See, this is why you don’t let narcissistic assholes run counties. Because countries come with armies. We should have known, I suppose, that even war would find a way to be dumber in this age of fuckheads run amuck, but my God, it’s soul-crushing, how stupid this all is.

From its inception, this blog has dedicated probably 60% of its space to the multitudinous errors of just one man: Donald John Trump. And I have not wanted for material; between the malice and the imbecility, that dude fucks up a whole fucking bunch. A fuckup whose fuckups fucked up the whole course of human history. You don’t need me to remind you, you were there for every forsaken minute of it.

But please keep all of it in mind as I say I have never watched anybody fuck up anything as epically and as completely as Vladimir Putin fucked up his disgusting little war. Suddenly, Trump’s an amateur. Trump is a cave painting, this is the Sistine Chapel of fucking up.

What an evil, stupid, little man. To launch a bloody war of aggression, upon a neighbor, for vanity and petty greed, and based on an utterly delusional appraisal of…Jesus, of everything, every single aspect of this morass, the conceited ghoul.

We all know what’s said about the best-laid plans, and I think if we extrapolate from that point to whatever this THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING debacle must’ve looked like on paper, it’s easy to understand how we landed where we did.

Fuck, I don’t even know where to start. How about the linchpin assumption, which apparently held Mr. Super Spy’s entire master plan together, that he could start his war, aaaaaand nobody would fight back? Whole dang country just, what, thanks Vlad for making room for ‘em under his thumb?

That’s pretty weird, as assumptions go. And judging by his military’s bungling in the aftermath, he didn’t see much need to work up any sort of plan B, did he? Like, where does this confidence come from? It’s like modern warfare as waged by Ralph Wiggum.

A most definitely incomplete list of Things and People Chessmaster Poot-Poot Disastrously Underestimated: Biden, Zelenksy, NATO, pretty much every single Ukrainian, Zelensky, How Hard War Is Generally, Western unity, Zelensky, Zelensky, Zelensky, and Zelensky.

While simultaneously overestimating, to an equally suicidal degree: the Russian army, his own ability to set the narrative, his budding bromance with Xi Jinping, his so-called “fortress economy,” and, above all things else, the strategic genius of one Vladimir Putin.

There should be a Robert Palmer song called Fuck Around and Find Out, and the video would be Robert Palmer girls dancing while Putin reacts to the hailstorm of consequences he has brought down upon his own head, one at a time. And that video would be as long as a Soviet film adaptation of a Tolstoy novel. But it’d sure be sexy.

The invading Russians have, um, not exactly been greeted as a liberators, likely because of the way they keep raining death down on innocent people who were just minding their own business.

Stripped, by Wily Joe Biden, of the capacity to justify military aggression with a false flag attack, the best narrative the master manipulator could muster was some feeble sputtering about “de-Nazification,” like a paint-covered kindergartner blaming the dog for the crude treasure map that appeared on the living room carpet.

But the dictator handbook says the bigger the lie, the harder you have to stick to it, so Comrade Shitferbrains is still trying to gaslight Macron into accepting him as Indiana Jones, socking fascists in the jaw, rather than a crazy old man, working through a war crimes bucket list. I confess, I hadn’t considered Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” as a potential blueprint for wartime diplomacy, but ol’ Vlad’s always ten moves ahead of us dummies, right?

You fucked this up so bad, kid. You aimed for the history books, and landed in the Darwin Awards. You were gonna be the Tsar that brought back the U.S.S.R., weren’tcha? Whoops.

You sure did make a Great Man of Volodymyr Zelensky, though. That’s some monkey’s paw shit right there. I’ll bet that eats away at you, too, in whatever spare moments might be available to a man getting pummeled from every direction by the wrath of God.

Yes, Putin now begins what looks to be a lengthy residency in Consequencesville. I’m actually dead as I write this, having foolhardily made a drinking game of the steady stream of sanctions announcements.

Congratulations are clearly in order. You’ve made your currency worthless. Pissed on decades of hard-won good will, business ties…good luck rebuilding those bridges, champ. Even your closest allies will have a hard time forgetting this lesson, on the hidden costs that accompany your “friendship.”

I see you had to shut down your stock market to keep it from disintegrating to atoms. The big, bad foreign currency reserves that were supposed to shield you from sanctions turned out to be held in foreign banks, and are thus forever lost to you, because you clearly thought this thing through real, real hard. Anyway, I imagine your financial planner has already been sent to a gulag.

Damn near every sporting and cultural institution on Earth has severed ties with your overnight pariah state. Every ten minutes you hear about another one, “the International Society of Erotic Harry Potter Fanfic Writers (ISEHPFfW) will no longer recognize their Moscow-based chapter,” that kind of thing. I’m sure you’re fine; angry soccer fans seldom lash out, right?

And because you’re committing war crimes all over television and the internet, you are manufacturing, in verdant abundance, all the public outrage necessary to guarantee the very outcomes this mess was designed to thwart. Because you’re so intelligent, you see.

NATO is all tight now, dog. Thanks to you. NATO is having sleepovers where everybody talks about who they have crushes on at school, and also how much everybody fucking hates you. And there’s a line out the door to join it now, too; to join the European Union and all those other institutions you hoped to scare away from your doorstep. Nice work.

Oh, and you’ve inspired Europe to invest even more heavily in defense, including, surely, the very weapons Ukrainians are currently using to beclown your military.

And frankly, none of this should surprise anyone; it’s precisely the stuff one should expect to happen when one marches an army into a whole ‘nother country and orders it to start killing people.

Yet somehow, in the middle of this entirely predictable shitstorm, at the far, far end of some Kubrick-looking table, sits Vladimir Putin, thumb secured in puckered butthole, baffled into a stupor that anybody bothered to fight back at all.

They usually do, kiddo…they usually do. No wonder your sanity has been called into question.

I bet the walls close in a bit more with every seized oligarch yacht, huh? Well, I’m sure temperatures will cool if you just light a few more nuclear plants on fire, you idiot. You fucking idiot. Fucking fuckup. FIRE IN A NUCLEAR PLANT FUCKING FUCKUP.

I mean, Lindsey Graham is a reckless buffoon, but did he say anything these Russian billionaires weren’t already whispering amongst themselves?

Back stateside, comic relief has been provided by the leading lights of MAGA Nation, and their skeleton-crushing contortions, as they attempt to squirm out from under years of unabashed Putin pimping.

Hey, if anybody from that side of the American reality divide happens to be hate-reading this post on their sister’s Facebook wall, may I gently suggest that when a figure who has been presented to you as admirable instead pulls Hitler shit, you reevaluate your trust in those who made the presentation?

Like, hey Mike Pompeo, what was it you called Vlad on the eve of his campaign of atrocities? “Very savvy,” was it? “Elegantly sophisticated,” even? That was your assessment while he was marshaling his forces to slaughter civilians? Bet that breathes new life into your Surely Presidential Candidates Don’t Need Charisma Anyway My Mom Thinks I’m Likeable* campaign.

And watching wee Tommy Cotton fidget, you could practically see smoke coming out of his ears during his failed struggle to reconcile basic human decency with every cult of personality’s lone commandment.

Yes, despite the week’s helpful insight into Where This Whole Authoritarian Thing Leads, the Republican Party keeps stumbling heedlessly rightward. Assaults on reproductive rights and education keep escalating. And the politicians keep getting crazier and crazier.

Because the price of Off-Brand Orbán’s endorsement is total devotion to the Big Lie, GOP Senate primaries are getting deeply, dangerously weird. In Arizona, Trump scared Doug Ducey off without a fight (stochastic terrorism in action, folks!), and in Missouri, everybody’s flirting with the profoundly disturbing Eric Greitens, all while Herschel Walker remains functionally unopposed, history of domestic abuse be damned, apparently. If the specter of that potential Senate doesn’t make you want to VOTE IN THE GODDAMN MIDTERMS, I don’t know what will.

And don’t forget Kevin McCarthy’s predictable impotence before the Yeah We’re Nazis Wanna Make Somethin’ Of It wing of his caucus. Remember when “House Minority Leader refuses to condemn members who spoke at a white nationalist conference where the organizer LITERALLY PRAISED HITLER” would’ve been a seriously shocking headline? That was a healthier time.

That conference, by the way, featured a crowd of white resentment’s finest specimens, openly cheering disgraced former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, specifically for his world-renowned racism, just to give a clearer picture of this latest low hurdle McCarthy can’t seem to heave himself over.

If even a dithering milksop like Willard Romney can denounce the “morons on my team,” K-Dog, surely you can wag a finger at members who hang out with racism-cheering Hitler-praisers, or fling poo at the walls during the State of the Union. Oh right, that would require a spine. I apologize; I forgot about your condition.

Speaking of SOTU, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds’ response, a rote recitation of all the standard MAGA grievances, wasn’t exactly a star-making turn, but I suppose we should be grateful they didn’t hand the gig to Roy Moore.

Or to Ron DeSantis, who’s too busy anyway, directing embarrassing displays of public surliness at schoolchildren. Sick burn on France, by the way, Ron-Ron. Seriously. Everybody’s extremely impressed and your mom’s super proud of the way you conduct yourself.

Hey, looks like Louie Gohmert blew up his own political career, that’s some welcome good news! Louie’s had the Dumbest Man in Congress crown nailed down for the entirety of his tenure, of course; insiders say the succession battle is likely to come down to a spork fight between Madison Cawthorn and Gym Jordan.

(I don’t want to move on from the Texas primaries without gifting y’all the truly bizarre nugget that awaits those bold enough to click this link.)   

Oh hey, look, the January 6th commission has finally begun using terms like “criminal conspiracy” in court filings, a welcome escalation in what’s been an excruciating wait for justice. Meanwhile, one “Oathkeeper” pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy over his role in the Capitol Riot, while the trial of a “Three Percenter” got underway, because in this country, terrorist violence comes from stunted manchildren playing dress-up.

Wait, wait…the seditious conspiracy guy worked as Roger Stone’s bodyguard? And, lordy, there are tapes? Because Rog allowed a documentary crew to film his treacherous ass during the insurrection? You know, under Kevin Bacon Game rules, the criminal conspiracy case just got a whole lot more interesting.

Before I let you go, be sure to check out the All-New, All-Different Rogues Gallery section on the site! These new Rogues pages were commissioned by backers of the Kickstarter for my WWII comic book, Marguerite vs. the Occupation, and they are hot off the press.

Speaking of comic book news, I just received word that the print run of ODD YARNS finally arrived in port, which means…well, there’s still some waiting before it gets to me, but it’ll be here relatively soon…ish! Which mean ANSWER YOUR REWARDS SURVEY if you haven’t already. I wanna get y’all your books!

Good lord. That’s more than enough bullshit to merit a weekend, I think. Please stay safe out there, my friends; this world keeps beating mad new paths to dark places, and I wouldn’t want to lose anybody.

*No, she doesn’t.