had only moments earlier been looking down.

Oopsie, damned Russian-made windows

Save America From Americans

Still, thanks to Ratpublicans insisting on eliminating elections, democracy and reality in general, the stupidity – now with more fascism – is so overwhelming and so widespread that our entire system of political and social norms, such as they are, risk collapsing into economic depression, environmental devastation, fascism and chaos. It is not hyperbole to imagine long-term irreparable damage to civilization itself if these medieval Machiavellian morons have their way. This is not one of our predictions (Or is it?), but just something think and gnash your teeth about.

Many people do not realize that predicting the future is not an exact science. Truth be told, science is not always an exact science. A large swath of America does not even think science is real. In reality – as if that’s still a thing – nobody can predict the future…as if that’s still a thing. Nonetheless, we will put our non-existent reputation on the line to tell it like it will be. Our record has been as good as anyone’s since our first foray into Predictions, Prophecies, Prognostications, Projections and Piffle back in 2013.

I. Carnac, questioning all the answers that will be given in 2025

Now, Before It’s Too Late, Back To The Future

So, 2024, finally goes the way of all years, good, bad or ugly. At this point, it is all but guaranteed that we will be here to see it end.

In any event, here is what we predict you will see over the next 12 months…

January 6, 2025

Let Them Eat Fake

Trump sees January 6 as a good time to bring the nation together and goes on Fux News to speak to a divided nation.

“On the anniversary of what almost became the greatest day in American history, I have a very special announcement to make. Many of you pathetic losers, I mean patriotic heroes, voted for me because of all the promises I made. Of course, politicians – which I am not – always make promises to get your votes. How could I have known that even though I am not a politician you would treat me like one and believe all the crap I said to get elected. But today, because I am so honest – probably the most honest person in all history – I will tell you that the only promises I will keep are the ones that help the richest people. The rest of you are on your own. And though this might make some of you sad, you should really be glad…for me. I’m going to make out like a bandit, or if you prefer, like a conman.”

January 11, 2025

Shove It Up Your Ass

Trump unveils his new line of Trump brand hemorrhoid creams in a variety of flavors.

January 20, 2025

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

America officially shoots itself in the face, inaugurating Donald Trump as the 47^th and possibly last duly elected president. After running on a platform of authoritarian rule by white male Christians, based on the total dismantling of the federal government, the end of tolerance, women’s rights, voting rights, an aggressive assault on the environment, the rule of law and the Constitution, and a complete disregard for reality, Trump smacks the Bible out of a cackling Samuel Alito’s hands. Trump pushes Alito out of the way and instead of taking the usual oath of office, turns to the camera and tells America

“I just want to thank all the poorly educated who made this moment possible. I am looking forward to being able to do whatever the fuck I want, since the Supreme Court gave me all the power I should have had last time. Then we never would have had to bother with Sleepy Joe Biden who wasted four years fixing the great economy I alone created, ramping up infrastructure instead of just talking about it all the time and getting the rest of the stupid world to start respecting America again. I will fix all this and return the presidency to the self-serving cash cow it was when I was in charge before. Now, this is my country, and we will soon be officially changing the name to AmeriTrump, or maybe even something better. We'll just have to wait and see. And it will be great again. So great you won’t believe it. And so, I solemnly swear to protect and defend Donald Trump for all enemies, mostly domestic, until no one even thinks about being disloyal or criticizing me in any way, until death do they depart. Now leave me the fuck alone and buy my stuff.”

And so begins the Paying Attention™ panoply of predictions for 2025. As always, Ed Venture, I. Mangrey, T. Doff and Shay King attempt to bring you the future before it’s too late.

Go and get an appropriate attitude adjustment, take a nap, flash yourself with that flashy thing the Men in Black use, and break out the popcorn folks, we’re just getting started. It is predicted that Part II will be appearing very soon.

You won’t want to miss a moment of 2025…or will you

Thought For The Day – Oh, Christ

On This Day In The Year 0

December 25, 2024

“Who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations?”
Melania Trump, years before hawking crappy ornaments in 2024

To all my Christian friends, Romans and countrymen, let me issue a preemptive apology: something just occurred to me that might at first blush, perhaps second blush, and maybe even countless subsequent blushes seem rude, heartless and/or fightin’ words. The inspiration for this epiphany was none other than Donald Jesus Trump.

Unfortunately, once a thought happens I am required by law and journalistic “ethics” to make it public.

Here it is.                                                                                                              

The next thing you will see is my thought.

It is my thought and no one else’s.

So, here it is.

A thought by I. Mangrey:

Apparently, Jesus was only the Messiah because he was killed. I like messiahs who weren’t killed.

And let us say, Oh, man.

In any event, Happy Birthday to the Jewish kid from Bethlehem who made it big. And unto him we wish a Happy Hanukkah. As he surely would have wanted. 

If he ever actually existed.

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

The Kinks - Father Christmas

Broken News – Pick Of The Shitter

December 23, 2024

Many Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

If Donald Trump is nothing else, and he is, he is the best judge of the worst people for the most important jobs in our country. Is he just fond of freaks, fuck-ups and sickos? Rapists, druggies, dumb-ass dipshits? Greedy, fascist, sociopathic religious fanatics? And these are his new, improved best people. Who else could make the utter lack of qualification a main qualification?

For example, Trump has tapped two bilious billionaires – Elon Murk and Vivek Ramasmarmy – to head up a fake department with the acronym DOGE (coincidentally the name of Murk’s cryptocurrency), which I believe stands for Department Of Gutting Everything, to eliminate any government spending that does not directly, relentlessly and excessively help needy greedy millionaires and billionaires at the expense of all the rest of us. DOGE is charged with killing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, etc. Maybe DOGE was a typo and it was meant to be DODGE – Department Of Deploying Gargantuan Excrements.

Stephen Miller, Jared The Son-in-law, RFingK, Jr., Elon Murk, DJT, Kristi Noem,

Trash Patel, Meh Oz, Pete Hegseth, Vivek Ramasmarmy. Oh my.

None of these schmucks has a speck of qualification for the post they have been nominated for. Or any post that might impact democracy, security, health or humanity. Zero.  

But wait, there’s more…

Despite the utter insanity described above, it can and likely will get worse before it gets much worse before there’s a chance in hell it gets better. For example, the super genius Rand Paul (and several members of Fascist/Trump Party) thinks it would be a good idea if Elon Murk was Speaker of the House. You’re probably saying to yourself, come on climate crisis, please end this madness for us. Where's that damn asteroid I ordered from Uber Eats? Or maybe you’re saying, but Elon is just a rich asshole who entered this country under false pretenses (Can you say illegal immigrant?), made the ugliest, dumbest vehicle in history and now owns a president, but knows nothing about governing his own behavior let alone that of the most powerful nation on the planet; plus he’s not a member of Congress. Well, guess what Dear Prudence, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Speaker must be a House member.

I’ll be watching so you don’t have to

So buckle up friends, lest you be hurled through the windshield when this clown-car-country crashes…though hurling toward oblivion might be pretty appealing at that point since another moment of a Trump presidency could well be what is referred to as a fate worse than death. Unfortunately, there’s only one (theoretical) way to find out.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled holiday prep.

Schmucks Of The Day – Two Schmucks For The Price Of One*

Jumping For Ploy

December 19, 2024

“Take over Elon, just take over.”
D.J. Trump to crowd in Butler, PA just before 2024 election.
Also, possibly the theme of his coming administration**

Very stable genius and very stable billionaire

What could possibly go wrong?

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*And there be a price. A big price.
**This is already happening, but Trump will not be happy if or when he realizes he is working for Musk. Looking forward to the fallout/falling-out.

This  has been your Paying Attention™ Schmucks Of The Day. Fuck yeah.

Ya Gotta Love It – What’s Eating You?

December 17, 2024

“… even though we call this country a democracy, it’s turning out to be more and more a candy-coated dictatorship.”
                                              Frank Zappa, circa 1990

Thanks to the millions of uninformed, ignorant, racist, hate-filled knuckle-draggers who voted for a man with 34 felony convictions, more than 24 credible sexual assault/rape allegations – made all the more credible after a judge proclaimed that Trump committed what is commonly known as rape against E. Jean Carroll, and after all he did brag about his penchant for committing sexual assault – and what should have been slam-dunk cases including stealing classified government documents (which he almost certainly shared with Vladimir Putin) and inciting an insurrection/overthrow of the government to a second, wholly unnecessary and very likely historically damaging term as president, America is now poised to enter her not-fully-developed-brain-rebellious-teen years where a bunch of overpaid, egomaniacs unencumbered by sense of social norms or ethics or patriotism of any kind lash out at a country that made them what they are (they didn’t fucking build that), just like individual teens often turn on their parents at a certain age.

When my friends and I were of that age, one of our favorite slogans was “Eat the rich!” Well, now the plate is on the other table and thanks to the above-mentioned schmucks and their not-so-benevolent overlard Trump, aided and abetted by the ersatz Supreme Court, the rich will be dining on us for the foreseeable future. Not that they haven’t been nibbling on us forever, but now they can eat with impunity. No need to worry about weight-gain, gout or horrified shouts of “Cannibalism!”

Trump’s gold-plated goon squad
(not shown, Elon Murk and Vivek Ramasmarmy who don’t have
official positions, but will be biting our legs off very soon)

Kill, Baby, Kill

Trump’s billionaire army of greedy, grifting ghouls want to gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare (except of course, corporate welfare). They are chomping at the bit to kill vaccines, unions, the United States Postal Service, the economy, the environment and by extension, you. You know, because these too-rich-fucks need the money. They want to eliminate the FDIC, which protects normal non-billionaires who might have a few non-interest-bearing dollars in banks (while the banks make money off our money). Why? Who the fuck knows? No doubt they will replace it with a concept of a very strong and powerful plan…some…day.

The rich are eating us

Apparently, 54% of voters think Trump will “do a good job” the second time around. Sure, if by ‘do a good job’ they mean trash the economy by deporting most of our workforce, leveling tariffs on the rest of the world and handing trillions of dollars to the richest/greediest among (i.e., above) us, amp up the already pulverizing climate crisis, and hand our collective health and well-being over to a guy who said heroin made him a better student, and that was before a worm ate most of his brain and then died, presumably of a heroin overdose.

Apparently, 54% of voters need to be in rubber rooms sporting jackets with very long sleeves that can wrap around the torso and be secured in a way that prevents the wearers from punching themselves in the face until they are unconscious, even though that would increase exponentially their capacity for rational thought. Oh, and guess what, all you 54%ers – the Trump presidency is about to make your miserable lives considerably worse. And guess what else – that shit is contagious; we all will have to suffer from your abject stupidity. If you think shit’s expensive now, wait ‘til you see how much Trump sneakers, guitars, bibles, fragrances, trading cards and Melania fugly xmas ornaments will cost you in a few months. Not to mention eggs, bacon and all the other things your hero just learned to call groceries. Please stop voting from now on. Oh, and STFU.

I guess one man’s convicted felon is another man’s cult leader.

Ya gotta love it.

No, seriously, ya gotta love it or you could end up in one of Trump’s for-profit gulags. Just ask ABC News, who just moved their corporate headquarters all the way up Trump's ass. And paid him $16M for a security deposit. 

Now here it is, your moment of Zappa…

I. Mangrey…and, loving it. 

Interest Of Conflict

Trump 2.NOOOOOOOOO

December 13, 2024

Ohh NOOOOOO!!!

So here we are, America – the Mr. Bill of developed nations. One foot in the grave and the other on an orange peel, well it’s actually a banana peel turned orange with mold. It’s moldy, rotten and toxic to boot.

Get ready folks. Most of us are already filled with dread, angst, pain, disbelief, nausea, ulcers, heart palpitations, night sweats, fear and loathing in anticipation of Napoleon Notsosmart pretending to take another oath of the highest office, and another crack at relegating the Great Experiment in democracy to the trash heap of history.

Il Douche will not be held to account in Florida for stealing classified documents or espionage (the evidence for which had piled up beneath Judge Aileen Cannon’s valiant and ultimately successful efforts to bury the case). Neither will he face justice in Washington, DC for inciting an insurrection/tourorists-gone-wild on January 6, 2021.

Justice in America isn’t just blind. It’s just plain dumb. The right to a speedy trial enshrined in the Constitution isn’t just the defendant’s right. The public also deserves a speedy trial, especially when the already repeatedly guilty defendant is a candidate for president, and especially when that candidate is running on a platform of retribution*, idiocy and full-on fascism. Oh, and the destruction of the middle, working and poorer classes – many of whom somehow decided to vote for their own demise. Rah, rah, retch.

It appears that the only music Trump will have to face is the Village People’s YMCA. And we all know what that looks like. His second term will be to the presidency what his signature move is to dancing, i.e., murder in the worst degree.

In case you forgot how mind-numbingly stupid that looks…

Trump’s signature dunce move

Speaking of dunce moves, Dancing Don has invited Chinese dictator Xi Jinping to his coronation inauguration. Because, of course he did. I guess Vlad and Kim were busy.

Conflict Of Interest As Feature, Not Bug

Trump has searched low and lower to find just the right diseased mutants to fill his termite-infested cabinet. Like Kari Lake to head Voice of America, which I guess will now presumably sound like fingernails on a blackboard. RFingK, Jr. – the guy who said he was a lousy student until he started using heroin, which helped him focus better (move over Ritalin) – to hold sway over all our foods and medicines. Alcoholic rape enthusiast and violent, radical Christian Pete Hegseth to fondle the Defense Department. 

To head the FBI Trump wants Trash Patel, looney conspiracy fetishist – especially Trump’s Big Lie – who said he would “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state’” to dismember the FBI. Patel wants to eliminate the intelligence unit of the FBI. All of Trump’s nominees despise intelligence in all forms.

It goes on and on and on, like metastatic cancer.

John Dean once told Nixon that the Watergate cover-up was a “cancer on the presidency." Our 47^th president is a cancer on America. And we all know how Nixon’s presidency ended up.

It seems very few who matter are planning to hold fast and fight Trump’s Anschluss…I mean onslaught. All the while, Trump and his henchman Elon Murk (once an illegal immigrant himself) are busy threatening senators in order to get them to approve Trump’s malignant misfits, his hand-picked goon squad destined to destroy each and every department under the umbrella of the federal government. And we all know how well the man whose ruining mate called him “America’s Hitler” handles umbrellas.

“Is it raining where you are my darling? Tough shit.”

As noted here previously, this is likely to get worse before it gets much worse.

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*That would be retribution against those who dared stand up for the rule of law, democracy and the Constitution.

I. Mangrey reporting.                                         

                                                                       

In Memoriam

On This Day In 1980

December 8, 2024

John Lennon Memorial – Strawberry Fields, Central Park, NYC

December 8, 1980, another date that will live in infamy. The day legendary musician, songwriter and activist John Lennon was gunned down in front of the The Dakota apartment building in Manhattan. Further proof that, as Mike Love wrote in the Beach Boys’ Student Demonstration Time, “The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun.”

John Lennon statue – Havana, Cuba

Watching The Wheels

Nobody Told Me

Gimme Some Truth

Also, today would have been Jim Morrison’s 81^st birthday.

People Are Strange

An American Prayer

One more for the road…

Instant Karma*

_____________________________________________________________________
*Can we please have some right now for a most deserving individual and his cult?

Question For The Day – The Pro-Rape Party

Fuck Around, Find Out

December 6, 2024

From Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife and dumping her while she was fighting cancer, to Larry Craig trying to make time with an undercover cop in an airport men’s room, to uber pig Clarence Thomas, to the more current crop like rapey Brett Kavanaugh, Matt “Ewwww” Gaetz, sociopathic, radical Christian freak Pete Hegseth, Bobby Brainworm, and of course there’s admitted, found-legally-liable, unrepentant (“alleged”) serial assaulter/rapist Donald “They Let You Do It”* Trump.

Today’s Question For The Day:

Can you even name one Ratpublican who has not been credibly accused of sexual misbehavior?**

_________________________________________________
*They damn well did not let him do it, but the Supreme Court let him do it.
**Not counting Lindsey Graham, who very existence is an assault on sexuality, and who anatomically resembles a Ken doll. Allegedly.

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

Ya Gotta Love It - The Worst People

He Knows The Worst People*

December 2, 2024

Before he was a demented, deranged, disgraced, twice-impeached, failed insurrection leader and ex-one-term-president – NOW with 34 felony convictions! and a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card from his Supreme(ly anti-democratic) Court – president, Trump told us he knew the best people. This of course turned out to be one of many thousands of lies Il Douche would tell the American public during his (GULP) first term.

Let’s, for the sake of argument, say he did know and hire the best people after getting crushed in the popular vote but becoming president anyway in 2016. He fired most of them, at least those who did not quickly resign in disgrace, in short order and now refers to them as disgruntled losers with Trump Derangement Syndrome. Trump wants to try some of them for treason and have them executed (for telling the truth, which is a crime in Trump World) once he resumes weaponizing the Department of Justice for his own perverse purposes.

For his second term, Trump has said nothing about knowing the best people. He has in fact chosen the absolute fucking worst of the worst – from accused rapist Pete Hegseth, to partial-brained ex-junkie RF’ingK, Jr., to Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard, WrestleManiac Linda McMahon, to medico/conman Meh Oz, to puppy whisperer…I mean murderer Kristi Noem, to Trump-pardoned convicted criminal Charles (father of Jared) Kushner, each one more worst than the last, and each one likely worse than Trump’s last battalion of brutish buffoons. Not one of these freaks has anything within a thousand miles of a qualification other than being on tv, being a sexual predator, and/or showing an almost fanatical devotion to the Trump.

Trump’s latest disaster-in-waiting is Kash Patel who had this to say about QAnon, “There’s a lot of good to it,” and he agreed with the statement “Q has been so right on so many things.” Name one. This unrelenting, undissenting, unrepenting kisser of Trump’s ass is Der Furor’s pick to head up the FBI. Should be fun.

Marco Rubio is probably the least insane of all Trump’s turds. Rubio is only about four-feet tall and he is head-and-shoulders above the rest of Trump’s Tragic Trash Heap.

Like the Dirty Dozen – a team of soldiers, recruited from murderers, rapists and criminals on death row, who are promised commuted sentences – chosen to save America, Trump’s Dirty Douchebags intend to end America. 

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*And they will be in charge of every fucking thing very soon unless they get Gaetzed.

Ya gotta love it. Or else.