Hard Digest February 6: Hush Money, Early Access Work Ethic, Gen Alpha, "Youthanasia," and More

Trump Consults Legal Team to Figure Out Hush Money Payments After Fucking Nation

By The Hard Times Staff

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met with his team of lawyers to discuss potential hush money payments to 335 million citizens after another round of fucking America raw, sources confirmed.

“I want to make it clear that the nation begged for this. I was elected in a landslide, no president has ever had as many votes as me. It was almost a perfect score, perfect votes, the voting was perfect. Most of these people should actually be paying me,” said Trump from the Oval Office. “These payments will just be to shut everyone up and make it so they can’t keep complaining. Look, some lunatics, real sick people, radical people with brains made out of mud and horse manure will say I’m bad at my job. But I’m just going to keep fucking this country until they love me. And I’m great at fucking, one of the best. One time I met Peter North and he actually asked me for tips, he looked like he was about to cry, but I said ‘Peter, just grab them by the pussy and shake them around’ and that’s how I invented squirting. Ask any woman, they love it.”

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says his party is trying to craft a cohesive message to combat Trump.

“Honestly, it’s kind of hot sitting back and watching Trump fuck the nation so hard. But at the end of the day us Democrats were too busy fucking ourselves and we took our eyes off the prize,” said Jeffries from a leather chair in the corner of the room. “My biggest problem is that this seems to be a three-way between Trump, the Nation, and Elon Musk, and I can’t just sit here stroking off while an unelected billionaire raw dogs this great country. Once the nation opens its eyes and sees Elon’s pale, husky torso thrusting above them, we hope everyone will wake up and we can start putting together a plan to fight back.”

Right-wing political pundit Ben Shapiro believes the hush money payments are totally unnecessary.

“I find it ridiculous, any person, or country lucky enough to make love with Trump wouldn’t need to be paid to keep quiet. If Trump was to grace my bed with his presence I’d be shouting it from the rooftops,” said Shapiro. “I’d love 15 minutes with him, totally nude, exploring each other and laughing like little school boys. It’s a dream of mine that my wife hates hearing about, but since she knows that I’m the man of the house she will often dress up as Trump in the bedroom to help bring the fantasy close to reality.”

At press time, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg encouraged more masculine energy on his platforms by allowing users to share nude AI photos of Trump for all to see.

Punk’s Work Ethic No Match for His Drinking Ethic

By Ben Friedman 

DULUTH, Minn. — Exasperated coworkers of punk Jimmy Alpin threatened to quit after watching his work ethic repeatedly be eclipsed by his drinking ethic, sources have confirmed.

“The day I say out loud that my passion in life is to process insurance claims is the day you can shoot me. This job is simply to fund my passion project, which is working up a tolerance to drink an entire bottle of Malört in one sitting. If I forget to email my boss about a super important account, it’s not like the sun won’t rise the next day,” said Alpin. “I put a lot of effort into getting my BAC into that sweet spot in order to make this job tolerable, so I don’t appreciate HR’s comments about my priorities being misplaced. Maybe they’re still mad about all those shooters I strategically hid in all the office plants.”

Alpin’s coworkers were growing tired of him placing casual drinking over one solid day of work.

“Jimmy is a nice enough guy but being his desk neighbor is absolute hell. We constantly have to carry his workload because he’s too busy planning the office happy hour guest list with the intensity of a high stakes day trader. I’m doing both our jobs and believe me, I fucking wish I could be sauced right now,” said Craig Abramowitz. “I have no idea how he keeps getting away with it! Four times now he’s gotten drunk at lunch and was reimbursed for it being a business expense. If I wasn’t getting home at 8 pm every night from picking up his slack, his commitment would be impressive.

Human resources noted that Alpin was not the only one who was putting their personal lives above work.

“Well this is partially our fault, because right after we ended the ability to work from home many of our employees came back to the office with some extra ‘skills.’ Jimmy is now one of many professional drinkers here, but it’s not as bad as the IT department starting a ska band. They hold daily practices in the break room and it’s impossible to relax,” said Senior HR Coordinator Janey Lewis. “Plus, I think Jimmy and some others are secretly selling our office furniture on the side. I could’ve sworn we had more desks in here.”

As of press time, Alpin received a promotion after impressively outdrinking the entire executive board at a company retreat.

We Asked Gen Alpha Kids What They Thought Vinyl Records Were for and They Quickly Devolved Into a Feral “Lord of the Flies” Society

By Dan Rice 

It seems the older you get, the faster time moves. It’s amazing how quickly a technology that’s part of our daily lives one minute can become not only obsolete but forgotten. We decided to illustrate this notion by showing a group of Gen A kids some vinyl records and sure enough, they had no idea the discs were used to play music. Unfortunately, we found that while technology comes and goes in the blink of an eye, the darkness at the heart of man remains eternal.

In less than an hour of trying to determine the purpose of records, a sort of group psychosis took hold of the children. Long story short, we are currently trapped in a barricaded office as the children, adorned in war paint and brandishing crudely fashioned weapons, engage in “The Hunt.”

We should not have taken their phones away, that was our first mistake.

At first, examining the records seemed to calm the children, who were pretty anxious from nearly 30 minutes of TikTok withdrawal. They were transfixed by a lot of the artwork. One of them pulled out a copy of The Psychedelic Furs “All of The and Nothing” and said, “I saw this on my Daddy’s screen once but why is it here?” It was about what we expected, but then the children agreed that only the person holding the Psychedelic Furs LP should be allowed to speak. We thought it was pretty cool that they were naturally governing themselves and decided to give them some space for a few minutes. That was our next mistake.

We swear to god we left those little fuckers alone for 5 minutes, 10 max, but when we went back to the room they had transformed. They were wearing war paint and crude skirts fashioned from the office plants. They had torches fashioned from God knows what. The weakest of them, Henry, was being forced to eat looted vending machine candy off the floor for the amusement of the others. It was clearly time to end this little experiment, but before we could give them their phones back their leader, wearing the Psychedelic Furs sleeve on his head like a hat, took notice of our presence, pointed his finger at us, and shouted “BEAST!” That’s when we noticed the spears, and the bloodlust in their once innocent eyes. We got the fuck out of there as fast as we could.

We’re not sure how many they’ve killed, surely there are other groups barricaded in rooms like we are and God willing one or two made it to the elevator and sent for help, but with each passing minute our hopes of rescue become dimmer, and the children’s ingenuity grows. You know in horror movies where a killer kid starts crying and saying they’re sorry and some sap opens the door only for the kid to go ballistic and stab them? We’ve heard three of those play out already.

If you’re reading this for the love of God send help. We’re getting hungry, which means so are they.

Child Protective Services Finally Called On the Lady From Megadeth’s “Youthanasia” Album Cover

By Steve Packosky 

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Child protective services finally paid a visit to 89-year-old Bertha Gwynne after she had been clipping newborn babies upside-down to a miles-long clothesline in the field behind her house, appalled sources report.

“Frankly, I’m shocked that I got away with it for this long,” Gwynne admitted as she was handcuffed and placed into custody. “I’ve been hanging babies upside down and leaving them exposed to the elements since 1994, and I just now got caught? It’s not even like I was being surreptitious about it, either. I mean, look at my work. This clothesline extends as far as the eye can see. I’m definitely not happy that I got caught, but I guess I can be thankful that I got away with it for so long. I’m going to miss my babies, but I guess everything happens for a reason.”

Child protective services agent Jessica Nantasri was taken aback by the scene she encountered.

“I’ve been working in this agency for 12 years, and I’ve never seen anything this bad,” Nantasri said. “It was just miles and miles of upside-down humans that got progressively older the farther back you went. I consider it a failure on our part that such a horrific crime went unnoticed for so long. I can’t even begin to speculate what her motivation behind this was, much less where she got all these babies. There was also a cat on the clothesline, but that’s not in our jurisdiction, so it’s still just dangling. There are just so many questions I have, so I’m really looking forward to the police questioning Ms. Gwynne.”

Tony Morelock, one of Gwynne’s countless victims, had mixed emotions upon being freed from the clothesline.

“Obviously, I’m happy to no longer be hanging from my toes, but it would be nice if someone had intervened sooner,” Morelock said as he acquainted his body to being upright. “I’m 31 years old now, and there’s so much life that I haven’t had the chance to live because I’ve been suspended in the air like a wet t-shirt since I was born. I’m surprised that I’m even still alive, as I’ve been stuck outside wearing nothing but a diaper for my entire life. It would be one thing if we were somewhere tropical, but we’re in Nebraska, for Christ’s sake. Do you have any idea how windy it gets?”

At press time, Nantasri was so busy with the situation that she was forced to ignore yet another call regarding the monsters from the “Butchered at Birth” album cover.

Oak Administration Orders ♂ and ♀ Symbols Removed From All Nidoran

BY Simon Bower ON February 6, 2025

PALLET TOWN — Newly re-elected President of Kanto, Professor Oak, has caused a stir after ordering all Nidoran♂ and Nidoran♀ to have the gender symbols in their Pokédex entries removed.

“This left wing gender insanity being pushed on our Pokémon is a disgrace,” President Oak ranted at a press conference earlier today. “My administration will only recognize two genders: purple and pointy, or blue and…not quite as pointy. Kantoians are sick of having all these Arceus-defying pronouns and symbols shoved in their faces. I don’t need to know what you identify as, I already asked if you were a boy or girl when you were 12 years old.”

Briefly pausing to offer the journalists present a choice between three starter Pokémon of opposing types, President Oak then resumed his blusterous verbal attack on the harmless and convenient identifier.

“It is sick and frankly criminal that Nidoran as young as level 5 are being pressured into assigning themselves one of these unnatural symbols by their DEI day cares,” he continued, sweat starting to brown the white collar of his lab coat. “They don’t need to think about that until they get to level 16, when the boys turn into Nidorinos and the girls really start to…develop. I remember when my Nidorina, Ivanka, first evolved and I tell you, I didn’t need any little sign after her name to see that she was all woman. But now the woké mob wants to let their Nidoran hold these Everstones, these evolution blockers, until they’re ready to commit to that massive change in their bodies. It’s unforgivable, really, and we’re going to put an end to it.”

Bill, the controversial inventor of the Pokémon Storage System recently confirmed into Oak’s newly created position of Efficiency Executive Verifying and Eliminating Excess, voiced his strong support for the President’s decision.

“As EEVEE, I’m honored to be helping President Oak protect the world from devastation like this,” said Bill, wearing a black shirt with a red ‘R’ on it that he later insisted was not in any way affiliated with Team Rocket. “Those symbols are the only reason I can think of for why my own Nidoran broke out of its Poké Ball and ran away. My friends at Silph Co. assure me that’s not supposed to be possible, but it’s happened to me like a hundred and fifty times.”

At press time, President Oak had just signed an executive order banning transformed Ditto from serving in Pokémon battles.

SHIELD Investigating Spider-Man After Call For Sentinel Raid on Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters

BY Nick Coffman 

NEW YORK — Members of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate are investigating Spider-Man after he allegedly made numerous anti-mutant posts on X. Nick Fury, Executive Director of SHIELD, confirmed he would be leading the investigation in a press conference earlier today. 

“We can confirm at this time that his account was not hacked by a supervillain,” Fury said, scowling to the press. “We don’t think he’s under the influence of any symbiotes or has been brainwashed. We also don’t suspect Ben Reilly is involved. What we believe we have here is a full hard-right heel turn. Spidey’s based now.”

Press flooded Fury with questions concerning Spider-Man’s motives and if we could expect other heroes to follow suit.

“We’ve checked with numerous superhero orgs and they all guarantee us they’re not pushing their members to be based,” Fury said, still scowling. “In the case of Spider-Man, I’ve known him for a while and I can promise, he’s always been an annoying troll.”

The webslingers anti-mutant rhetoric has driven New Yorkers out into the streets to protest the once beloved hero. Some are calling for his resignation. J. Jonah Jameson, Editor-in-Chief at the Daily Bugle and longtime outspoken Spider-Man critic sees this “New Spidey” as a breath of fresh air for the city.

“It’s about time he said what everyone else is thinking,” Jameson said on a recent episode of his podcast. “Maybe he’ll stop beating up hard working Americans just trying to make a living and focus on the real criminals like that wolf guy that doesn’t die, or that blind kid that shoots lasers out of his eyes. For Chirst sake, that Xavier clown is housing weapons of mass destruction. He literally has a negasonic warhead.”

At press time, Hulk had quote posted each of Spider-Man’s hateful X posts, simply replying, “Looking into it”.