A Poem

Je M’accuse!

September 9, 2022

Interesting?

                              Ironic?

     Call it what you will.

The case is called “Donald J. Trump v. United States of America.”

                         Literally.

Has it not always been thus?

Two Questions For The Day

September 8, 2022

Today's questions are:

1) When was the FBI planning to search every single Trump property, including Ivana’s coffin by the first tee at his Badmonster Golf Club in New Jersey?

Master of the perfect phone call

2) Who will uncover the perfect phone calls between Il Douche and District Judge Aileen Cannon – the unqualified Trump appointee who issued the special master order, contrary to all reason and legal precedent, and halted the FBI investigation – to explain exactly what he needed her to do?

David Bromberg - Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair

These have been your Paying Attention™ Two Questions For The Day.

Thought For The Day

Civility Is Highly Overrated

September 7, 2022

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
President Joseph Biden to heckler, September 5, 2022

Taking a break from my usual tap-dancing around the issues, usually with too many words, let me be attempt to be brief. Fuck Donald Trump all the way to hell. 

This fucker is still whining about the FBI’s “unannounced raid” on Mor-on-Lardo. Maybe he should talk to Breonna Taylor about unannounced raids. Oh wait, Breonna Taylor is dead. And she did not even steal classified documents from the White House. In fact, Ms. Taylor never did anything wrong before the police came crashing into her home – unannounced – while she lay sleeping in bed. And she ended up shot to death. By police.

Oh, and that unannounced raid on Mor-on-Lardo? It was anything but unannounced.

When I wore this hat to the voting booth in 2020,

the initialism ITMFA stood for:

Impeach The Mother Fucker Already

I doubt Dan Savage who coined ITMFA would mind my slight adjustment:
                                       Indict The Mother Fucker Already
Fuck Donald Trump.

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

You're welcome.

What is your thought for the day?

(Not So) Fun Fact For The Day

Something To Help Cheer You Down

September 6, 2022

Judge? Not!

In case you missed it, Donald Trump stole hundreds of classified documents (which is a crime), stashed them in various places (which is a crime), likely threatening national security (which is a crime), ignored repeated requests to return the documents and ignored a subpoena (which is a crime), lied about having more stolen documents (which is a crime), forced the FBI to search his Florida resort/home/fake office (which was not a crime), and then hand-picked a “judge” he appointed (after he had lost the 2020 election) who deemed it best to halt the FBI investigation (which is a shanda), because it might harm his reputation (what about America's reputation?). Now, ain’t that America.

Just thought you might like to know.

This has been your Paying Attention™ (Not So) Fun Fact For The Day.

Choosy Mothers

Eff You, You Eff

September 5, 2022

Whatever else may happen at Paying Attention, we pride ourselves on always trying to be fair and honest. With that in mind, it is important to own up to the fact that the anti-choice crowd on the Right deserves to be treated honestly. They are not just virulent misogynists taking away the right of women to choose what to do with their bodies. They really are much more well-rounded in their fear and loathing of choice.

These are the same fuckwits who are constantly caterwauling about cancel culture.

Ratpublicans across the country are hard at work eliminating all manner of choice. They are banning books in order to eliminate the choice of what children can read. They are banning choice for teachers and what they can talk about in class. They are trying to stop people from having the choice of who they can marry.

Is Being Stupid A Choice?

As if this anti-choice tsunami was not sufficient, Ratpublicans are attempting to eliminate the choice of who can win elections. Joe Biden laid out this agenda clearly and succinctly, speaking truth to bullshit in front of Independence Hall recently:

Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where the MAGA Republicans are today.
                 President Joe Biden, Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2022

Biden Drops The F-Bomb

A week before his very strong and powerful speech in Philadelphia, Biden went out on a very secure limb by calling Donald Trump and MAGA Ratpublicans “semi-fascists.” The semi-fascists did not take Biden’s sudden (and long overdue) truth telling very well. Despite many of them having labeled progressives as fascist repeatedly for years, they did not appreciate having themselves defined as such despite being the ones who refuse to accept the result of a free and fair election. Despite being the ones who idolize Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Il Douche himself – Donald Trump. And, despite being the ones who do not want anyone who thinks differently than they do to have any kind of choice to do as they please. Presumably, some resented the use of ‘semi’ as prefix.

In response to Biden’s Philadelphia speech, Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state.” The state that Trump believes belongs to him. The state that he sent his minions to overthrow on January 6, 2021. The state that decided four long years of Trump’s self-enriching, criminal, sociopathic, authoritarian regime was enough, and chose Joe Biden to rehabilitate. Words have actual meanings, though those meanings have been known to change. As of this writing, the word fascist does not mean “anyone who disagrees with me.” Fascism denotes an authoritarian, anti-democratic, corporate-dominated system of governance, where freedom is just another word for nothing to see here.

Where They Go One, They Go All

Ratpublicans were apoplectic when Biden accurately labeled “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans” as dangerous to democracy. They claimed he categorized all Ratpublicans as such. Guilty conscience much? In all fairness, where exactly is the dividing line between MAGA Ratpublicans and so-called non-MAGA Ratpublicans? Donald Trump continues to hold sway over Ratpublicans – if he decides to run again, he will be their nominee. 

The entire leadership of the party has enabled Trump since it became clear that he was crushing the pathetic field of candidates in 2016. That includes just about every rival that Trump nick-named, figuratively spanked and childishly humiliated during that campaign, all of whom have since made a cottage industry out of kissing Trump’s sorry ass. So really, just about every single Mitch-McConnell-ized, every single Kevin-McCarthy-addled GQP bastard is either a semi-fascist or a semi-fascist-enabler, or semi-fascist adjacent. Or a full-fledged fucking fascist.

More recently, Il Douche has claimed that he is financially supporting some number of insurrectionists (the number is most likely zero). He also told an interviewer, “I mean full pardons with an apology to many. I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons, full pardons.” Not one Ratpublican made a peep about any of this. Likely because they would never disrespect the Orange Goose that lays the giant democracy-goose-eggs. It’s the only choice they have.

Fair or otherwise, I leave you with a beautiful, trenchant quote from the man who nicknamed Trump Fuckface von Clownstick, the brilliant Jon Stewart:

I’m not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.

I. Mangrey reporting. I hold these truths to be self-evident.

Broken News

Equal Opportunity Knocks

September 3, 2022

Recently, in a valiant and desperate effort to improve a tarnished public image, a determined group of police officers in Arkansas beat the living crap out of a white man who was accused of saying mean things to a convenience store clerk. Though their unique effort to prove all men are created equal, they did stop short of shooting him in the back.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled police brutality.

Question For The Day

A Clear And Ex-President Danger

September 2, 2022

Please tell me what I’m missing here. 

Disgraced, twice-impeached, ex-one-term-president and failed insurrection leader Donald trump made off with (i.e., stole) hundreds of highly classified documents after being shown the exit to the White House by the American electorate. The man who gave new meaning to the phrase ‘sitting president,’ stole documents covering subjects that he could not be bothered to learn about when it was his fucking job to know what was in them. He stuck most of them in a basement room at Mor-on-Lie-go, a room that was completely unsecured until the good folks at the National Archives to put a sock in it…I mean, put a lock on it. By all reports, it was a padlock; you know, like the thing you had to buy at the five-and-dime to put on your locker at school. A fucking padlock.

Trump apparently stuffed another bunch of highly classified documents that he stole in a desk drawer in his office. Was there a padlock on his desk drawer? Or just a note that said, “Do not touch?”

Co-defendency

Trump and/or his lawyers lied to authorities, telling them that all classified that trump stole had been returned. After much cajoling, demanding and subpoenaing, it finally became necessary to send federal agents to recover more illegally taken documents. Those lawyers are currently hiring their own criminal defense attorneys. One of trump’s new lawyers argued in court that trump stealing classified documents was no worse than possessing an “overdue library book.” I rest my case.

Many other people who did much less were arrested, put in prison and/or fined and/or executed.

You may also recall that while “president” trump divulged sensitive information to the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office, publicly proclaimed that he trusted Vladimir Putin and not American intelligence, and incited an insurrection in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election and our democracy. Trump ate, flushed, shredded and burned documents with reckless and brainless abandon. A busy little bee was he. Oh, and he may be hiding even more classified documents in his gold-plated hell-hole.

Today's question is:

When the hell do we get to see this?

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

Broken News: Clean Up In Asshole 45!!

What A Fucking Mess! Clean Up In Asshole 45!!

September 1, 2022

A traitor-trove of stolen classified documents were found in various locations at Mor-on-Lie-go, including in a desk drawer in a room called “45 Office.” The picture below was taken somewhere in trump’s Florida resort.

A picture is worth 1000 indictments

Naturally, the box on the right contains a framed copy of:

One would not be wrong to assume that the rest of the framed images in the box are other TIME covers featuring the badly dyed face of Der Furor.

Accused sexual predator protector (soon to be immortalized in a documentary produced by George Clooney) Rep. Jim Jordan (R-WTF) who is in charge of the GQP House Judiciary Committee Twitter feed paraded his idiocy for all to see...as usual:

No Jim, the TIME Magazine cover was not a huge threat to national security, but the asshole on the cover sure as fuck is. And you’re not such hot shit yourself.

Trump whined that he did not leave documents lying around on the floor, that the photo was staged.  

Once again, trump admits to having committed a crime

Speaking of lying, if trump says the FBI did it, we must by definition assume that trump is lying. We can’t wait to hear the results of all the fingerprinting. It is unfortunately possible that it will be difficult to decipher prints from such tiny fingers. Though apparently, trump’s handwriting was found on a number of documents. What a maroon.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled navel gazing.

Late UN-Broken News

BYE BYE BARBIE!

August 31, 2022
10:00 PM Eastern

There is hope for humanity.

As you are well aware, we here at Paying Attention™ are not in the habit of blabbing good news, but with 93% of the vote in, but Mary Peltola has just been projected the surprise winner in a special congressional election in Alaska.

What’s so good about that?

First of all, Peltola is a Native Alaskan and a Democrat, which would be good enough in itself. However, what makes this so much more special is the other candidate in the run-off. She was endorsed by donald trump’s and is someone with whom you might be familiar – the one, the only Sarah Palin.

Oh, and Mary Peltola will be the first Democratic rep from Alaska since 1973, taking the seat held by Don Young for 50 years, before his passing. Peltola will hold the seat until having to run again in November to serve a full-term.

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

We now return you to your regularly scheduled schadenfreude.