PigsFly Newspaper

20/08/2025

🕳️ **WE CRAWLED INTO OUR SHELL — NOT FROM FEAR, BUT FROM DISGUST** 🐢

Let’s be clear: our recent retreat wasn’t about fear of retribution. No, no. It was about something *far more corrosive*: disappointment, edging right up against full-blown revulsion.

Because it’s hard to keep screaming when the audience seems to be cheering for the collapse of democracy like it’s a Fourth of July fireworks show.

And nothing spells “collapse” quite like the ghoulish fever dream that is **Project 2025**, proudly engineered by the Heritage Foundation’s own ventriloquist, Russell Vought — the guy who’s got his hand so far up Trump’s back, he probably flosses with his spinal cord.

Yes, we’re talking about **Donald Trump**, the man who thinks diplomacy means giving hats to world leaders and declaring victory in wars he didn’t fight and couldn’t name.

In a recent Mother Jones editorial — which we’ve left untouched because, frankly, you can’t improve on this level of jaw-drop — the delusion is on full display:

Donald Trump's recent string of high-profile diplomatic meetings could give one the impression that peace in Ukraine is within grasping reach. But read any analysis of these so-called negotiations and you quickly see that this is not true; progress remains ever-elusive.

*Still, I wouldn't fault you for wondering right now if Trump is suddenly invested in peace. (Trust me, I wish he were.) But let his own comments disabuse you of that hopeful thinking. As I recounted in a quick piece today:*

*Amid starvation imposed by Israel on Gaza and deadly bombings in Ukraine, President Donald Trump’s narcissism is reaching new heights.*

*“I’ve done six wars, I’ve ended six wars,” he claimed on Monday in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, taking credit for settling conflicts that the US began or saw little to no American involvement in their resolutions. Elsewhere in the Oval Office meeting, Trump forced guests to endure a viewing of hats emblazoned with “4 more years.”*

*Such stunning self-regard was once again on display Tuesday as Trump praised accused war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war hero” over his approval of Israel’s June airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites, and then gave some love to himself. “I guess I am, too."*

*Those were just two instances of startling egoism as death rages on in Ukraine and Gaza. So what's he so proud about?

I speculate here that it might have to do with successfully elbowing the Jeffrey Epstein scandal out of the frame.

That and watching his dream police state unfold.*
*—Inae Oh*

It’s like watching a demolition derby with nukes — except the crowd thinks it’s a halftime show and the car in flames is the Constitution.

We’ve been covering the Project 2025 freakshow in detail here 👉 [https://pigsfly.info/category/trump/project-2025](https://pigsfly.info/category/trump/project-2025) — but in case you still think this is politics-as-usual, let us remind you: this isn’t about policy anymore. It’s about a full-blown ideological coup wrapped in red, white, and MAGA hats.

And the “puppet” everyone’s watching?

He doesn’t even know there are strings attached.

But Vought and the Heritage henchmen do.

They’re orchestrating a government hollow-out job with all the grace of a chainsaw in a church.

So if we seem a little quieter these days, it’s not because we’ve given up — it’s because we’re trying to figure out how to scream *louder* without bursting a blood vessel.

💀 Stay awake. Stay angry. Stay tuned.
— *Pigsfly Editorial Team*

21/07/2025

It started innocently enough. Just another Tuesday, just another PDF to open.
A document I created myself.
But Adobe Acrobat had other plans.
Ransom ware disguised as a special feature

What once was a clean, reliable tool for viewing and editing PDFs has now been inflated into a bloated, soulless cash-grab machine.
Adobe has taken what used to be one of the most universally respected pieces of software, and Frankensteined it into a user-hostile, profit-obsessed monstrosity that should come with a warning label: “May cause rage, subscription fatigue, and spontaneous desk flipping.”

Let’s talk about the user experience—if we can still call it that. Want to open a file?
You’re greeted by a barrage of offers, buttons, nags, reminders, and thinly veiled threats disguised as “enhanced features.” Oh, you wanted to edit your own document? How quaint. That’ll be $19.99 a month.
Click here to upgrade! No, there’s no “maybe later” button.
There’s only “give us money” or “enjoy the PDF equivalent of dial-up.”

Adobe’s latest Acrobat update makes it painfully clear: this company no longer serves its users.
It serves the spreadsheet.
The shareholder.
The bonus pool.

And it’s doing so with such brazen contempt for user needs that even the most loyal among us are checking the exits.

Pigsfly Newspaper is your ideal place for political news and political comment that will challenge the misstatements, spin, untruths, deceits and bulls**t passed of as facts.

21/07/2025

Reference: QBE Article – "Word Salad to Profit"
Dear Allianz,
I’d ask to speak to someone, but — let’s be honest — that’s not really a thing anymore at Allianz, is it?
I’ve tried calling. I’ve tried the online maze. I’ve pressed every number your voice robot offers. And still, no Australian, no actual person, and absolutely no one willing to take ownership of anything. The one thing you are excellent at? Fobbing people off to call centres staffed with people who are very polite and entirely powerless.
So I ask — what are you hiding from? A question? Accountability? Or just the inconvenience of dealing with your actual customers?
I’ve written about this exact insurance industry rot over at Pigsfly News. You can read it here, if you’re not too busy counting dividends:
👉 https://pigsfly.info/2025/07/20/qbe-insurance-turn-word-salad-profit-wallet-bonus-scheme/
Your model seems to follow the same pattern:
Increase premiums? ✔
Decrease service? ✔
Automate the escape hatch? ✔
Hope no one notices? ❌
Well, consider me noticed. I look forward to the day Allianz operates like a company that respects the people funding its profit reports — not just its shareholders.
If anyone human happens to see this, I can be reached on 0431 ######X 3. Assuming you’re not still “experiencing higher-than-usual call volumes,” which I believe is insurance code for “we don't want to talk to you.”
Yours in bitter disappointment,
Bob Lee

20/07/2025

QBE Insurance: How to Turn Word Salad into Profit (and Your Wallet into a Bonus Scheme)

There are corporate spinners, there are Olympic-level weasellers, and then… there’s QBE Insurance Group — a company so deft at transforming disasters into dividends, they could probably monetise your house burning down and call it a "customer experience pivot."

Let’s start with the basics: in the last five years, QBE has gone from barely paying dividends to flinging shareholder payouts around like a pre-election budget. Profits have soared, while your premium has quietly crept up so high it’s basically a financial landslide.

Let’s review the so-called Executive Summary, which we’ve annotated for those of us who don’t get quarterly bonuses for creative accounting.

📊 QBE’s 2020–2024 “Don’t-Worry-You’ll-Pay-For-It” Financials
Year Profit After Tax (US$ billion) Return to Shareholders (dividends + buybacks)
2024 1.779 A$0.87/share — fat 50% payout. Pop the champagne, team.
2023 1.355 A$0.19/share — tiny thank-you for your loyalty
2022 Still missing in action Unclear. Must have fallen into a compliance vortex.
2021 0.750 A$0.19/share — basically a breadcrumb with branding
2020 Not disclosed, aka buried alive $0.00 — “We care deeply” but not enough to pay a dividend

That's right: from 19 cents/share in 2021 to a juicy 87 cents/share in 2024. That’s not a steady climb — that’s a rocket ship fuelled by your premiums and QBE’s superhuman ability to turn natural disaster losses into boardroom profit.

💸 Let’s Talk About Your Bill
Real-world example time. Last year, a typical home policy with QBE was A$1,934.70. This year? A cool A$2,534.61. That’s a tidy A$596.94 increase. But don’t worry — they’ve very helpfully made the monthly payment jump just A$20.19, so it slips under your radar. Sneaky? Genius? Both.

From A$190.78/month → A$210.97/month.
And that, dear reader, is how you disguise a 31% year-on-year hike — not with spreadsheets, but with a calculator and the assumption most people won’t bother checking.

Even worse? That A$596.94 isn’t tied to any transparent service increase. It’s just baked-in margin for executive satisfaction. As in: you pay more, so they can pay themselves more.

🌊 Surprise! Flood Insurance Is Now “Included”
Here’s the real kicker. QBE has decided that flood insurance is no longer optional — it’s now part of your base policy. Great, right? You’re covered!
Except… you didn’t ask for it. You didn’t explicitly agree to it. And QBE didn’t exactly shout it from the rooftops either. Instead, it’s hidden in the policy update somewhere between the font-6 disclaimers and the inspirational stock photos of dogs being rescued in dinghies.

So what used to be an add-on, you could choose to pay for, is now compulsory — and surprise! — much more expensive.
“We’ve improved your coverage!”
Translation: “We’ve increased your premium under the illusion of generosity.”

🏛️ Enter the Political Vibe Check
If QBE were a political party, it’d be the worst bits of Albo’s cabinet briefings mashed with the last decade of Coalition climate denial — all spoken in the fluent dialect of Spin-glish.

The language of their annual reports could double as a transcript from Parliament Question Time: pages of word fog, risk hedging, and zero accountability. It’s the same template:

Never compare last year’s prices with this year’s (because, ouch).
Frame every increase as “customer-focused restructuring.”
Remind shareholders of how proud you are of financial performance — just not how you achieved it.

And the opposition? Oh, they’re on the beach with a real estate brochure, whispering that "the market will sort itself out."
📈 The Shareholder High While You Pay the Tide
Let’s zoom out for one moment.

Dividends: up more than 350% from 2021 to 2024.
Profit: up US$1.03 billion since 2021.
Transparency: flatlined.

Your premium: up A$600 in one hit.

If you’re asking “where did my money go?” — check the Annual General Meeting catering budget or maybe someone’s new Mercedes parked at the QBE building in Sydney. This is not a cost of living crisis — this is a cost of corporate appetite crisis, and you’ve been cast as the recurring donor.

🎯 The Bottom Line (In Case You Missed It)
QBE’s five-year strategy is crystal clear:
Bury the numbers. Mask the hikes. Bury Call it coverage. Pay the shareholders. Hope the customers don’t own calculators.

And while they stuff dividend envelopes like it’s Christmas, you’re left checking your account, wondering why the hell you’re paying more for the same policy you’ve had for five years.

The brilliance? They didn’t even say they raised your prices.

They just “included more value.” Because when you own the narrative and the billing system, truth is optional.

So here’s your bill, Australia.
A$596.94 extra this year.
Dividends up 350%.
Profits surging.

You still think QBE is protecting you?

Or are you protecting QBE?

Pigsfly Newspaper is your ideal place for political news and political comment that will challenge the misstatements, spin, untruths, deceits and bulls**t passed of as facts.

20/07/2025

📰 Follow-Up Editorial: Goodbye Adobe,
Hello PDF24 – The Breakup Letter You Forced Me to Write
By Bob Lee Special to Pigsfly News
Well folks, it happened. After a week of teeth-grinding, keyboard-pounding frustration with Adobe Acrobat’s latest paywall-palooza, I did what every abused user eventually does: I went looking for a way out. Three AI tools, five forums, and one desperate coffee-fueled weekend later... I found it.

And it’s free.

Let that marinate a moment, Adobe.

Yes, the software that finally rescued me from your clutches costs exactly $0.00 — and it’s called PDF24.

I didn’t believe it at first either. Surely there had to be a catch, right? Like it would only work on the third Thursday of the month during a blood moon? Or install a malware circus in the background?

Nope.

PDF24 is what Adobe Acrobat used to be before it sold its soul to the Church of Quarterly Profits. Fast. Functional. Respectful. And — brace yourselves — it doesn’t treat users like goldfish with credit cards.

Where Adobe demands a monthly tithe for features you need once, PDF24 just... works. Want to compress a file? Done. Merge documents? Two clicks. Need to sign something without summoning the ghost of Steve Jobs? Boom. Signed, sealed, sent — no ad banners begging you to upgrade to “Super Mega PDF Lord” status.

This is software designed by engineers, not marketers.

No psychological manipulation. No subscription traps dressed in UX lipstick. Just tools. Working. For free. Like it’s still 2008.

Let’s be honest: Adobe Acrobat didn’t evolve — it metastasized. It became a lumbering, ad-stuffed tribute to its own financial insecurity.

And now, like an ex who wants rent and alimony, it pops up every time I try to open a PDF — demanding money for something it used to give away for free.

Well guess what, Adobe? I'm out. You’ve officially been replaced by something smaller, smarter, and not trying to ruin my week.

PDF24 didn’t just win me over. It reminded me what software should be — a tool, not a toll booth.

So to my fellow fed-up users out there: You don’t have to take it anymore. You don’t have to keep feeding the beast. There is life beyond Adobe. It’s lightweight, no-nonsense, and unapologetically free.

And it's already installed on my desktop.
Adobe Acrobat in the junk heap

Bob Lee Pigsfly News Contributor, PDF freedom fighter, and ex-Acrobat hostage

19/07/2025

Adobe Acrobat’s Latest Update: A Case Study in Corporate Arrogance Masquerading as Progress

By Bob Lee
Special to Pigsfly News

It started innocently enough. Just another Tuesday, just another PDF to open. A document I created myself. But Adobe Acrobat had other plans.

What once was a clean, reliable tool for viewing and editing PDFs has now been inflated into a bloated, soulless cash-grab machine. Adobe has taken what used to be one of the most universally respected pieces of software, and Frankensteined it into a user-hostile, profit-obsessed monstrosity that should come with a warning label: "May cause rage, subscription fatigue, and spontaneous desk flipping."

Let’s talk about the user experience—if we can still call it that. Want to open a file? You’re greeted by a barrage of offers, buttons, nags, reminders, and thinly veiled threats disguised as “enhanced features.” Oh, you wanted to edit your own document? How quaint. That’ll be $19.99 a month. Click here to upgrade! No, there’s no “maybe later” button. There’s only “give us money” or “enjoy the PDF equivalent of dial-up.”

Adobe’s latest Acrobat update makes it painfully clear: this company no longer serves its users. It serves the spreadsheet. The shareholder. The bonus pool. And it’s doing so with such brazen contempt for user needs that even the most loyal among us are checking the exits.

I didn’t want to come to Pigsfly News' page to rant, but here I am—because that’s what corporate desperation does. It turns everyday tools into billboards and paying customers into hostages. Adobe has decided that user practicality is an obstacle to quarterly earnings, and they’ve responded by bulldozing it into the ground.

This is not innovation. This is corporate greed turned performance art.

So here's my declaration: the moment I find a half-decent alternative—and I will—I'm gone. Done with the manipulation. Done with the coercion. Done with pretending that “subscription-first” equals “user-first.” Because no one wants to be upsold while trying to print a boarding pass.

Until then, Adobe, enjoy your delusions of customer loyalty. What you’ve really built is a countdown to your own irrelevance.

Bob Lee
Disgruntled user, PDF escapee, and reluctant tech ranter

19/07/2025

📣 Adobe Acrobat: From Brilliant to Blatant Extortion

Well done, Adobe. You've officially turned a once-sleek, intuitive product into a full-blown hostage situation. Trying to open your own document now feels like navigating a digital shopping mall designed by used car salesmen on commission.

Every click? A pop-up. Every task? A trapdoor to some "premium feature" you didn’t ask for. Who needs user functionality when there’s corporate greed to feed, right?

Dear Adobe: the day we find a halfway-decent alternative that doesn't treat us like walking ATM machines? We are GONE. And trust us, we won’t miss the abuse.

🖕From a loyal user turned escape artist,
Bob Lee

19/06/2025

**E. Jean Carroll to Trump: Thanks for the \$83.3 Million, I’ll Be Spending It on Everything You Despise**
*By Bob Lee | Pigsfly News | June 19, 2025*

Well, isn’t karma just a glamorous old broad in high heels with a gavel?

E. Jean Carroll, the woman Donald Trump insisted didn’t exist, or at least didn’t matter, just gave him a masterclass in how to turn courtroom humiliation into legacy revenge art. After securing an \$83.3 million defamation judgment against the Former President (still allergic to consequences), Carroll is on a mission—and spoiler alert: it's not to buy yachts.

Nope. She's publicly pledging to funnel Trump’s money directly into causes he detests. We're talking about the kind of initiatives that make MAGA hats tighten with rage—starting with a fund for women who’ve survived sexual assault. By Trump. Yes, *that* Trump.

In a roundtable conversation that felt like both a healing circle and a legal afterparty, Ben Meiselas of Meidas+ sat down with Carroll and her attorney Robbie Kaplan. And let me tell you, watching Carroll calmly discuss how she plans to *strategically* “hurt him” using his own money? That’s Shakespearean. That’s Greek tragedy meets Manhattan brunch. That’s Trump getting mugged by reality and handed the bill.

Carroll, a former Elle columnist with a razor wit and a résumé that reads like a literary mic drop, isn’t just riding the wave of a legal win—she’s surfing it straight into Trump’s fragile ego. Remember when Trump said she "wasn’t his type"? Well, apparently, the type he *can’t* stand is “intelligent woman who outwits him in public and takes his cash with a smirk.”

Carroll’s media and literary footprint spans everything from *Saturday Night Live* to *Vanity Fair*, and now, apparently, to a place in Donald Trump’s nightmares. Her iconic “Ask E. Jean” column taught women how to stop structuring their lives around men. Now she’s showing them how to structure revenge with interest.

While Trump continues to shuffle between courtrooms, campaign stages, and whatever bunker he uses to scream at the television, Carroll’s using her newfound fortune to build a legacy out of spite, justice, and exquisite feminist symmetry.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a woman getting even. This is a woman planting a garden on the grave of his credibility—and she’s watering it with \$83.3 million.

The best part? Carroll has no plans to fade into the background. In fact, she’s just getting started. As she told Meiselas, “I’m going to give money to certain things… that he hates.” Not exactly subtle—but then again, after everything Trump’s thrown at her, subtlety’s overrated.

So here we are. The man who bragged about grabbing women now finds himself involuntarily funding the women fighting back. Poetic? Absolutely. Tragic? For him. Delicious? We’ll take seconds.
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/e-jean-carroll-breaks-her-silence?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

18/06/2025

🕵️‍♂️ Slow Burn: The Support That Isn’t — A Lesson in Corporate Shrugging from Anthropic

Let’s lay this out, carefully.

You’re a paying customer. You’ve subscribed. You’re using Claude Code for serious work — work that matters. But when the system breaks? When Claude Code vanishes like a ghost in the machine?

Anthropic’s “support” tells you — yes, you’re paying. Yes, it’s broken. But no, there’s nothing they can do right now.

Instead, they tell you: We’ll email you. Eventually. When one of their mythical "human agents" stirs from their slumber.

Here’s what that really means:
They’ve built a system that takes your money immediately, but kicks responsibility into a dark, echoing hallway labeled “Pending.” And when pressed? They describe the problem back to you, like that’s a service.

This is not support. This is delay, dressed in automated empathy.

And here’s the most important part: Anthropic is not honoring its side of the contract. They’re collecting fees for access you don’t have. That’s not inconvenience — that’s breach. Plain and simple.

So we ask:
Where is the accountability? Where is the action? Where is Claude Code?

Because your project deadlines are real. Your time is real. Your subscription is real.

But their support? Illusory at best. Deliberately evasive at worst.

—Pigsfly News

07/05/2025

🧠💥Trump’s “Simple\_Racist\_Mind.exe” Reboots Again – Now Targeting Rep. Jasmine Crockett

Donald Trump, America’s most delusional game show host turned professional grievance machine, has once again crawled out from under his golden rock to lob another recycled racist insult — this time at Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). His original jab? Calling her “not the smartest” and “low IQ.”

How creative. Truly, the man is a fountain of uninspired bigotry.

Let’s be real: When Trump says “low IQ,” he’s not being “colorblind” — he’s pulling out the same dusty dog whistle he’s used against Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, and Letitia James. And guess what? It still smells like 1954.

But Crockett? She didn’t flinch. She *clapped back* with surgical precision:

> “This is rich coming from a guy who still can’t pronounce ‘Yosemite.’”

Boom. Flame-thrower mode: activated. 🔥
This isn’t just petty politics — this is Trump’s vintage playbook. Target brilliant, outspoken Black women because they make him feel small (which, frankly, isn’t that hard). The man who hid his grades and needed a fixer to threaten schools is out here questioning someone else’s intelligence? Spare us the projection, Donnie.

Every time he pulls this stunt, it’s a neon sign that says:
“My ego is fragile, my arguments are empty, and my racism is very much alive.”

So no, we’re not going to “be civil” about it. We’re going to call it what it is: pathetic, predictable, and unworthy of a former president — even *this* one

If you’re tired of Trump’s racist reruns, do what he hates most:
💬 Share this.
🗳️ Register to vote.
👀 Pay attention.
Because the Simple\_Racist\_Mind.exe is still running — and 2024 isn’t that far off.

There's a common denominator in who gets called 'low IQ' by President Donald Trump.

29/04/2025

🚨Trump vs. Truth: The Amazon Hostage Crisis🚨
Imagine being so thin-skinned, so out-of-your-mind narcissistic, that when a retailer dares to tell customers the truth — that Trump's Tariff War is hammering their wallets, not China’s — you immediately call it "hostile" and "political."
Welcome to Trump's America, where facts are treason, and Jeff Bezos, the once-lionized billionaire, is reportedly kissing the ring instead of standing up for basic honesty.
Amazon almost did the unthinkable — label products with the real cost of Trump’s tariffs. A simple move. A truthful one. A move that would have made it crystal clear that Americans — not Beijing — are footing the bill for Trump's tantrum economics.
But after a little "private chat" with Trump (read: intimidation session), Amazon pulled back. Now, instead of transparency, we get silence — and the American consumer gets screwed. Again.
Meanwhile, the White House spins harder than a rogue washing machine. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt didn't just cry foul — she dragged out some dusty old headlines about Amazon and China and waved them like the last place trophy at a MAGA rally.
And Jeff Bezos? He’s busy attending Trump’s parties, cozying up to the same strongman who once called him every name under the sun. Anything, it seems, for a seat at the table.
This isn’t capitalism. This is authoritarianism with a Prime membership.
📉 Truth is now "political."
📦 Transparency is now "hostile."
🇺🇸 America? Held hostage by a fragile ego and a frightened billionaire.
Stay tuned. The price you’re paying is bigger than you think.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, attacked the retail giant over a report that suggested Amazon would highlight tariff-related price increases. Amazon said it was “not going to happen.”

24/04/2025

Just when you thought you had a handle on Trump: In an unexpected turn of events, President Donald Trump revealed that he would soon be sitting down for an interview with the Atlantic, the magazine at the center of Pete Hegseth's damning Signal scandal after its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been mistakenly included in a chat where secret war plans were being discussed.

"I am doing this interview out of curiosity," Trump claimed on Truth Social, "and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be 'truthful.'"

Right, ok.

Well, in my view, there are two ways to see this surprising sit-down. First, as a testament to how much Trump, deep down, desperately craves the approval of legacy media. Second, as a hint that Hegseth, despite the display of defiance earlier this week, may soon be out. Either way, I can't imagine that this interview will end up benefiting Trump or make him look smart, like the president likely hopes it will.

But I wonder what Hegseth thinks of it. I certainly would be anxious if I were him! At least the defense secretary can rest easy knowing he'll look beautiful for the next scandal—or ouster.