We
sincerely apologize to horse manure, which unlike Santorum can provide a noble
and valuable service as excellent fertilizer. Please forgive this error in
judgment. It seemed funny at the time.
We
now return you to your regularly scheduled stuff…
Words from Garland that Mitch Fucking
McConnell and his Ratpublicans must surely dread: “The Department of Justice
will be unwavering in its pursuit of equal justice for all.” And Garland is not
kidding. He is already investigating two major police departments for excessive
use of force, and reviving the effort to enforce civil rights that was withering
on life support under the anti-justice league after being poisoned almost to
death by the absolutely abhorrent Jeff Sessions and then the infinitely worse Bill
Barr.
Oh, and Garland’s Justice Department just
raided Rudy Giuliani’s home and office, seizing his phone and other electronic
devices. Rudy may soon be begging for a long-term lease on a room at Four
Seasons Landscaping.
Now that Merrick Garland is Attorney General
of the United States, Fucking McConnell may well rue the day he stole Garland’s
Supreme Court seat.
This has been your
Paying Attention Thought For The Day.
Fuck "Frothy" Rick Santorum. The weeny, one-term senator from Pennsylvania, continues to be
allowed to pontificate on CNN. Why anyone cares what this out-of-touch, out-of-date
weasel thinks is beyond me. He was a big nothing when he was briefly in the
Senate and his stature has done nothing but diminish since.
Santorum recently shared
some of his special brand of fake, white history, in front of the radical right
wing Young America's Foundation, “We came here, and created (sic) a blank
slate. We birthed a nation. From nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I
mean, yes we have Native Americans, but candidly there isn’t much Native
American culture in American culture.”
Rick Santorum
enjoying a day in the park
I guess the ultra-white,
consistently racist, religious fanatic Santorum done forgot all about that
nasty slavery business – which built so much of this nation, including the
White House. And apparently, the whole genocide, and unending, purposeful cultural
destruction perpetrated against our native peoples conveniently slipped his entitled,
twisted little mind. Oopsie.
Remember when little
Ricky was on the campaign trail in 2012 and said, "I
don't want to make bla... people's lives better by giving them somebody else's
money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and
provide for themselves and their families." Did he though? Did he want to
give the bla people the opportunity? I don't fucking think so.
Let's be fair to Ricky –
at least he’s consistent. He is and always has been an unrepentant, perhaps
blissfully unaware (I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he
knows what he is doing.), racist douchebag. Other than that, he is a wonderful
person. Just kidding about that last thing. And the being fair part. Fuck him.
Lindsey
Graham (or perhaps a melted blob of vanilla ice cream on a blank page)
And fuck the 46% of racist Ratpublicans who, after watching actual video of D’rek Chauvin’s brutal, premeditated murder of George
Floyd and hearing an abundance of irrefutable evidence from experts, insist the
Chauvin verdict was wrong. I suppose these folks believe the Civil War was some
sort of accidental misunderstanding.
Oh, and fuck Joe
Manchin. For a totally different reason (on the surface at least). The self-appointed
arbiter of bipartisanship; his style of which generally means that Democrats
must concede ground (ground that most Americans prefer) to Ratpublicans who
have no interest in anything other than obstruction, which as
always is premeditated to result in pain and suffering for many people of color.
Manchin, a leading corporate, anti-environment boot-licker, would
rather claim to know what is good and fair for all Americans, while he
represents the fourth whitest state in the Union. He seems to have no problem
feigning grandiosity while Ratpublicans shamelessly decimate the First
Amendment right to peaceably assemble, after learning all the wrong lessons
from the Turmp-led insurrection on January 6th. Manchin appears
unperturbed as Ratpublicans eradicate voting rights across the country in order
to wrest power from the electorate – in particular, people of color, who make
up just five percent of Manchin’s home state. He would rather whine about his
own party trying to change the focus of the Senate from protecting corporations
and the wealthy to serving the American public than modify the racist
filibuster. Did I mention fuck Joe Manchin.
I. Mangrey, giving a few fucks for the cause. Pardon my French.
Arizona Ratpublicans have hired Cyber Ninjas –
a hyper-partisan, pro-Turmp, conspiracy-theory-obsessed company to carry out,
in complete secrecy, what Arizona Ratpublicans are calling a fourth audit of
the votes in Maricopa Country. The first three, legitimate audits found precisely
zero fraudulent activity. No one knows for sure
what these secret cyber Ninja nutjobs are doing with these millions of ballots,
but we have a very useful suggestion of what they can do with them and where they
can put them. And, we can surely find volunteers to help them find the right
spot if they have trouble locating it on their own.
ASK
YOUR PSYCHIATRIST IF LIAGRA IS RIGHT FOR YOU…
OR JUST ASK ME, YOU PATHETIC PSYCHOPATH
It’s a very big white pill
for very small white people – it can go in either end.
And if it makes you feel better, we can hide it in a piece of meat.
Are
you having trouble accepting an election?
Is your brain the size of a pea?
Do you believe that if you back a racist,
authoritarian conman who gets crushed at the polls it means the election was
stolen? First of all, if this is you, go fuck yourself. Also, if your election
conspiracy theory lasts more than four months, please consult your
psychiatrist. If you cannot be seen immediately, please lock yourself in your
mother's basement and STFU until help arrives. You need some serious help.
Do
you have an irrational distrust of science and medicine?
Are you tired of drinking disinfectant and trying to shine a powerful light up
your ass?
Good news, while drinking alcohol along with
medications like LIAGRA can have deadly side effects, who you gonna believe? A bunch
of stupid doctors or a badly colored conman? You don’t need to listen to
anyone. You can feel free to wash down your pills with some “plant-based beer.”*
Or if you prefer, go right ahead and guzzle down your favorite meat-based beverage.
And if you don’t believe in taking pills orally (that means through your
mouth), then you can just go ahead and sit on it and rotate.
*Larry Kudlow was the insanely incompetent Director of the National
Economic Council for a twice-impeached, twice-defeated-in-the-popular-vote, disgraced
president. He recently went on a tirade based on completely fabricated criticism
of Joe Biden’s non-existent ban on meat, which ended with, “So get ready. You
can throw back a plant-based beer with your grilled Brussels sprouts and wave
your American flag.”
A Public service announcement from Paying Attention.
We know about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the decision to be
overly cautious over concerns of blot clots. After extensive deliberation the CDC
recommended the Johnson & Johnson vaccine resume its place among viable
options. It’s probably good to have it back in the loop.
Johnson & Blockhead
Braindead Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Lala Land), who
does not understand science, rational thought or vaccines, asked a podcast
host, “What is the point? If the science tells us the vaccines are 95 percent
effective. So, if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your
neighbor has one or not? What is it to
you? You have got a vaccine, and science is telling you it's very, very
effective. So, why is this big push to make sure everybody gets a vaccine?...I’m
getting highly suspicious of what’s happening here.” Yeah, me too. The CDC has
also recommended that Ron Johnson shut the fuck up.
Ron & Don: Dumber and Dumbest
Who can tell which is which?
What we really need is a Johnson vaccine. To
protect against Ron Johnson.
This has been your
Paying Attention Fraught For The Day.
We are very excited to provide our exclusive
transcript of the conversation between the two psychopaths. Naturally, we had
to redact certain passages for national security reasons.
This has been your
Paying Attention Transcript For The Day.
It is long past time
that we show a little respect for our home. Celebrating Earth Day is all well
and good, but is it sufficient? Don’t be ridiculous. For some of us, every day
is Earth Day, but for most of the hairless apes populating this uniquely
positioned and gifted little blue dot among an unfathomably immense celestial array,
the Earth is nothing more than a place to hang their hats, throw their trash,
pass their gas and generally burn the place down. We need an annual Earth
History Month. February is Black History Month. March is Women’s History Month.
At the very least, April should be Earth History Month. You heard it here
first…well, I did.
Manfred Mann's Earth Band –
Give Me The Good Earth
This has been your
Paying Attention Thought For The Day.
Though this Earth is our home it is not ours.
It belongs to all the four-leggeds, two-leggeds, the winged, rooted, rocks,
water. All things wild and wonderful, all creatures great and small. Weren’t we
taught to share? To clean up after ourselves? That an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure? That:
We are here to take care of this miraculous
orb, not to take advantage of it.
As you probably know if you are in the habit
of tuning in to Paying Attention, everyone here is a big fan of Old Mother
Earth and every day is Earth Day around here. For better or worse, mostly
worse, the United States has long been a major player in what happens to our
favorite life-sustaining planet. This nation has been propping up the fossil
fuel industry for 100 years, while simultaneously showing nothing but disdain
for the only planet we have.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan named James Watt (not
the steam engine guy, whose invention was one of the early insults to the
environment, if not social structure) as Secretary of the Interior. Watt was hostile
to environmentalism, and endorsed development of federal lands by foresting and
ranching, and for other commercial interests. Watt worked tirelessly to carry
out his Earth-killing mission. He was once described as “intensely controversial and blatantly
anti-environmental political appointees” in American history.
In 2021 Joe Biden appointed Watt’s polar
opposite Deb Haaland, as the first Native American to manage America’s interior
in out nation’s history. Haaland is the first Interior secretary to have no agenda
other than no compromise in the defense of Mother Earth!
Deb Haaland
– America’s first legitimate Interior Secretary
On the eve of Biden’s virtual climate summit
with other world leaders, 101 Nobel laureates in peace, literature, medicine,
physics, chemistry and economic sciences led by the Dalai Lama, have signed onto
a letter weighing
in on the scourge of fossil fuels. “The burning of fossil fuels is responsible
for almost 80% of carbon dioxide emissions since the industrial revolution…Allowing
the continued expansion of this industry is unconscionable.”
Capitalism Kills
If for no other reason than this, capitalism,
conservative socio-economic theory and its companion theory on the function of
federal government are utter frauds. Corporations (even the ones that do not
get obscene and completely antithetical to anything fair or moral, welfare in
the form of tax exemptions, subsidies, etc.) are privy to relatively unfettered
ability to make unlimited profit. Bully for them. But somehow, they are for the
most part completely absolved of cleaning up after themselves. That of course,
is left up to tax payers by way of our friendly neighborhood Congress people.
The government is left (voluntarily)holding the bag…and not just the one full
of cash. They – us – must clean up all the pollution, in no small part because
corporate henchmen known as lobbyists literally write the laws.
Ratpublicans yell and scream about the
dreaded socialism. All socialists want to do is use taxpayer money to assure
that people – you know, taxpayers – have the bare minimum required to live with
dignity; and yes, maybe even a little more if possible. Sounds sinister, I
know.
Ratpublicans believe that using taxpayer
money to benefit taxpayers is simply lunacy, taking badly needed pennies out of
the pockets of the people Ratpublicans cherish above all others –
corporationpeople. Needless to say, Ratpublicans will never admit to their
shameless, decades-long, relentless duplicity, as they somehow manage to
convince their mentally malfunctioning minions that they are the ones
protecting them and their “freedoms.” Yes, protecting them from being healthy,
safe, middle class, or living in a democracy.
No, Ratpublicans would rather use that money,
the money we gave them to ostensibly use wisely, and instead fritter it away
not on protecting our environment from unnecessary depredations by corporate
polluters, but instead on cleaning up after the world’s worst environmental assaulters
after the fact. This achieves two things, 1) it allows unfettered destruction
of the environment, and 2) it allows the tax-sheltered/offshore bank accounts
of the world’s wealthiest to balloon at our expense. Makes sense, no? NO.
Go Fund Yourself
And just for the record, unlike the trillions
of dollars of tax cuts for corporations and the very rich, which we are
constantly being told, despite decades of objective proof to the contrary,
would pay for themselves, however many trillions of dollars are put into
infrastructure, renewable energy and keeping people out of poverty, will
undoubtedly pay for themselves.
Meanwhile Mitch Fucking McConnell is
threatening to wreak death and destruction if Democrats dare raise corporate
taxes to repair and upgrade infrastructure – the infrastructure that
corporations happen to use relentlessly. As a wise man once said regarding the
corporate mindset that they owe the nation that coddles them nothing: they
didn’t build that. We built that with the meager tax dollars we were able to
wrest away from corporate welfare and military spending.
At the same time, Fucking McConnell is
chastising his corporate benefactors for daring to enter politics on the side
of everyday Americans…for a change, as CEOs are forced to speak out against
Ratpublican voter suppression laws across the country. McConnell whines when
corporations are finally shamed into taking a break from writing our laws to
serve their greed and disdain for us and our planet. For one, probably brief,
moment corporations that are perpetually stealing from us, were forced by the
times to stand up for democracy and the people whose hard-earned money feeds
their insatiable bellies.
Even Jeff Bezos, the personification of
greed, has come out in favor of raising taxes on corporations. Cold comfort
given the breadth of his financial excesses and his anti-labor practices, but
we are forced to take what we can get. For now.
For now, celebrate Earth Day. Every day. In every way. Call your member of Congress. Hound your Senator. To paraphrase and old saying: The Earth will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Earth.
Whack-a-doodle, white nationalist, Qanon
aficionado and freshman congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene (who has been
banned from committee assignments for incendiary, racist rhetoric during her
first few days in Congress) is demanding that 15-term Rep. Maxine Waters be
expelled from Congress. The ultra-white, ultra-right Greene recently had a
spokesperson release the following regarding a new Ratpublican caucus, “Be on
the lookout for the release of the America First Caucus platform when it's
announced to the public very soon.”
Psychotic,
belligerent, ignorant – triple-threat Greene shows what she knows
It is always important to remind ourselves
that the ‘America first’ mantra began with Nazi sympathizers in this country,
and more recently was the constant chant of a very orange, very racist, very
ignorant very recent, disgraced ex-president. The latest iteration – the America
First Caucus – was touted by Greene and other Ratpublican miscreants Paul Gosar
(whose six siblings vigorously and brutally campaigned against him) and alleged
sex trafficker/child molester Matt Gaetz. Gosar recently spoke at a white
nationalist convention and Gaetz has his head so far up Turmp’s ass that he can
see the back side of his idol’s dentures.
The America First Caucus policy platform
includes this statement: “Anglo-SaxonAmerica is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common
respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” Whateverthefuck that
means. And: “The America First Caucus will work towards an infrastructure that
reflects the architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the
progeny of European architecture.” Whateverthefuck that means. The mission
statement also promised to “to follow in President Trump’s footsteps.” We know
whatthefuck that means.
Soon after the idea of such a caucus was made
public, Greene tried to blame her staff for announcing its launch. She sent her
spokesmonkey back out to insist that there was no planned launch as Greene
attempted to distance herself from this Aryan cabal. Even House Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy had to publicly wag his finger, seemingly poo-pooing the
ultra-racist take-over of his racist party.
In attempting to distract everyone from her
latest fascist/racist foray, Greene went after Waters because she dared to tell
reporters that people should not take a bad outcome of the Chauvin murder trial
lightly and should become more confrontational should the murderous cop not be
found guilty on all counts. But mostly because Maxine Waters is black.
GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY
We close with what everyone
surely knows – a rare moment of accountability in America, for the brutal
murder, at the hands of police, of a Black American. The murderer Chauvin killed
George Floyd in cold blood. He also caused great harm to many others who were
supporting characters in the horrific events of May 25, 2020. The young man who
feels deep guilt for reporting the counterfeit $20. The onlookers who feel the
same for not being able to save Floyd’s life, despite doing all they could under
the circumstances. And of course, the family and friends of George Floyd who
lost a loved one. Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts, and becomes the
first white police officer in Minnesota state history to be held accountable
for killing a Black man. May his senseless,
disgraceful murder transform his memory into something great and powerful,
changing the course of our nation for all time.
