Readers periodically express concern for my mental well-being, which I get. Staring into MAGA’s puckered butthole for a decade isn’t anything I’d recommend as a rest cure, but certain responsibilities come with the bathrobe and luchador mask.

That said, I do ask for your sympathy during this difficult period. Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to write satire while men wearing literal clown shoes learn war is hard in real time?

So, I unplugged from the ol’ shit-flooded zone while I went on my birthday adventure, and let me say, as someone who typically spends several hours a day staring into the aforementioned butthole…it’s legitimately shocking how much crazier shit got during those ten days.

The shoe thing makes me mad because I should have thought of it first. I should’ve written a joke, right when Dug Bugman and Congressman Kofi Kingston started dressing like Fashy Daddy, about the whole Cabinet wearing shoes that don’t fit because they lack the strength and self-respect to tell him “guessing shoe sizes at a glance” is not among his many cognitive superpowers.

Y’know, if the Founders could’ve foreseen the breadth and depth of 21st-century America’s brainrot, they’d’ve tacked a companion Bill of Responsibilities onto the Constitution, too. The 11th Amendment would’ve been “Um, if you’re somehow ethically incapable of showing up to work in shoes that fit, you’re not allowed to wage war.” You wouldn’t think you’d a need Constitution to tell you that, but we are very, very dumb.

Madison proposes all this seemingly nonsensical shit after a harrowing visit from a man in a bathrobe, claiming to be a time-traveller. “Verily, though I know not what a ‘reality television show host’ be, James was quite insistent they be barred from public service. We may as well humour him.”

If you’re still reading this, my plan, uh, didn’t work.

Sloppy old fool cannot handle even the ceremonial duties of his office. (The 42nd Amendment of the Bill of Responsibilities mandates caning for anyone who wears merch to a dignified transfer.)

As predicted, the Maduro Excursion gave the Kooky Kakistocrat Kabal both a taste for war and the conviction that they’re awesome at it. Life was to be all skipping and cupcakes and regime change from here on out, surely.

Alas.

Exactly, fucking EXACTLY like Putin sending troops into combat packing dress uniforms for the victory parade that’s only about 1,460 days late, it seems as though no one bothered to prepare contingency plans for any outcome other than instant capitulation.

HEY NO FAIR MINING THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ tweets our hopelessly overmatched Commander-in-Chief, utterly flummoxed at the idea that the country he attacked might fight back. Which is what happens in most wars, when you think about it. See, this is the shit they don’t get to on those cognitive tests.

Yes, because thinking is too much to ask of our government, we get to pay a fun new idiot gas tax on top of all those fun tariffs. Putin, meanwhile, gets sanctions relief plus a big, fat bailout, even though he’s (checks notes) aiding the enemy. I may be just the teeeeeniest bit tired of winning.

Fox Nooz yapping head Brian Kilmeade doesn’t understand why all those sissy-ass tanker captains hesitate to plunge into the line of fire for king n’ country. “Don’t they know that every man who gives his life for the Dotard’s approval rating receives 47 Trump Buxx in table credit to spend at ANY Trump-branded resort in the MAGA afterlife?”

Between the economic carnage and the wholesale slaughter of children, the war has been polling pretty poorly, but what you have to understand is that all that negativity is entirely balanced out by Lindsey Graham’s obscene glee. CUBANEXTCUBANEXTCUBANEXT he bleats, desperate to squeeze as much murder as possible out of the old man before the cankles pop.

Still, it won’t be long before the Reich’s crack comms squad turns things around, public opinion-wise. Personally, all my fears melted away the minute I saw Dear Leader in his widdle uniform, from when his dirtbag parents bought a brief window of peace and quiet by shipping him to military school. And who doesn’t love a good draft, right?

Plus, riding to the rescue of beloved cultural institutions Ticketmaster and Live Nation has to be good for at least three points.

WE’VE BEEN AT WAR WITH IRAN FOR FORTY-SEVEN YEARRRRRRRRRRRRRS!

What? No, we haven’t. There would’ve been something about it on TV. The Iron Sheik would never have been permitted to compete for the World Wrestling Federation title during a live war, don’t be silly.

I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun watching JD attempt to scooch away from the burgeoning quagmire without losing his spot in the line of succession to Little Marco, by the way.

Secretary Funsoxx can’t wait for regime-aligned oligarchs to take over the rest of the American media, so people will stop pestering him about all those children he butchered. Also, no one is allowed to publish photographs where he doesn’t look hot. Gotta look hot while you’re raining death down on schools.

Naturally, Petey wasn’t the only prominent official to melt down at a press conference this week (Nancy Mace must be giving seminars), as Jeanine Pirro blessed us with a glimpse of her famous coping skills following her latest faceplant.

Poor Jeanine was just about to get not just Jerome Powell but his little dog, too, but mean ol’ Judge Boasberg had to go and enforce the dumb ol’ law. And this is right after she had to concede defeat in the Case of Joe Biden’s Autopen, which you’ll remember from Book 12 of the beloved YA paperback series about a bumbling alcoholic wannabe autocrat who consistently fails to indict her fat, stupid, loser boss’ enemies.

I was feeling pretty smug about that MAGA Men Humiliated After Being Duped by AI Foot Fetish Model story until I heard Hegseth wants to appoint her to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Always nice to see the Secretary of State snappin’ selfies with domestic terrorists. That’s when you know your democracy is at its healthiest and stablest.

I see Kristi Noem collected her wages while I was away. Looks like total excommunication, and perhaps even a little corruption investigation to boot. Just because she was a catastrophic failure as DHS Secretary doesn’t mean she won’t make a perfectly functional scapegoat.

Kash Patel was SO excited to tell the world he was bringing in UFC fighters to train FBI agents, and I have to assume the reader has died from embarrassment by this point. Your cats are already eating you.

So I guess one of Elon’s DOGE incels stole everybody’s Social Security numbers? Golly. We should probably arrest that kid, though of course most federal law enforcement is probably still tied up on Stephen Miller’s deranged crusade. Construction workers to torment, preschoolers to terrorize. You gotta prioritize.

Certainly can’t go after anybody in those Epstein files. Say, weren’t we just talking about some rich, powerful dude who was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a minor? I could probably think of his name if I wasn’t so distracted by the war he started.

MAGA Congressdork Andy Ogles has been refining his personal brand of late, honing in on his pathetic, anti-American gutter bigotry. Hope everybody back home in the Tennessee fifth is real proud.

I guess the new head of the College Republicans is this prepubescent groyper dork called Kai Schwemmer, so the future is in appropriately inadequate hands. If you’d like to spend even more time down the dispiriting rabbit hole that is young MAGA manhood, here’s a darrrrrrk little article about a gross little man running in the Republican gubernatorial primary down in DeSantistan.

Say, there seems t’be a bit of a, how shall I put this, a naked, unapologetic hatred problem in the GOP. Some pollster should look into that; I bet they’d find some…hang on, I’m being handed an envelope…YIKES.

Yikes all around, friends. America feels like one of those snowballs that rolls downhill in a cartoon, getting bigger and bigger, only it’s not snow it’s poop.

Oh my goodness, I require beer. Wouldn’t say no to any donations to the beer fund (now accepting Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo!), that’s for sure. Stay safe out there; you don’t want to miss the midterms, because we are gonna whoop these fools from sea to shining sea.

(Follow @john_luzar and sign up on the dang e-mail list, btw.)