Hey, let’s start with some good news for a change! Tammy Duckworth is pregnant with her second child and will be the first United States Senator in history to give birth while in office! Congratulations, Senator Duckworth!

Cling to that warm fuzzy feeling, because pretty much everything else this week is shitty.

Well, the government’s back open, at the cost of Susan Collins’ glass elephant, which was destroyed when Lamar Alexander threw the “talking stick” at Mark Warner.

Yeah, that sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either, but it’s something that apparently actually happened. This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say future generations are gonna think we made all this shit up. There’ll be an entire Trivial Pursuit edition dedicated to the Drumpf era, and twenty years from now you’ll be straining to remember if it was a glass pig or a porcelain hippo that shattered in Collins’ office during the shutdown.

Truly, we are living in history.

Meanwhile Ted Cruz tried pontificating on his long-and-deeply-held anti-shutdown views, prompting an “Oh hell no,” from MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt. Cruz went on to vociferously deny ever kissing the begolfpantsed ass of anyone who had insulted both his wife and his father, adding that he is really truly genuinely in no way the Zodiac Killer.

The best post-shutdown news is that Chuck Schumer took his cheeseburger-drunk offer to fund Shart Garfunkel’s Big Stupid Wall off the table. I guess somebody reminded him which party he’s a member of.

Vice President Pence confidently proclaimed the entire Stormy Daniels story to be “baseless,” despite the detailed InTouch interview and Cohen-orchestrated $130,000 payout, invoking his biblical right to Not Ever Listen to Women About Anything Ever.

To rub a little salt in that particular wound, Mikey Hairshirt refused to stand up for the equality of female journalists at a photo opp at Jerusalem’s West Wall. Mother will be so pleased.

A barely-noted story reports that Drumpf likes to mock Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with what I’m sure is a super-respectful Indian accent. And because we’re so tragically used to/overwhelmed by the never-ending shitstorm, we all just went, “of course he did,” knowing the next atrocity would surely surface in an hour or so.

What’s this, now? KKKris KKKobach’s Kooky Kulling Kommission asked the state of Texas to not only turn over all their voter data, but to flag “Hispanic surnames?” I’m sure the Kansas Secretary of State/Professional Racist Legal Shield had only the noblest of intentions.  He always does.

And Megyn Kelly, desperate for a ratings turnaround, picked a fight with Jane Fonda. I don’t see that strategy working out, but just in case Megyn’s accidentally stumbled onto the path to notoriety, I’d like to take this opportunity to start some shit with James Caan. HEY JIMBO! ROLLERBALL SUXXXX!

Plenty of rumbling that all the “President Kelly” hashtags are getting under the Idiot Manchild’s artificially-tanned skin. See, for reasons that escape comprehension, he doesn’t want anyone else to get credit for his historically-loathed clusterfuck of an administration. Anyway, Princess Ivanka, previously famous for stealing shoe designs, is supposedly heading up the search for the General’s replacement. That’ll go well.

Hey, I lied, there IS a little more good news. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania looked upon the GOP’s if-Dalí-made-jigsaw-puzzles congressional gerrymander and said unto the world…”Well THIS fuckery ain’t gonna fly.” The midterms look a little sweeter every day, don’t they?

Little Donnie Two-Scoops finally got to start his little trade war, imposing tariffs on solar panels and washing machines. The solar industry quite reasonably complained about all the jobs this move will cost, but everybody knows that unless you’re a regular at a small-town diner somewhere in Appalachia, you’re not a Real American and your job doesn’t count.

Axios says FBI Director Chris Wray threatened to resign because he’s tired of Dopey Hate Goblin Jeff Sessions always hanging around the office, telling him to pick up the pace with the purging of the FBI already, cuz we’d really like to replace Andrew McCabe with this Recently Removed Confederate Monument, thanks.

Speaking of McCabe, it seems that right after firing Comey, the Poo Mistake summoned him to the Oval Office to just casually ask “Hey, who’dja vote for, Andy? I’m just curious in a what’s-your-favorite-color kinda way, nothing menacing, also, IF, hypothetically, a President felt like obstructing just a wee bit of justice, you wouldn’t be the kind of fellow who’d make a stink about that, right?”

The Presidency, with its prestige and its reach, can be inspirational. Barack Obama inspired a generation of young people to engage in politics. Donald Trump? He’s reaching a different demographic.

Brandon Griesemer, apparently a young Hitler fanboy, was so inspired by the Grifter Grand Wizard’s nonstop assault on the free press, he made a bunch of threatening phone calls to CNN. Run of the mill, “You are fake news so now I will murder you all” stuff, with a few ethnic and religious slurs mixed in for flavor.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I always figured the President was supposed to fight terrorists, not galvanize them.

Lara Trump thinks the hundreds of thousands of women who marched last Saturday are dummies who didn’t really understand what they were marching about, because they are such ungrateful and stupid peasants, and her dad is pretty much the best feminists ever because Kellyanne Conway.

After giving her thoughts on the intelligence of the women in the Resistance, Lara returned home to her husband, Eric Trump, who sources inform me encountered a major setback this week in his ongoing struggle with potty training.

The day that Jeff Sessions has been dreading finally arrived, and he sat down for his first interview with The Bobadook. He tried that coy “I’m not expressly invoking executive privilege but I’m not answering your question anyway” thing for a bit, until Mueller grabbed him by the scrotum, growling “Do I look like Al Franken to you? Do you imagine I’m sort of comedian?”

I’m kinda on the fence, Resisters…I don’t know if I’d rather Ol’ Beauregard, sick of the months of public berating, rolled over on his boss like a frightened possum, or if he fell into one of those “perjury traps” we’re hearing so much about these days, and his indictment’s in the mail, next to that Ghosts of Mississippi DVD he ordered from Netflix.

Mueller also interviewed James Comey, and now he wants to talk to the Marmalade Shartcannon himself. Me, I think Bob should start with a question about inauguration crowd size, just to get that lying to the FBI charge out of the way right up front.

It would also be nice to get SHARTUS on the record regarding the pressing issue of How the Fuck Can You Do Something So Monstrous to a Perfectly Good Steak?

The Supreme Court unanimously spanked the Fascist Fuckhead Brigade on the Clean Water Act, even Donnie’s new best pal Neil, who is definitely not getting a Valentine now.

Uncle Joe Biden stopped by to remind everyone that yes, Mitch McConnell has so little love for his country that he refused to stand alongside Democrats and issue bipartisan condemnation of Russian interference during the 2016 election.

Again, perhaps I am just Werther’s-Original-level old fashioned, but I prefer Senators who side with, y’know…their own country. But then again, perhaps I am merely a cuck.

I swear to God, there must be some sort of “How much naked corruption can you get away with” pool going in Shartboy’s Cabinet. Mick Mulvaney, in his second job as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, decided to shut down an investigation into a payday lender that, ZANY COINCIDENCE, donated thousands to his congressional campaigns. I dunno about you, but I feel protected.

Obviously, Pennsylvania CongressPerv Pat Meehan should not be in Congress, because he sexually harassed a staffer and paid her harassment claim off in taxpayer funds. But Meehan should also not be in Congress because boy howdy, if his damage control efforts today are indicative of his problem-solving skills…let’s just say i bet we can do better.

To say the interview he gave defending himself was creepy is offensive to merely creepy people. He rambles about soulmates and too-long hugs and generally auditions to be portrayed someday by Billy Bob Thornton.

And God bless his little heart, the fucker even manages to blame the whole damn thing on Obamacare.

Anyhow, now that the tax cuts have passed, the Republican Party seems to have transformed into a sprawling organization with just two purposes: white supremacy, and dismantling the FBI on behalf of their corrupt capo.

All these clowns, up to and including (sigh) the President, are pushing the hell out of the idea that a couple of FBI agents’ text messages somehow prove a conspiracy so vast and sinister that Oliver Stone is prolly working on the screenplay right now.

Meanwhile we got a look at one of the dastardly conspirators’ texts saying he was reluctant to join the investigation because he didn’t think it was likely to turn anything up. WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY JUST AN ELABORATE FAKE-OUT, YOU CUCKS, THAT’S SPYING 101, DUH!

You’ve even got Rush Limbaugh belching up some Grade A nonsense about the “deep state” lying about WMDs in Iraq in order embarrass George W. Bush, to give the anti-Republican FBI conspiracy a little backstory

Rush. Bro. I’m not part of the deep state* and even I can tell you that if the goal was to embarrass W., the only plan you needed was “put him in front of a microphone and tell him he’s allowed to talk.”

And now Ron Johnson, a man who needs detailed instructions posted on his bedroom wall to avoid putting on his pants inside out, says he has an “informant” assuring him there’s an anti-Trump “Secret Society” inside the FBI. Good enough for Fux Nooz.  Apparently.

Meanwhile, you’ve got Adam Schiff and Dianne Feinstein asking the imminently reasonable question, “Say, why is all this nonsense about Devin Nunes’ horseshit memo being pushed so hard by Russian bots on social media, and would anybody like to, I dunno, maybe DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT, PLEASE?”

Weird, isn’t it? Living in a time when you have to ask the party in power to protect the United States from foreign attacks? Life really IS like a box of chocolates.

Anyway, that’s all I can fit in tonight, folks. I have to get my mask & bathrobe dry-cleaned before I leave for Davos…wouldn’t wanna look ratty as I hobnob with the world elite.

*OR AM I?