The Twilight/Reality Zone

The De-evolution Will (Continue to) Be Televised

November 4, 2019

I do not watch reality TV – not since I watched the occasional segment of PBS’s An American Family in 1973.  That all might change when Paying Attention’s Chrump Family House Arrest proudly airs after Chrump and his entire crime family are made to deliver the best reality TV ever, once the Chrumps are found guilty of crimes against reality.  For not, no one here at Paying Attention watches that stuff.  I certainly never watched more than an accidental moment of The Apprentice or its equally absurd offshoot.  Even back then, a mere momentary exposure to the thing called Donald Chrump made my skin crawl, by ears bleed and made my eyes hate my guts. 

The team at Paying Attention prefers watching the news since it is relatively less scripted – even the fake propaganda spewed by Fux News is more worthwhile than fake reality TV.  At least the real fake news – as opposed to the news labeled fake by the fake soon-to-be-impeached president who believes any news that is not kissing his ass is fake – informs you as to what is going on in the alternate reality of Chrump and his psychotic administration. 

I. Mangrey enjoying the evening news

Reality TV today is quicksand for the mind.  The end of each episode is calculated to leave viewers drowning in curiosity, convinced that they absolutely must tune in to see what backbiting, angst, sexual tension, hi-jinks and mind-boggling idiocy the really real folks will be told to get into next week. 

The key element here is – next week.  You have a whole week to digest, ignore and/or recover from the previous episode.  You also have sufficient time to reflect and perhaps decide that this is the most worthless heap of horseshit you have ever seen, forgive yourself for ever subjecting yourself to such garbage, and never watch another minute.

Chrumpin’ Jack Ass, It’s a Gas

Despite the best efforts of the majority of American voters in 2016 and now the majority of the American public, we are all forced to not only watch, but to literally live, the reality TV that is the Chrump presidency – what Harry Shearer lampoons as The Appresidentice.

The reality show we find ourselves living in today (if you call this living) is more like an episode of The Twilight Zone, where everyone is sucked into a 1950s black and white Zenith console television.  The Earth has been enveloped by an Orange Gas Cloud that has somehow become President of the United States.  

The Orange Gas Cloud has caused all of the laws, political and social norms in America, and hundreds of years of progress (such as it is) made by humankind seem like little more than figments of millions of desperate and tortured imaginations.  People are walking around dazed, desperately seeking even a glimpse of the reality they thought they knew.

This reality show is relentless.  It does not give you a week to prepare in between episodes.  There is no in-between for this unending episode.  It allows you not one moment of peace.  It does not let you decide to change the channel or just stop watching.  We can try to ignore it, but its crushing presence is always lurking, like a 16-ton weight gradually lowering itself onto our heads, with us too numb and incredulous to move out of the way.

A nauseating-shade-of-orange gas cloud – no substance, no form.  No core, utterly untethered to anything.  It fills whatever container holds it; if there is no container, it expands unceasingly.  And keeps expanding unless and until some outside influence can neutralize it.  Who you gonna call?

Chrumpbusters

Submitted for your approval…

A man with a very, very small uh, brain, by all accounts an extremely unstable
idiot with orange complexion and “hair,” loses his barely humanesque form, morphs into a toxic orange gas cloud, and becomes president of the United States of…the Twilight Zone.

Run like hell, don’t look back, don’t breathe

I. Mangrey reporting.  Do not try to adjust your set.  You are fucked.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Thought For The Day

Goon to The Last Drop

November 2, 2019

Donald Chrump is fond of saying that “the impeachment of your president is a scam” when in fact, the president of our impeachment is the real scam.

I know a scam when I see one

I know an idiot when I be one

This is how I killed al Baghdadi like a dog

If I had a brain I’d be dangerous,
though maybe not as dangerous as I am now

All of you are chumps and losers

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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Fright For The Day

Scary Shit

Halloween 2019

Boo!

Chrump’s senior advisor on policy
Stephen “The Ghost of Nazis Past” Miller

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Pouty McFuckface enjoying Game 5 of the World Series in DC

This has been your Paying Attention Fright For The Day.

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Fraught For The Day

Zeros v. Heroes

October 30, 2019

On one level I am glad to hear some Republican’ts – including, of all people, Liz Cheney and Moscow Mitch – acting as though their country actually means something to them for a change.  While the vast majority of Republican’ts are complicit by, at best, their silence, a number of them are chastising their colleagues for defaming yet another patriot who decided that just following orders was not in the best interest of the nation though it might be in the best interest of their ultra-corrupt, autocratic, wholly-owned-Russian-subsidiary of a president. 

As mentioned above, there was a degree of appreciation for all-too-few Republican’ts speaking out about their colleagues’ despicable behavior, but then I recalled the past.  Because my memory is longer than the typical goldfish or Republican’t, I have to ask: where were these suddenly conscientious conservatives when their minions were perpetrating the same filth on Vietnam War hero John Kerry in order to re-elect the-now-second-most-disastrous president in modern history?  One has to wonder if they remember the relentless, shameless, slanderous “Swiftboating” of Kerry when he ran against one of the many chickenhawk Republican’ts who dodged the draft and then held themselves up as military loving war-mongers.  Let us not forget the alcoholic, repeatedly AWOL from his cushy Texas Air National Guard post George W. Bush, the five-time deferred Dick Cheney, and current Pseudo-president and national security nightmare, Donald “Bonespurs-R-Us” Chrump. 
 
Republican’ts have no compunction about defaming anyone who dares disagree with them – they never have.  While Donald Chrump has raised this to an artform, it has been the bread-and-butter for Republican’ts for a very long time.  Impugning Purple Heart recipient, Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman is nothing new for these power-greedy, uncompromising fascists.  Vindman had the nerve to hear, firsthand, the pseudo-president committing what said president called a perfect phone call/crime, and then testify about said crime to Congress.  Just like Chrump, too many Republican’ts believe anyone who puts country above party is human scum.

Some of the patriots Chrump and Republican’ts consider human scum
for telling the truth to Congress 

So, resist the temptation to celebrate the heroic push-back by a few of today’s Republican’ts against most of today’s Republican’ts who continue the tradition of trashing patriots who call them out for their hatred of democracy in America.

This has been your Paying Attention Fraught For The Day.

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What has you fraught for the day?

Thought For The Day

America’s Ventriloquist-less Talking Dummy

October 29, 2019

Just for the record, Donald Chrump improperly hid the transcript from his July 25^th quid pro phone call with the president of Ukraine in a secure location reserved for highly sensitive national security information, like say, a super-secret special ops mission to kill or capture a top-level ISIS operative, like say Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or someone like that.  While his perfect(ly stupid and illegal) phone call remains hidden from public view, Chrump managed to once again vomit up national security secrets regarding none other than the super-secret special ops mission that killed the top-level ISIS operative, specifically Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Not only did President Tang divulge an exhaustive smorgasbord of tactical information that will benefit ISIS and other adversaries across the globe, but everything he said during his post-mission press event that was not a breach of national security was lies, lies and more lies.  No one could have predicted that the smoking gun would come in the form of a mush-brained fake president.

Many people are saying that there is something terribly wrong with this picture.  Almost none of them are Republcan’ts, who continue to stand by and prop up this clear and present danger to national security.  It was nice knowing you America.

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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Thought For The Day

Credit Where Credit Is (Not) Due

October 28, 2019

None but Donald Chrump could cheapen the long overdue demise of a murderous terrorist leader by turning it into a pissing contest with his predecessor, and another in a ballooning inventory of unseemly and pitiable pleas for adulation.

The operation, months in the planning, was made more challenging by Chrump’s thoughtless, ill-advised birthday present to Vladimir Putin, giving him Syria with no strings attached.  Nonetheless, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead.  Donald Chrump remains, in his own special way, alive.

Naturally, Chrump first thanked Russia.  One would have thought that handing Syria to Putin on a silver platter and hanging the Kurds out to dry was thanks enough.  We also learned that Chrump had notified Russia of the operation before notifying Democratic leadership, just in case anyone questioned where his loyalties lie.  The cherry on top of this banana shit sundae though, was the Russian military publicly questioning the official US account of the raid that killed al-Baghdadi.

The Manchurian-Commander-in-chief eventually got around to thanking the brave men and women who actually carried out the mission, though he ultimately took most of the credit for himself.  Chrump's almost complete dissociation from reality very likely allows him to see himself as the trigger man.

It is entirely possible, that by divulging an unheard-of, and probably inappropriate degree of detail about a secret operation by special forces who tend to prefer to keep their business under wraps, Chrump has created yet another national security nightmare.  His pathetic gloating, threats and insults will almost certainly provide further incentive for revenge by ISIS, which Chrump insists (despite all evidence to the contrary, as usual) he obliterated…or was that exonerated? 

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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Thought For The Day

 

Donnie Downer

October 25, 2019

Everyone knows, whether they admit it or not, whether they agree or disagree with it, that Donald Chrump has nothing but authoritarian tendencies.  He recently tweeted:

You know what they say: it takes scum to know scum

Forget the fact that if there is any nothing being done on Capitol Hill, it is being done by one person and one person only – Moscow Mitch.  The Democratic House has passed a considerable amount of legislation on gun control, bringing down drug prices and many other issues important to Americans.  The “Grim Reaper” of legislation has been true to the nickname he gave himself.  Moscow Mitch will never consider anything that Democrats want to see signed into law, even it was his idea to begin with.

Der Furor actually called Republican’ts who dared question his massively impeachable actions “human scum” in the early afternoon, presumably after his nap and when he was in what passes for at-his-best, not at 3:00am.  I am not so sure that is a good thing.  Compared to Chrump’s impeachable offenses, it turns out that Watergate was in fact, as Nixon desperately tried to label it at the time, “a third-rate burglary.”  Regardless, Chrump has no time for anyone who does not fight for him to their own detriment and if need be, in service to Churmp’s needs, death.

Chrump’s latest gambit pays homage to none other than Joseph Stalin.  Stalin had a habit – long before Photoshop – of removing people he, let’s say parted ways with, from existing pictures, essentially erasing them from history.  We now have Team Chrump honoring old Uncle Joe with the sincerest form of flattery.  Below are two official White House photos.  See if you can tell the difference between the two.

Before

After

The team at Paying Attention has been known to dabble in a Photoshop image or two, so we thought we would return the favor with our own homage to Dear Leader:

 

This has been your Paying Attention Thought For The Day.

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Something For Something*

Sofa King Perfect

October 23, 2019

I have to say, I am beginning to agree with - dare I say - Donald Chrump.  I was quick to deride Chrump when he claimed his conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was “a perfect phone call.”  Who has ever even thought, “Boy that was a perfect phone call.”  But now, I think I have to admit that Chrump’s phone call with Zelensky was in fact perfect.  It started out perfect, and has only been getting better with age.  A perfect phone call from a perfect fool.

“Can you believe how perfect this call is? So perfect. I am so good at phone calls.”

On Tuesday, someone in the know explained just how perfect the whole episode, including history’s greatest phone call, was.  Clearly, Donald Chrump did not account for the presence of actual patriotic Americans working within his administration.  He thought he had purged such terrible do-gooders long ago.  Unfortunately for the Orange Gas Cloud, career diplomat/Ambassador William Taylor, provided what many are describing as his “bombshell testimony.”  Prior to his testimony, Taylor submitted a 15-page statement which provided in stunning detail exactly how military aid was illegally withheld from Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his idiot son, Hunter.

Chrump has been figuratively shooting people on Fifth Avenue for four years now, and he has in fact not lost a single supporter.  Fortunately for those who saw him for what he was – a malignant narcissist, a flaming racist and an authoritarian-loving wanna-be-dictator who thinks the Constitution is for losers – Chrump is not even good at breaking the law.  His arrogance and ignorance drive him inexorably toward disaster and his lack of mental capacity might be surpassed only by his lack of a heart.

In other news of the terminally stupid…

Constantly in search of new ways to disgrace himself and our nation, in what looks for all the world to be a desperate plea to be put out of his (and our) misery, Donald Chrump went to his seemingly bottomless well of racism and tweeted…

I don’t think any of those words mean what you think they mean.

Clearly, Mr. Chrump meant to say “lunching” and not “lynching.”  Who in their right mind would bring up lynching in the context of a Constitutionally mandated responsibility of the United States Congress (or any context for that matter)?  Who, I ask?

Donald Chrump is most likely:

a) mentally defective
b) unable to spell or type
c) unwilling to proofread
d) just kidding…as usual

No one has so egregiously insulted the memory of one of the more horrible stains on America’s fabric of history since Antonin Scalia’s butt-boy Clarence Thomas described his Supreme Court nomination process as a “high-tech lynching.”  At least Thomas’s skin color, if not his consistent pro-white behavior throughout his life, provided a façade of justification for his pathetic whining and wholly inappropriate playing of the race card.  Especially considering that most of the trouble stemmed from Thomas being accused of sexual harassment in the workplace by Anita Hill (and a number of others who were never permitted to testify – thanks Joe Biden), an African American lawyer with nothing to gain, and so much to lose by going public with her painful accusation.

Yes, you racist.

Quid Pro Time To Go 

Is that a lady who could afford to shed a few pounds that I hear singing?  I recognize the tune and she has a lovely voice, but don’t have a great view of her yet.  Considering the richness and resonance of her voice, she surely does not sound like someone who is overly thin. 

I. Mangrey regenerating. 

*American for quid pro quo.

Chrump Tweets While America Melts

Donald Twitterhands Thumbs Again

October 22, 2019

After Chrump’s epic failure yanking troops out of Syria – against the unanimous opposition by all his great generals and most Republican'ts – and his other attempt to force impeachment down his own throat by self-selecting his own resort to host the next G-7, Chrump dug his bone-spur-covering heels in deeper.  Sort of.  First he backed down (a favorite Chrump deal-making maneuver) from forcing world leaders to endure a week at Doral.  What Chrump neglected to mention, while blaming Democrats and the media for making such a big deal about him breaking the law, was that many Republicant’s were horrified by the very thought of hosting world leaders at a location named for the sitting (except while golfing) president.  His own party begged him to nix the deal.

Next, Chrump decided maybe he would not remove all of the troops he thoughtlessly and precipitously pretended he was pulling out of Syria.  I know what you’re thinking - only a very stable genius could pull off such a brilliant maneuver.  Not sure where the troops will hang their helmets right now since we had to bomb our own abandoned base to smithereens in order to keep the ammunition we left behind from enemy (Turkey?) hands.  Some people are also wondering what will become of the dozens of nuclear weapons we have in Turkey.  Unfortunately, Chrump is not one of those people.

Der Furor naturally took to Twitter to share his “thoughts” on all this…

 

Stay tuned for more unparalleled insights and criminal diddling from our soon-to-be-impeached Sad Sack-in-chief.

I. Mangrey retweeting.