So, today, I saw a headline that read, “Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years, poll finds,” and I’ve been emitting little unhinged giggles ever since, because, like, YA THINK? Gotta admit, looking upon the hellscape that is the news cycle doesn’t exactly make me wanna belt out showtunes.

No one was more disappointed that the Black Lives Matter protests turned indisputably peaceful (after all the Boogaloo infiltrators got arrested, of course) than the propaganda-spewing hacks at Fux Nooz. Still, if the real world won’t give you the terrifying antifa violence you’re so desperate to broadcast, you can always “fix” that, by photoshopping a handy dandy armed terrorist into pictures of folks drawing with sidewalk chalk. I mean, an unaltered photograph, depicting only boring ol’ reality, would be neither fair nor balanced, I’m sure you’ll agree.

And Fux wasn’t nearly done showing their asses, not that they ever are. In another attempt to fear-monger about the protests (noticing a theme yet?), they trumpeted a tweet quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail, framing it as some sort of anarchist manifesto, because who has time for a quick google search when you’re in the Frightening Old White People business? Incidentally, I’m distressed there are professional class people, surely making far more money than I, who lack Python literacy. What the fuck are schools teaching these days?

It was weeks ago when the Velveeta Vulgarian first made headlines for endangering the lives of West Point’s graduating class by ordering cadets back to serve as background props for a campaign speech in the middle of a pandemic. In the end, it was mostly just forgettable; Stephen Miller trying to write inspirationally is like getting a sonnet from cancer.

The speech itself may not have made much news, but Donnie Dotard’s post-rant exit certainly generated a few headlines, as a long, slow walk down a ramp revealed his mental deterioration is matched only by his physical decline. Honestly, how much longer can this gibbering mound of resentment, fast food, and Adderall maintain cohesion? Maybe we’ll get lucky and one day soon he’ll just fall apart into little piles of orange goo, and slither down the drain…

One thing you have to give Cult45: they hate what they’re told to hate. So when the Emperor of Hemorrhoids rages mindlessly about the alleged evils of voting by mail, naturally a gaggle of crazed shartkins gets together to burn their absentee ballot applications. As a lib, I can honestly say I have never in my life been so thoroughly owned.

Denver Riggleman is an absolute creep, a Bigfoot erotica aficionado who campaigned with white nationalists, joined the feral assclowns of the Freedom Caucus, and has served as a rubber stamp for all of Hairplug Himmler’s worst policies, and yet he STILL lost his primary because one time, he officiated a same-sex wedding, which I take as a clear signal that the GOP no longer allows any positive traits whatsoever in their candidates. Future vetting committees will pore over every moment of your life, and if you ever scratched a kitten or dropped your loose change in the charity can, you’ll be banned from the party for life.

I see Sharty McFly announced he won’t watch NFL or U.S. national soccer games, on account of all the kneeling and whatnot, and yeah that’s interesting, but the fact that another thing he won’t do is HIS FUCKING JOB, like, for example, maybe working up some sort of unified federal response to the motherfucking coronavirus outbreak, seems a smidge more newsworthy.

The Supreme Court issued a landmark gay rights ruling, and finally, here in 2020, you can no longer be fired in America for being LGBTQ. And for a glorious hour or so, our social media feeds, which have been bludgeoning us for years now with scandal and terror and corruption and death, erupted in joyous celebration. Good news? Real good news, not just “that thing that was so fucked up last week is marginally less fucked up now? I’d nearly forgotten what that felt like.

Of course this wasn’t good news to the culture war dead-enders. Those kids? They’re mad as hell, and they’d like you to sign their IMPEACH GORSUCH NOW petition, because the whole reason they hired Neil in the first place was to institutionalize the dehumanization of the Religious Right’s inquisition targets. “Why do we even GIVE to the Republican Party, Edward, if they’re just going to keep on granting civil rights willy-nilly?”

So, Ted Cruz picked a fight with Ron Perlman. Like, a physical fight. He wanted to fight Ron Perlman. Wait, no, that’s not quite right, he wanted Gym Jordan to do battle as his champion, like in the movies. To…wrestle Perlman, in fact. Because when you think of Congressman Jordan, your mind goes straight to wrestling, right? Your mom must be so proud, Jimbo. Anyway, you’d think Cruz had found rock bottom after four years spent tongue-bathing the ass of the fella who insulted his wife and father, but I’m pleased to report that he seems capable of almost limitless self-humiliation, so he may yet become even more pathetic.

Oh, more good news, everybody. You may’ve wondered if we’d given up on this whole “deadly pandemic” thing, but no, we actually just figured everything out, and we’re all good now. Yes, the very mind that brought you “15 cases, soon to be zero” and “it’ll go away on its own” has now stumbled across the boldly innovative “if we stop testing, we stop getting cases.” I’m screaming an endless, primal, metallic scream, like I’ve just been sucked into the Matrix, like my scream is a Metal Machine Music B-side.

It is SCIENCE FICTION that this man is this stupid. Anti-science fiction. It’s the horrific tale of a blithering dolt who drags humanity backward, who stands athwart not just progress, but Shit We Figured Out Ten Years Ago. We seriously had infrastructure in place to deal with this shit, he destroyed it for no reason, and now, 119,000 deaths later, we’re still on “if we stop looking for it, we won’t find it.”

I wonder sometimes…how many of you out there who started this journey with me have died along the way? Like in Oregon Trail? Not of dysentery, but of COVID-19. Fuck.

Toss Voice of America onto the pile of institutions Joe Biden will have to glue back together come January, because, like we’ve seen so many times before, the hacks have arrived, they’ve forced the competent professionals out, and they’re looking to replace expertise with Shrieking Extremist Wingnuttery, and no, it hasn’t worked out for them yet, not ONCE, but hey, maybe 422nd time’s the charm, right?

To make matters worse, the grapevine is screaming because apparently Squeezably Soft TeleFascist Sebastian Gorka is in line for a top post at VOA, putting an organization that was founded to combat Nazi propaganda in the hands of an actual Nazi. Oh Seb, how many times must we flush?

South Carolina Congressjag Tom Rice caught the ‘rona, so naturally he turns out to have recently appeared on the floor of the House without a fucking mask on, but don’t worry, I’m sure the virus was so impressed with his manliness that it didn’t even think about spreading. Republicans keep expecting COVID-19 to behave like Chuck Todd, to grin vacantly while acknowledging their “side” of a public health issue they’re desperately trying to re-cast as a front in the culture war. A virus is not Chuck Todd, kids. It’s smarter, for a start.

If you like watching scrotum-faced, amoral shitsacks slap-fighting through the media, President Crotchrot and John Bolton are here to feed your habit. Now there’s a lawsuit, and I just hope this is one of those movies where the writer understands all the characters are bad, and punishes everybody. Ideally with toothaches, jail time, and gout.

The Treasonweasel Administration hasn’t learned much about governing after all this time, but they’ve become intimately familiar with the (lack of) speed of the federal courts, and so they’ve decided that instead of allowing oversight of the $500 billion PPP fund, they’re going to have Not Oversight. House Dems have opened an investigation, and so now we get to watch the erotic-but-glacial Dance of the Seven Subpoenas, which will likely last till November and beyond, wheeeeeeee.

So, apparently a flock of heavily-armed Douchebag Loser White Supremacists (but I repeat myself) calling themselves the New Mexico Civil Guard (everyone’s very impressed, children. You’re just like a real army, only idiots.) got in trouble when one of their members fired four shots into a crowd of protesters pulling down a statue of some murderous dirtbag conquistador, seriously injuring one person.

Shot a human being. Over a statue. Of a conquistador. It’s like shitty white boy terrorist Mad Libs. Hey, maybe letting every dickless psychopath arm himself to the teeth and play soldier in public spaces is a bad fucking idea. And yes, the difference in arrest procedures for a white dude who tries to start a war in the streets, compared to that for a black man selling cigarettes is pretty fucking stark.

Redactor General William Barr is bringing federal executions back, because OF COURSE he found a new, unexpected way to be evil that you weren’t even thinking about. Bilious Bill’s to-do list would send shivers down David Cronenberg’s spine, y’all.

North Korea blew up their joint liaison office with South Korea, no, not figuratively, literally blew it to shit with explosives, and you have to admit, you have more tools in your diplomatic kit when you’re batshit crazy. I doubt arriving at the ‘Splodey Tantrum phase of international relations will benefit Fat Q*Bert’s Nobel Peace Prize case, but he’s probably minting a new challenge coin, of a building exploding, just in case.

And the coronavirus continues tearing through this country like a highly contagious disease ravaging a population of freedumb-obsessed fuckwads too selfish and stupid to take the simple, entirely manageable steps necessary to stop it OH WAIT I THINK I METAPHORED WRONG. States that hurried to reopen before conditions were safe are seeing massive surges because FUCKING OF COURSE THEY ARE. Hey Republicans: no one was trying to trick you with wily science. We were trying to save your lives. And our lives. And the economy. Thanks to your deranged paranoia, American society is one great big lethal lottery now, with thousands of lucky contestants competing for no-expenses paid trips to the ICU every minute of every day. Real nice work, jackasses.

And yes, the Tangelo-Tinted Taint Tumor is moving forward with his plan to hold a Juneteenth Plus One (Wink Wink) Ku Klux Klan Revival and Freak Sho in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city in mid-outbreak, because that’s just the sort of thing you do when you’re the Butthole-Mouthed High Priest of a white supremacist death cult. Apparently.

Also, the Candycorn Skidmark signed an executive order on police reform that accomplishes next to nothing, though it did give him a chance to be on the teevee, which he always likes. Real solutions to these problems will, as usual, have to wait for the grown-ups.

Well THAT’S ALL, FOLKS, even though it probably isn’t, it never is, but I’m gonna click “post” anyway and enjoy a beer-soaked evening until this shit starts up all over again in the morning. Or in the next ten minutes. Fuck. Stay safe, Resisters. 140 days.