American Madness Journal

On the Eve of (CALL IT ALREADY, KORNACKI, YOU BASTARD) Victory, I’d Like to Say Thanks
My friends, please forgive me, I need to do something a little different tonight. First of all, I don’t think I could possibly handle reliving this week; it was overwhelming and exhausting the first time ‘round, and besides, there are only so many ways to say, “and...

Flushing Day is Upon Us At Last! Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!
Well, my antifa comrades, I can scarcely believe the day has finally arrived. Operation: Jade Helm has entered its final stages, and the destruction of the suburbs is imminent. Time to see what this coalition, forged by four years of relentless Resistance, can do....

Election Week in Hell: An Expectedly Butthole-Heavy News Cycle
Ah, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! No doubt you’re enjoying your frantic doomscrolling, your increasingly nuanced opinions on individual pollsters, and the mocking striptease of the calendar, peeling off those last few pages, as we await our fate. I’ll cut...

Despotism, Defeat, Disease and Death: As a Closing Argument, It’s…Unconventional
For a moment, it looked like things might almost quiet down a bit for the home stretch, but now it’s sweeps week, motherfuckers, and 2020 is here to deliver one final atomic wedgie before leaving us to our fate. Look, we all know time’s gonna pass glacially between...

Goody Higgins is a Witch, and Other Tales of Republican Madness
So, everything is, obviously, still largely insane, but, I dunno...it’s starting to feel like maybe we’re near the end of the detox scene in Trainspotting? Like, we got through the baby-on-the-ceiling part, and maybe we’re finally approaching a point when life will...

I Mean Yeah, If I Fucked Up This Bad, I’d Rather Talk About Hunter Biden, Too.
Don’t get me wrong, the addition of hope and anticipation to the customary outrage n’ despair cocktail has been a largely positive development, but, well, I may be feeling just a wee bit overstimulated lately. Anyway, I’m sure fourteen days of time passing like those...

In the Future, the Word “Giuliani” Will Mean “A Humiliating Public Breakdown During Which One Betrays One’s Country”
After four years in Hell, I am pleased to report the bastards have, despite their best efforts, failed to grind me down. In fact, there’s a spring in my step today, because since we last met, Dear Reader, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of voting for Joseph Robinette...

Plague, Voter Suppression, and Willard Romney’s Thoughts on Tone
October, 2020. I never thought it would actually come. Things are fairly insane, as we knew they’d be, but I admit I’m pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of signs which could be construed as compatible with the End Times mythology of any major world religion....

This Week in Hell: Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Other Diseased Rats
God, we’re so close. We’ve known all along it would get worse at the end, as this human skidmark lashes out with all his might, backed by the terrifying power of the American Presidency. We knew it would suck, and HOLY BALLS IT SUCKS SO VERY, VERY HARD, but I think I...

Everything Still Sucks, But at Least the Worst People Alive Are Getting COVID
Sometimes I see the kids on the internet say someone is “having a normal one” when actually that someone is behaving highly abnormally, usually in a Look at This Screeching Freak sort of way. So when I say “the news is having a normal one,” I actually mean quite the...

This Week in Hell: Kinda Quiet. Might Rain. I Hear Something Happened to That Trump Boy With the Odd Haircut
Like all of you, I’ve come to expect the worst of 2020, but I really thought Rick Moranis was understood to be off-limits. I’m gonna guess you don’t need me to tell you shit has been restaurant-quality cray this week, so let’s wade through this stuff so we can all...

Old Bastard Probably Shits His Way Through $750 Worth of Taxpayer-Funded Diapers Every Week
When I am old, I will sit on a rocking chair on my porch and children will periodically approach to ask Old Man Cap what it was like, living through the death throes of Donald Trump’s attempted fascist coup, and I will chase those little bastards away with my cane...

This Week in Hell: Idiot White Men and the World They’re Ruining
It’s weird to be so confined, so solitary and stationary, while this mad age whizzes by on the screens of our little devices. It’s like being trapped, barefoot, on a treadmill made of sewage and broken glass that we can never, ever, ever, ever shut off. Yup yup,...

Your FACE is an Anarchist Jurisdiction, and Other Tales of Fascism
So, the shitstorm refused to abate even long enough to let us grieve. We didn’t really expect it to. And we’re tired, sure, but we’re battle-hardened by now. Fascism relies on overwhelming the populace, pelting us with turd upon turd until we’re so worn down and...

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, FUCK, Fucking Fuck, and Other News
You ever find yourself watching the news, and suddenly wondering if somebody maybe gave Jake Tapper some bad acid and replaced his notes with long-lost outtakes from Naked Lunch? It can’t be just me. One of the ways we know we’re in Hell, like the Hell, and not just...

Coronavirus, Michael Caputo, & Other Things That Are Trying to Kill Us All
I’ve certainly developed greater empathy for every old-witch-who-lives-in-the-woods/crazy-old-man-in-a-shack-outside-town I’ve ever encountered in fiction, now that I too spend my days in twitchy solitude, cackling to myself at seemingly random intervals. 2020 will...

This Week in Hell: Woodward and Whistleblowing and…Joe Lieberman Was There
So, I see Dr. Fauci says we might have to live like this for another year or more, and I’m like, “don’t be silly, my vocal chords couldn’t possibly hold out that long,” as yet another news cycle reduces me to baying at the moon like a stray dog that got into Uncle...

America Went to Sturgis and All We Got Was This Lousy Nationwide Covid Outbreak
Longtime readers will recall that in previous posts, I’ve described life under the Turd Reich as like being trapped in a dryer filled with hammers and badgers. After all these years, I stick to that assessment, and I have to admit I’m impressed at the way they keep...

Trump 2020: Mass Pandemic Graves, Economic Carnage, Also I Hate the Troops
I got stung by a bee last night, so there’s a chance that I’ve had an allergic reaction, and hallucinated this week’s news. I understand that it’s a fairly slight chance, but nobody’ll mind if I cling to it like a big ol’ o-shaped cartoon life preserver, right?...

Abort, My Antifa Comrades! Operation: Bags of Soup Has Been Compromised!
I feel like I’m trapped on a deserted island with nothing to eat but clown meat, and the clown meat has started to go bad, y’know? Anybody else feel like that? So, we’re finally at the place we’ve sort of abstractly feared from the beginning: Government Cheese...

This Week in Hell: Everything is Stupid and Dangerous and I Hate It
I spend way too much time these days watching choosy Republicans choose fascism, for reasons that are awful and terrifying, of course, but also SO FUCKING DUMB. Like, I get the authoritarianism thing, but wouldn’t you rather be ground beneath the jackboot of a despot...

Is Josh Hawley America’s Next Top Fascist? Tune in to Find Out!
Ah, who doesn’t love the promise of a brand new year, particularly one in which the likelihood of the American President tear-gassing peaceful protesters in front of the White House is set to drop so dramatically? ‘Course, you knew 2020 wasn’t gonna let us go without...

Xmas Week in Hell: Still Awful and Stupid, Just Colder
Only thing I asked Santa for this year was for Xmas to bring me one day closer to Joe n’ Kamala’s inauguration, and I got that, wrapped tastefully, with a bow I can reuse next year and everything, but it must be noted, my stocking was filled with the same smoldering...

Okay, A Relief Bill, a Cyberattack, and an Ongoing Coup Attempt Walk Into a Bar…
With less than a month to go ‘til Old Handsome Joe’s inauguration, the Stoopid Coo is getting stoopider so quickly, I do believe we’re going to need more Os. The Coo is at least Stooopid at this point, and historians suggest we may yet attain levels approaching...

I Regret to Inform a Nation Already Drowning in Sorrow…A Democrat Has Uttered a Swear
This transition shit is killing me, y’all. Longtime readers know I’ve often likened life under the Turd Reich to being trapped in a dryer full of hammers and badgers. Ok, so the dryer has finally stopped now, and I love that, I do, but the badgers are still a...