Grim shit out there this week, Resisters. The news is all high crimes, ethnic cleansing, and adorable bunnies, and my apologies, cuz I lied about the bunnies. Maybe keep a website with bunny videos open in another window while you read this.

Well, the impeachment inquiry has set up a nice little assembly line, moving various State Department officials through to give their damning testimony, saying yuh huh the whistleblower was right about everything and yuh huh Rudy Giuliani was running a shadow foreign policy/extortion ring in Ukraine and nuh uh we didn’t like it. Fiona Hill, George Kent, and Gordon “sorry for all the crimez, please don’t arrest me” Sondland, all had a turn, and Adam Schiff says he’s go so much evidence he’s tired of evidence, and we may not even need to hear from the famous whistleblower after all.

Shart House trade adviser Peter Navarro has always had trouble finding experts to back up his economic theories, because those theories are wrong and stupid and bad, so he made up his own, a stylin’ gent by the name of Ron Vara, which you’ll notice is an anagram of “Navarro.” If you happen to see a commenter on this blog, going by, say, “Chaw Ropes,” lavishing praise upon the author, that is, I assure you, mere coincidence.

Things in Syria are going about as well as you’d expect, in the aftermath of Pumpkin Spice Pol Pot’s reckless, impulsive, decision to let Putin and Erdoğan take the region out for a genocidal joyride. How much patriotic pride do you feel, watching Russian troops snicker as they move into our hastily-abandoned bases, eating our leftovers and using our old Smashing Pumpkins CDs for coasters? Shit, we’ll need a whole new verse in The Star-Spangled Banner for this stuff.

Don’t worry, though, the Russians didn’t get everything; in at least one instance, we actually bombed our own base, to prevent the new tenants from using it. How’s that for an excellent, efficient, use of your tax dollars?

Shart Garfunkel dispatched the Mediocre Mike Mob (Pence and Pompeo) to smooth things out, and Erdoğan went, “Mmmmmm, nah, I’m not meeting with those insignificant twerps.” I’m sitting here trying to imagine how Hillary Clinton would’ve reacted to a ninth-rate thug bigtiming her Vice President like that, knowing he would never, in a billion years, dare to try, lest she rip his spine out through his right testicle, anyway, America is more respected than ever, yadda yadda yadda.

Terrible news for Rudy Giuliani, as pretty much every single person he’s worked with for the last year or so got arrested this week. Like, Rudy was feeling stressed, and he swung through the Mickey D’s drive-thru for a quick McRib infusion, and they arrested the kid who took his order, just to be on the safe side. Y’see, the FBI investigation into Roo-Roo’s various acts of fuckery and naughtiness includes a counterintelligence probe, so maybe all that boasting about not needing a lawyer was a smidge premature.

(Yes, the Icon of Incest’s lawyer quit this week, because really, what’s the point in mounting a futile defense when your client’s only chance is snagging that one last pardon before the whole crooked enterprise collapses into a sloppy pile of treason, impeachment, and overcooked steaks?)

Rudy’s looking more and more like the busiest man in crime, and isn’t it inspiring to see a late-in-life career change work out so well? I might need a special, regular, segment, just to keep up with all the malfeasance. We’ll call it “Cousin Rudy’s Crime Corner!”

For starters, looks like Rudes took half a million bucks from his recently-arrested associates’ now-famous company, “Fraud Guarantee.” For what? God knows, the check just says “skullduggery.”

Oh, and he was involved in a scheme to get racketeering charges against a fellah named Dmitry Firtash dismissed in exchange for that much-coveted Biden dirt (he just wants it for the spice garden on his back deck, honest). You may be asking yourself, “I wonder if this Firtash fellow is a shady oligarch connected to Russian organized crime?” and if you are, I would point out that that’s an exceptionally lucky guess. Oh, and Dmitry is currently fighting extradition to the United States in…Vienna, a surprisingly popular destination for members of the Giuliani Syndicate these days.

Plus, he tried to secure a visa for that one crooked Ukrainian prosecutor, so that he could tour our nation’s majestic national parks, maybe take in a Broadway musical, and also make up shit about Joe Biden. Anyway, see you next week on…Cousin Rudy’s Crime Corner!

Checking in real quick with Th’Best People, meet “Magus Incognito,” Sharty McFly’s latest appointee to the Commission on Presidential Scholars. Magus (ok, it’s a pen name, but I hope he has it engraved on the door, just to accentuate the insanity) writes looney shit about Masonic Illuminati Power Secrets, and your President figured he oughta be in charge of passing out prestigious awards to high school students. Cool.

The House overwhelmingly voted to tell Hairplug Himmler “Hey Stop Fucking Up Syria, You Barely-Sentient Taintfungus,” with a bunch of Republicans joining in, because as awesome as the stochastic terrorism and concentration camps have been, Making Isis Great Again seems to have been a bridge too far.

Rand Paul blocked the Senate’s version of the resolution, probably because he wants to add language appropriating funds to buy every escaped ISIS fighter a one-way ticket to the Western Hemisphere, because when you ask Rand to choose between national security and self-aggrandizing stunts, the outcome is never really in doubt.

Still, Il Douche didn’t handle the bipartisan rebuke well, exploding at Nancy Pelosi during a White House meeting, like a plastic trash bag that had finally, after valiantly straining for as long as it possibly could, simply been stuffed with too much shit.

Which brings us to the LETTER. Yes, that letter. The one that reads like a third-grader wrote, or rather smeared it, in his own vomit, on the inside of some public restroom stall door. Literally everyone, from your Facebook friends to the most seasoned political reporters in Washington, initially assumed it was fake, because even Donnie Dotard couldn’t be that dumb/rude/nuts, right? Amazingly, the public discovered this letter not because it was leaked by a concerned whistleblower, but because Fat Q*bert himself distributed it to lawmakers in this meeting as proof of his “toughness” with Erdoğan, which would be a bit like submitting a cellphone video of a violent bout with gastrointestinal distress as your audition tape for American Idol.

The meeting went downhill from there, which is kind of impressive, considering the starting point. Yes, Lil’ Donnie Two-Scoops threw quite the tantrum, calling Pelosi a “third-rate” (or possibly “third-grade,” such is the unbridgeable gap between the two parties) politician, until Dems in the room got tired of smelling the rapidly expanding puddle of pee at the base of his chair, and walked out.

Being an idiot, Littlefinger quickly tweeted out a photograph of Nancy handing him his own ass on a plate, because he imagined it depicted her as “unhinged,” rather than as “the single baddest muthafucka in town,” as it quite objectively does. Between the photo and the fuckin’ letter, I’m starting to think his reputation as a messaging genius might be a bit overblown.

Taking a little break from the exhausting work of enabling genocide and collecting impeachable offenses like Pokémon, the Manchurian Manchild hatched a little plot to spin one family’s grief into a “See, I’m Totally Not a Sociopath” photo op, only to run into the inevitable difficulties that arise from being an absolute sociopath. The stable genius really thought a pair bereaved British parents would be totally delighted at his surprise offer of a sudden meeting with the diplomat’s wife who killed their son in a automobile accident, then fled the country to escape consequences. “Or, if you’d rather avoid that emotional trauma, you could risk it all to take what’s behind door number two!” Lord. Can I just say that life here in the extended Twilight Zone episode where we’re all at the mercy of the ever-shifting whims of a demented game show host absolutely fucking sucks.

ProPublica got ahold of some of the Candycorn Skidmark’s tax documents, and if you had wagered that those documents contained no evidence of any crimes whatsoever, you would’ve lost your fuckin’ money. Kinda reminds me of that enormous, meticulously-researched, New York Times deep dive into his long life of financial crimes, and just imagine the world of hurt awaiting that fuck when the office of the presidency isn’t shielding him from legal consequences anymore; you’ll have prosecutors lined up, taking numbers like at the meat counter.

In the midst of all of President Liposuction Clinic Dumpster’s crimes and betrayals, House Republicans are trying to censure Adam Schiff, for, um, heroically defending the United States from lawless tyranny or something. I guess when your party has to rely on foreign assistance to gain power, the only logical conclusion is that patriotism is bad. Actually, I was at a baseball game a couple weeks back, and while I was singing along with the national anthem, Mark Meadows kidney-punched me and stole my wallet.

Figuring the best way to fight impeachment is to just keep committing crimes until the country’s entire law enforcement apparatus is overwhelmed, Team Treasonweasel announced that next year’s G7 summit would be held at one of the Marmalade Shartcannon’s shithole golf resorts, because he’s gonna need all that sweet emoluments cash to spend in the prison commissary, they sell ketchup and pornography, right?

At the very same press conference announcing this massive act of naked corruption, Jerk of All Trades Mick Mulvaney decided to give Adam Schiff and the Impeachment Inquiry (a fantastic band, by the way, they do an excellent cover of “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.”) a helping hand by confessing, live on television, to the most serious allegations in the Ukraine scandal, namely quid pro quo regarding the Quest to Prove the Bidens are Vampire Communist Terrorist Perverts or Something. Expect Mick to someday claim that since he wasn’t read his Miranda rights before the press conference, nothing he said is admissible in a court of law.

Of his dirtbag boss’ unrepentant lawbreaking, Mulvaney merely sneered “get over it!” Hmmmmm…nah, I think we’ll impeach the motherfucker instead, howbow dah?

Mike Pants is almost as good a negotiator as the Shart of the Deal himself. He sat down with the Turks, who said “we would very much like to continue our ethnic cleansing, you already said we could, no takebacks” but Mikey Hairshirt slapped the table and thundered, “That is absolutely unacceptable, sir! I must insist that I also be permitted to personally pick up your dry cleaning and give you a luxuriant foot massage!” and if the Turkish negotiators were able to suppress giggling in delight at how ready their American counterparts were to completely surrender, I salute their composure.

Mr. Pants had scarcely finished tweeting out “peace for our time” when the Turks resumed bombing, claiming they thought the negotiated ceasefire was for 120 seconds, not hours. Anyway, now they get to officially stamp “This Genocide Approved by the United States Government” on all the chemical weapons they’re using on civilians, NEAT.

And Government Cheese Goebbels absolutely has Erdoğan’s treacherous, murderous, back, dutifully parroting his anti-Kurdish propaganda talking points, selling his ethnic cleansing campaign like it was his daughter’s latest line of knockoff handbags. Let me just say, seeing the words “ultimate solution” in one of that wannabe führer’s tweets was not exactly comforting.

Lindsey Graham is out there trying to flatter and manipulate his old golfin’ pal into acting in America’s interest for a change, and it might be funny if weren’t so goddamn tragic.

Rick Perry, is really, truly, actually, quitting this time, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, or so we are told.*

Admiral William McRaven wrote what the kewl kids would call a “blistering op-ed,” denouncing the Offal in the Oval for “destroying the Republic,” which, McRaven claims, is a bad thing for president to do. Now, we’re talking about the guy who got Bin Laden, here, so I can’t wait for the QAnon crowd to start smearing him as a deep state pedophile traitor, which I assume they’re already doing even as I type this.

Speaking of ultra-decorated military types, Jocular Jim Mattis told some jokes about bonespurs, while remaining tight-lipped about any treasons he may or may not have witnessed during his time in the Cabinet. You’re not so special Jim, I’m the Meryl Streep of Drunken Morons Who Write Poop Jokes in Superhero Bathrobes. Anyway, awesome gags, Mr. Dog, how ‘bout you deliver a tight five to some House committees? Under oath, maybe?

And now Strawberry Shartcake is threatening to sue CNN for getting honest journalism all over his ridiculous elephant pants. Once again, we need a word for this awkward mishmash of sinister authoritarianism and laugh-out-loud legal incompetence…shit, maybe that word should be “trump.”

You could probably use a laugh right about now, so why not drink deep of the rage of the Cult45ers who bellowed and moaned about a deep state conspiracy to keep them from a rally in honor of their Turd Emperor, when the truth was that their payment for the busses they chartered simply bounced. Let that be a lesson to you, MAGAts; ‘ere ye go looking to increasingly insane conspiracy theories for answers, be sure to double-check that the problem isn’t just that you’re losers who suck at everything.

But there’s always good news to be found, if you only dig around a bit. For example, the Florida GOP’s deeply anti-democratic scheme to re-disenfranchise felons who have served their time via an insidious poll tax suffered a defeat in court today. That fight is really just getting started, but it’s an encouraging early victory.

And the dam of GOP obsequiousness is startin’ to crack, just the tiniest bit. Mitt Romney has been walking upright like a regular vertebrate for several consecutive days now. Faint rumblings have begun emanating from Lisa Murkowski, which could indicate that she will behave as an American, rather than a blind Trump lackey. And even Florida Congressthing Francis Rooney can’t seem to ignore it when Team Shart confesses right in front of the cameras. Hell, John Kasich came out as pro-impeachment today. The country could sorely use your help, folks.

Hillary Clinton was all over the news today, hammering the final nail in the coffin of the bullshit e-mail “scandal,” refusing to share a stage with child-torturing demoness Kirstjen Nielsen, and putting a boot (and frankly an entire pantsuited leg) up Tulsi Gabbard’s ass. Good to see ya, Hilldawg.

And of course we lost Congressman Elijah Cummings this week. He was one of the great ones, as well as one of the truly good ones, if you take my meaning. After all he did for us over the years, I think we owe it to him to step into the void left by his passing; if a few million of us really work at it, we just might be enough to pull it off.

Ok, that’s enough for one week, Shower Captives. Go get yourself a beer. Or some bunnies. Pick your poison.

*The editors cannot be held responsible if Perry has withdrawn his resignation by the time you read this.