Paying Attention™ Secret Rerun (With Update)

The Grift That Keeps On Grifting

April 9, 2025

We felt the need to repost this piece. Not only is this issue critical – yes, we know critical issues are like raindrops in a hurricane at this point – but, the well-being of so many is at immediate risk. And yes, we know that also applies to innumerable issues right now. I would list them all, but I only have so much time left on this Earth.

The gist was MusKKK’s attack on Social Security, calling it a Ponzi scheme, but leaving out the fact that once you – well, not you, but others who shall remain shameless – earn over $176,000/yr, anything over that amount is exempt from paying into the Social Security fund, which the toxically rich claim is going bankrupt. You’d go bankrupt too if people who you rely on to pay you for your work only pay you what they feel like, and it’s never the agreed upon amount…like certain half-presidents we know who have spent a lifetime cheating people out of money he promised them. They really should, pardon the expression (or not), go forth and fuck themselves. If they have trouble performing that act, surely someone will help them out…for a fee.

This should be a daily talking point, perhaps a yelling point, which surely would resonate with most Americans:

There is an insane cut-off for paying into the Social Security Trust Fund after yearly income of $176,000. There is no good reason for this other than to fuck up the system.

UPDATE:

We also wanted to repost this because new information has come to light.

In the article below, we discussed the real goal of what appears to be (because it is) the sabotage of the Social Security Administration (and every other fucking thing in our lives). The endgame is to make Social Security a lame duck so they can then say “Oh my, what a mess Social Security is. Don’t you just hate the level of inefficiency? We told you it was bad, but who knew it was this bad?”

Well, we thought that was the endgame, but then we realized there was very likely one more piece to the puzzle; actually, not so much puzzle as Russian Roulette:

Not only do these greedy pigs want to privatize Social Security, but they will then tie the entire fund – and by extension the retirement income of everyone over 65 (or perhaps 85, once they finish fucking it all up before privatization kicks in) to DOGECOIN or Trump’s cryptocurrency grift. Bet on it. But not on cryptocurrency.

Talk about a Ponzi scheme.

Here’s the original post ICYMI:

What Is That Suffocating Stench?

March 30, 2025

Full disclosure: I’m not some kind of genius. I’m not any kind of genius. I’m just a regular guy who might wear tennis shoes or an occasional python boot. But this seems so painfully simple. So painfully dishonest. So painfully full of shit.

All kinds of people are running around with their hair on fire about Social Security being unable to fund full benefits by the year 2035. They come up with all manner of workarounds – cutting the staff to a skeleton crew, closing offices (while simultaneously demanding people show up in person rather than phoning to resolve issues), raising the eligibility age, reducing benefit amounts – and then offer pathetic, bullshit (at best) excuses as to why Social Security is simply not sustainable in its current form. fElon Muskkk calls it a Ponzi scheme.

Thankfully, surprisingly and likely just-not-yet, team Trump has not recommended (at least not publicly) simply “eliminating” some number of those collecting the money they have long been promised for all their years of work and paying into the system. Of course, if these ghouls – led by the world’s richest asshole fElon Muskkk – succeed in gutting the Social Security Administration, which they are very close to doing, there will be plenty of death to go around.

It Doesn’t Fucking Have To Be This Way – This Is Fucking Bullshit

Two easy fixes jump right out. The option that hews less to the letter of the law would be to cut or eliminate benefits to those clearly not in need – the toxically rich.

The fix that I have been caterwauling about for decades is much more simple, much more fair and much less painful to 99% of Americans. And it has to do with this:

In 2025, the Social Security tax limit, or the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security taxes, is $176,100.*

There is only one way to respond to this bullshit: are you fucking actually fucking with me? Ironically (to put it politely), anyone making this kind of annual money should not only be paying the Social Security tax on every fucking penny they earn like everyone else, INCLUDING MIGRANT WORKERS WHO WILL NEVER COLLECT A PENNY, but these are the same people who should be recused from collecting Social Security (and Medicare for that matter) when they reach the appropriate age.

Talk about a fucking Ponzi scheme.

And just think about those making ten times that $176,100/year. Someone once said of these leeches, “You didn’t build that.” They did not get that rich without taking advantage – quite literally – of the largess of the American taxpayer. They are happy to step over us, or stomp on us, using our infrastructure, on their way to the top. Their custom-made imported leather shoe prints are constantly messing up our hair and flattening our heads.

This thievery must stop. This is total, unmitigated, runny, fuming BULLSHIT.

I have not heard anyone discuss this.

Did I mention this is BULLSHIT?

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*Democrats should be shouting this little-known fact from every fucking rooftop, microphone and social media platform every fucking day and night.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Secret Word.
Don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.

Don Trump Actually Fucking Said This™*

 

Uncle Festering Speaks

April 8, 2025

“For decades our country has been pillaged, looted, raped and plundered by nations both near and far, friend and foe. In many cases, the friend is worse than the foe.”
                          Don Trump, April 2, 2025 “Liberation Day”

But he left out the punchline: I am putting a stop to that. I will do it myself.

Don Trump Actually Also Fucking Said This™**

                                “I think it’s going really well.”
Trump, after the markets crashed spectacularly as a direct and isolated result of his actions and his alone.

The context Uncle Festering wants us to believe is:

He knows exactly what he’s doing (like he did with running casinos and charities and dozens of extinct products...and COVID).

The context is likely one of two things (and possibly both): Trump is completely deranged and mentally incapacitated (which of course we’ve known forever), and/or it is in fact going really well, because he did this on purpose and always intended to destroy our economy and our democracy in service to Putin.

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*As always, the full context does not make it any better. Also, good chance this feature will be popping up constantly for at least the next four years. Sorry.
**This time the context does matter and makes it so much worse.

This has been another painful edition of Don Trump Actually Fucking Said This™*
Remember, it will get worse before it gets much worse any way you slice it.

Oh, Canada…Please

Evading The Graft

April 7, 2025

Several northern states – Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Vermont have petitioned to become part of Canada.

Bolstered by Canada’s strong statements rebuffing the mentally disturbed dictator on the other side of their southern border’s insistence that Canada needs to become the 51^st state of America.

A Canadian spokesperson told Paying Attention “We are honored by the request from the several states in our one-time friendly neighbor to our south. We fully understand the desire to disassociate oneself from the brutally stupid, historically incompetent and anti-American president who threw our more-than-250-year relationship into his gold toilet. What an absolute loser. And a complete douche – if you’ll pardon my French. As Prime Minister Mark Carney recently said, …“the old relationship we had with the United States” …is now “over.”

We in the independent nation of Canada will gladly sit down and discuss this request like adults, something that could never happen with your childish idiot of a leader. We Canadians do not understand why a political party would willingly succumb to a leader who constantly threatens them if they ever so much as disagree with that leader. And that same party has no interest in any meaningful policy other than providing repeated, untenable tax cuts for the wealthiest countrymen, at the expense of anyone and everyone else.

Ooh, I know this one: because he’s such a fucking dick.
But why the hell isn’t American media more anti Trump?
Oooh, I know that one: because it's mostly shameless whores and dopes.

We simply never expected America to turn into such a shithole country, and so quickly and thoroughly. You need to get rid of Trump before it’s too late, which it may already be. If we did not know better, we would have to assume that Trump fully intends to turn America into an economic and intellectual wasteland. One imagines this is meant to please Vladimir Putin – can you say “pee tape”? If only for that reason, there is simply no way in hell we would for a moment consider even the concept of a plan to become part of a failing nation like the United States.

We therefore hope to talk soon to see if we can work something out with these unfortunate states, desperate to escape the obvious fascism and overwhelming stupidity that is engulfing a once proud and powerful nation. We’d hate to have these quality states become part of Mexico, but we’ll need some assurances. We imagine Trump will happily let these states go since they are states that did not vote for him, but we’d better act soon before he has all of them arrested and deported to El Salvador.”
 

I. Mangrey reporting, eh.

A Special Field Report

The Resistance Marches On

April 6, 2025

We made it back from yesterday’s massive rally after marching from City Hall to The Room Where It Happened (well right outside the building where it happened) – Independence Hall. The well-organized rally was called HANDS OFF! Personally, I would have preferred FUCK OFF! but that would be less family friendly.

There were many thousands, perhaps millions of people in Philly. Not one of us was seen beating police with American flags. Or shitting on or in Independence Hall. Some patriots we turned out to be. We will leave that to others to judge. But not actual judges since none of us was arrested. And none of us will need presidential pardons. Certainly not from this fucking half-president.

In any event, there were billions* of people chanting and marching. Possibly the largest crowd in the history of crowds. Many people are saying this. No one has ever seen a crowd this huge. They were all big, strong people, with tears in their eyes. All of them came up to me, barely able to speak, saying "Sir, we're so excited to be here. Donald MusKKK is making me sick. He is giant turd in the punchbowl of America. Won't you help us sir? Can’t you do something.”

One of the great moments came when Rep. Brendon Boyle (D-PA) closed his rousing remarks with " Trump, know this – Philly is undefeated against asshole kings."

I. was there

After the rally, we shared a train with this wise and wonderful woman who knew how to dress for success and who shall remain faceless to avoid ending up in Guantanamo or El Salvador or Mor-on Lago, locked away with thousands of stolen classified documents and sold to Vladimir Putin for a song.

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*Some may claim this is an exaggeration. So fucking what. The truth is up for gabs these days. We say what we want and let the shit fall where it may.

I. Mangrey, helping history heal.

HANDS OFF!

Those Who Do Not Learn From History Are Dumbed To Regret It

April 5, 2025

The Paying Attention™ team is getting ready to leave the safety of our non-existent, secret, undisclosed location for the big city. Today is the seemingly well-organized (by Indivisible) nationwide day of protest against fecklessness, fuckery and fascism. The theme of the day is HANDS OFF!

You might remember when the Tea Party bludgeoned onto the scene, with some also sporting the ‘hands off’ or in some cases, ‘hands of’ theme, and we saw signs like

Yeah, hands of buddy

And

And schools, I guess

And

Right an dud!

We are seeing similar messages today (except that third one), but there are some critical differences. The earlier incarnation of the “keep the government’s hands off my Medicare” and the like were carried by those who Trump would describe as “very low-IQ individuals”. These very fine people were lacking, among other things, any understanding of what Medicare is, and any notion of critical thinking. Anyone prone to critical thinking would have nothing to do with Fux News other than for masochistic entertainment purposes.

Today the signage has come full circle. Countless people today – who do understand what Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security are, as well as how to spell – are once again brandishing signs beseeching the death cult/Trump administration to not fuck with these programs that literally stand between life and death for millions of Americans.

During the Cro-Magnon Tea Party or Dumassolithic Era, the government was in fact trying to protect these critical programs. Not anymore. And yet those assholes are all silent because their tiny brains have atrophied and become paralyzed with stupidity.

This time, the government – such as it is – is in fact trying to strangle the life out of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security – and you – with their already-blood-stained hands.

This time, there are trillions of reasons to be concerned. Those billions are the dollars lining the pockets of people like Jeff Bezos, fElon MusKKK, and the burnt-umbrage-colored, polyester-coiffed Donald Josephat Trump along with a number of his scabinet members and top advisors, who in fact want the money tied up in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security all for themselves.

It is now the anti-Tea Party folks who are manning democracy’s ramparts. Of course, that was always the case, but the Baggers were very loud in their hysteria, just like their progeny the Jan 6 traitors. Unsurprisingly, the Jan 6 grand poobah Trump is floating the idea of paying these fuckwits traitors reparations. Because getting pardoned after perpetrating a violent insurrection in the hope of overthrowing the duly elected government of the United States, just like their heroes – the Confederacy – just isn’t enough.

Lastly, a sign we did not see in previous times

Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) telling it like it is

If you’re not busy today, go and find a rally/march near you: 

https://handsoff2025.com/?SQF_SOURCE=indivisible

I. Mangrey reporting. This is not fucking normal.

Trump's Tariff Tax Triggers Tragic Trade War Trainwreck

Horsefeathers!

April 4, 2025

Given what we have long known about Don, there is one thing we can say with certainty

Horsefeathers 

It feels like we’re living through Monty Python’s Parrot Sketch. Trump is not dumb, he is criminally insane. He is not out for revenge, he is mentally incapacitated. He is not playing 3-dimensional chess, checkers or go fish, he is badly brain-damaged.

After his bonkers tariff tax announcement Trump wandered off and had to be ‘guided back’ on stage after ‘forgetting’ to sign his insane executive order that would immediately shock the entire world and upend the global economy.

This is one dumb fucking brain-dead parrot

Crappy The Clown Goes To Tariff Town

Nobody else in the entire world would do what Captain Dementia just did. Liberation Day. My. Fucking. Ass.

After the markets crashed immediately, specifically and solely in response to the Trump Tariffs Taxes – essentially Trump shooting America in the middle of Fifth Avenue – Der Furor has this to say:

“I think it’s going very well. It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on…We have six or seven trillion coming into our country and, uh, we’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are gonna boom, the stock is gonna boom, the country’s gonna boom, yada, yada, yada.”

Let’s break this down, shall we.

          1) He doesn’t think
          2) It’s not like an operation, except maybe one of those where the “patient” wakes up in a tub full of ice with one missing kidney. But really, it’s more like a bullet to the head.
          3) We do not have six or seven trillion coming into the country – however much money changes hands, it’s not coming in, it’s being moved from the vast majority of Americans into the hands of billionaires.
          4) The half-president got one thing right; we sure as fuck have never seen anything like it, and there’s several trillion reasons why.
          5) Okay, so he got two things right – every fucking thing is going to fucking go     
           
f                        

f                                                   BOOM!

Experts described Trump's move as “worse than the worst-case scenario”. Our allies are discussing retaliation. That's allies folks. Our friends feel betrayed just because one of our psycho half-presidents took a shit on their heads. Go figure. China however, is licking their lips as America holds a gun to its own head.

Trump economy v. Biden economy

By the way, there are no tariffs on one (and it’s not one of those inhabited by only penguins) See if you can guess which country that might be.**

After completing his cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs economic coup, Der Furor ignored questions from the stunned media, waved bye-bye and headed off to Mor-on Lago for a long weekend of golf. I guess he doesn’t own a fiddle.

It’s time for a tranq dart. Put him is a safe place where he can’t hurt himself…or us. He’ll thank us later. We’ll thank us later.

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*Of course he is all those things, they are just no longer the primary issue.
**Russia, Russia, Russia.

I. Mangrey reporting in utter belief.

Paying Attention™ Secret Word – Stabotage

Maybe One Day He’ll Stop Punching Himself (And Us) In The Face

April 3, 2025

Convicted Felon and Traitor Donald Trump has just implemented what experts are describing as “worse than the worst-case scenario”. Not satisfied with sabotaging every single aspect of the American political infrastructure, half-president Don finally announced his completely insane and ruinous plan to tariff tax the living shit out of the American people.

Don decided to call yesterday “Liberation Day” (George Orwell is vomiting in his grave). He is thrilled to be liberating Americans from their savings. We’d better hurry up and celebrate while we can still afford food (and everything else).

Yes, he will not stop saying that these tariffs will put the screws to the rest of the world, these tariffs taxes paid by American consumers will bring serious pain to all of us non-billionaires.

This is not just sabotage. Sabotage is often subtle in order to hide what the saboteurs are doing. It’s like when smart criminals wipe their fingerprints off the murder weapon and the rest of the crime scene.

This is stabogage. It is a indisputable and flagrant figurative knife to the heart of America, in broad daylight. Why couldn’t he just shoot someone on Fifth Avenue like he promised long ago?

Most experts predict that the entire economy, including the loss of 5.5 million jobs is likely to collapse in a heap of stupidity. No small amount of which can be credited to all the morons and assholes who decided it was a good idea to put a convicted felon, who has bankrupted countless business, including casinos, committed at least one rape and is accused of some two dozen others, and who has been showing signs of severe dementia, or at the very least immeasurable stupidity, stole a truckload of classified documents, and oh yeah, incited an insurrection against the very government he was running to lead. And that doesn’t even include all the batshit crazy things he’s done since taking office.

To be fair, just about everything the two half-wit half-presidents have done since January 20, 2025 has been stabotage. They are poised to kill research, kill aid to starving children, kill farmers who grow the food the government buys to provide aid to starving children, kidnap American citizens and sending them to torture camps in foreign lands – who are paid handsomely to incarcerate those we have sent away, many if not most of whom have done nothing wrong*, kill the environment, kill countless American men, women and children, kill everything except – anyone want to guess – tax cuts for the murderously rich, who they will turn into Frankenstein’s monster.

Not that we haven’t known this for at least 10 years, but Don is out of his fucking mind. And he is going downward – taking the rest of us with him – faster than Wile E. Coyote strapped to an ACME rocket.

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*Maybe throw out the immigrant who fucking everything up beyond recognition.

This has been your Paying Attention™ Secret Word. 

Thought For The Day – Insanity Thy Name Is…

Drawing A Line In The Head

April 2, 2025

Dosvedonald keeps repeating things like we will be taking Greenland one way or another. Or, Canada will be the 51^st state.

“If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago, and makes no sense.”

Don simply won’t let up on his dangerous and wholly delusional, perseverating over owning Greenland. His most recent tragic talking point: “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent. I never take military force off the table, but I think there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force.” Or maybe just a Sharpie. You know, like somebody did “a long time ago, many, many decades ago” with Canada. Perhaps Don should have a long talk with whoever did that…if he hasn’t already done so.

Finally, a jacket that fits

Don's new brainworm* is his hair-brained idea that he will indeed be getting a third (or is it fourth) term. “I have had more people ask me to have a third term which in a way is a fourth term because the other election was totally rigged.”**

When asked whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, Trump said, “There are methods which you could do it.” Maybe a Sharpie?

Yes, there are methods. We saw one of those methods tested out on January 6, 2021. All the other methods are equally illegal, insane and fascist.

When asked if he was joking the reply was “I’m not joking.” This is difficult to believe for many reasons, not least of which was his previous statement, “I like to work.” Though we all know that dementia (and/or syphilis) is no joke. Maybe this is why Don just fired everyone in the federal government dealing with Alzheimer’s.

You know the old saying: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

There’s an updated version: the definition of insanity is Donald Trump.

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*This is not like RFingK, Jr.’s brainworm, this is like an earworm, but without the music, where someone just keeps repeating the same shit over and over and over to no avail.
*Actual psychotic quote. This is the kind of thing that comes out of someone’s mouth when you bathe a syphilis-filled brain in Adderall every day.

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

Stink Bomb Don

The Smell Of Sucks Ass

April 1, 2025

Taking a break from the paralyzing politics of the day, let’s talk about personal hygiene. We all know that El Disgusto’s politics are stinking the place up. This could be said about plenty of politicians throughout history. But Donny Douchebag has other special powers that have rarely if ever been brought forth as accusations about our highest-level politicos.

The Pied Pooper

Reports constantly surface about various emanations from all manner of orifices belonging to Donny Dirtbag. Considering what we know of what goes into his piehole, it is no surprise that we hear such things. Many of these reports of olfactory oppression predate the addition of much-less-than-pleasant musky odor that was added into the malodorous mix a few months ago. One imagines if Don was not such a vengeful, psychotic thug, we would hear many more stories of people, weeping in agony, keeling over, and vomiting when within nose-shot of this festering garbage scow in an oversized suit with a necktie designed to compensate for something no one really wants to discuss.

Anyway, Trump’s toxically foul emanations – there are very foul poisons from both ends – are much less toxic to those either out of range or upwind than any other single smelly action he has been farting, belching and vomiting up every single day in his rapidly-deteriorating-dementia-addled assault on our Constitution our democracy and our nation.

I. Mangrey reporting.