Keeping up with the news these days makes me feel like someone is using my skull for a vomitorium, at a party where somebody’s gross cousin brought really bad acid. Well, there’s no way that image didn’t whet your appetite, so I’ll take the liberty of assuming you’ve been hooked, and proceed.

Vladimir Putin spends his days cross-legged on the bathroom floor, helplessly fixated on his inevitable place in the history books, as Czar Fuckup the Great Big Fucking Fuckup Who Fucked Up So Hard We Will Literally Never Stop Talking About It So Long as Humanity Persists, and sobbing. Goes through a ton of…I dunno, maybe Ben & Jerry’s, maybe cheap, Soviet-era meth.

It’s not fair, really. Call of Duty makes war look so fun n’ easy, but the reality is full of boring-yet-crucial details, like “do I understand how fuel works,” “are these tanks, or rolling death traps,” and “seriously, is anyone in this piece of shit army even literate?”

See, when you neglect that shit, you can wind up, say, shoveling the tattered remnants of your pathetic armored divisions directly into the waiting maw of enemy artillery, while your legion of clowns repeatedly fails to construct a pontoon bridge. Hypothetically speaking, of course. That would be really embarrassing, though, wouldn’t it? Like the Spanish Armada, but dumber.

Tank graveyards: betcha can’t leave just one.

Anyway, consequences pile up in a hurry when you suck this much, so Vladimir the Terrible (At His Job) now appears to be drastically scaling back battlefield objectives for the second time in less than three months. At this pace, by Labor Day, he’ll be attempting to encircle a single Ukrainian Denny’s.

And fucking that up, too.

Did you know Pootie has his own sad, caffeine-free diet shithole NATO? It’s called the “Collective Security Treaty Organization,” and while they’re considering an application from Ron DeSantis’ new secret election police force, the current roster is Russia and five former Soviet Republics with the approximate combined GDP of a reasonably busy Starbucks.

So, this fearsome alliance held a little meeting, presumably in Lukashenko’s basement, where the Belarusian strongman, who totally isn’t Putin’s puppet, (there’s a perfectly logical explanation for the KGB cufflinks that keep turning up in his stool, SHUT UP) tried to get the team all fired up about hopping on the boondoggle bandwagon. And everyone basically looked at their shoes until it was time to leave, because allies are tough to come by when you’re smashing your own military to bits for spite.

Of course, the Russians insist they’re the Real Victims™️ of their war of aggression, which flaunts their kinship with our own domestic right wing in a rather instructive manner, don’t you think?

They whine about NATO expansion, as though it’s unfair, and frankly, more than a little tacky of their neighbors to do anything but patiently await their own annexation. They whine at talk of using their seized assets (brilliant move leaving all that shit in foreign banks, by the way; that’ll come up in those history books we mentioned) to rebuild the sovereign nation they chose to invade. They whine that their enemies refuse to stop exploiting their ever-expanding smorgasbord of self-inflicted errors, and then they launch another missile at another hospital.

Yes, my dude, you are being kicked while you are down. If you don’t like it, pull your butchers back. You could give that order right now.*

But no, they’re pulling all this creepy, cultural redecorating, shipping Russian statues and textbooks and shit into occupied areas. Personally, I’d wait to see if the cheap, plastic army men can actually hold any of this fuckin’ territory before I invested in remodeling, but I suppose it’s hardly reasonable to expect budgetary prudence at this late date.

wE’Re GOiNg tO ReBUilD maRiUPOl aS a REsoRt tOWn, they yelp. You can mark me down as skeptical on that score, comrades, but feel free to invest your kids’ college money. I mean, those of you who remain in Ukraine are unlikely to do so above ground.

Because pricks have begun appearing in the propaganda bubble, (and I’m not just talking about Tucker Carlson, ayyyyyyyyyy) and you’re already scrambling to find fresh meat to toss to the howitzers, and now you can’t even drown your sorrows in a fucking McFlurry. Heck, even the handful of collaborators you’ve managed to dig up are hot trash.

Just to sum shit up, Vladkins…when they’re afraid of ya, they don’t talk about how weird ya smell.

Oh, and what a diverting gaffe from our 43th President, ho ho ho! Dubya is surely well into the Nightly Visits From Dickensian Ghosts phase of his post-presidency, so expect more of this sort of thing.

The power-mad, illegitimate SCOTUS majority decided it was simply too goshdarn difficult to bribe elected officials under current law, in Ted Cruz’s name, just to be extra shitty about it. Dunno what to tell you, the voodoo dolls I ordered off Etsy didn’t work.

Big win for the American Right in Buffalo this week, as the stochastic terror tree they tend with such care once again bore fruit, in the form of the latest subpar white boy mass murderer. Just in time for the midterms.

Now, you might expect a pundit or a politician to respond to news that their own rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of a white nationalist terrorist with something resembling contrition, or shame, but you have to understand, from where they sit, these fucks are so achingly close to a world where they can openly applaud this violence, LIKE THEY WANT TO, that it’s pretty irritating, being forced to go through the motions, say, “oh, shooting people is wrong”…since it’s not something they actually believe.

Oh, you’re exaggerating, Cap, that’s not fair, I bet Kyle Rittenhouse gets invited to hang out with the undisputed leader of the Republican Party for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with the two human beings he shot to death. I’m sure he’s insightful and amusing on a wide variety of non-murder topics.

We will not be receiving an apology from Elise Stefanik, let alone her absolutely warranted resignation, is what I’m saying. White nationalist rhetoric, is, after all, the entire reason she has Liz Cheney’s old job. And of course, should you criticize her, she’ll simply call you a pedophile until one of her fans takes matters into their own hands.

The yapping heads of the wingnut media bubble predictably provided the sweet, soothing balm of fresh victimhood to their audience of disinformation junkies, madly blaming the tragedy not on the unapologetic racism of a manifesto-confirmed white nationalist, but abortion, or “wokeness,” or the unfinished Minesweeper game on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

And it was a false flag anyway, so honestly, don’t give it another thought. (Unless you’re inspired to perpetrate a terrorist attack of your own, in which case, please follow these digital breadcrumbs until your mind is completely shattered, at which point you will be directed to the nearest gun shop.)

Nope, no one will be apologizing for this system functioning exactly as designed. Tucker Carlson’s work is measured in corpses, folks. Shit, Laura Ingraham would sue the manifesto for plagiarism if there was money in it. Meanwhile, Matt Schlapp’s over in Hungary, explicitly pitching abortion bans as offense against the “great replacement.”

Jeeeeeeezus. Even the NRA generally had the decency to slink into the shadows for a couple days, while the bodies cooled. See, it’s that lack of shame that gives fascism its kick.

Boy, there’s nothin’ quite like primary night in an era of ascendant authoritarianism, amirite? Grab a sixer, heat up some pizza rolls, wait around to see just how much Nazi shit our neighbors are in the mood for this week…the answer is never “zero” anymore, which isn’t great, if you ask me.

Still, Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin was unable to ride her newfound celebrity in the white nationalist community to a promotion, and I’ll drink to that news. Shit, I’ll do a line of coke off Brad Little’s ass to that news; we should party like it’s 1945 every single time these shitbags lose.

For example, I’m expecting a Supreme Court showdown over the cake I’m having baked for my Madison Cawthorn Won’t Be in Congress Anymore bash this weekend.

It’s tricky, trying to pin down exactly which line young Maddy crossed to earn his death cult defenestration; must’ve been the kinky videos, or the Eyes Wide Shut Was Basically About Kevin McCarthy allegations, cuz it certainly wasn’t the penchant for gun crime or the Hitler vacation. It’s hard to tell when you’re dealing with people who guzzle livestock medication and worship a game show host who has to pay for sex.

Still, not nearly enough Congressmen vow revenge upon electoral defeat, y’know? Like, tell me Eric Cantor spends his days constructing an enormous trebuchet, and searching Zillow for a property juuuuuuust the right distance from Dave Brat’s house.

Anyway, it’s “Dark MAGA” the little crotchpimple wants now, which must mean, like, a colon tumor with teeth, erupting hourly, spewing corrosive diarrhea…what else could those three syllables possibly imply?

Which brings us to Doug Mastriano: 2020 election truther, devotee of all letters found ‘twixt P and R, and, since this is Hell, the official Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania governorship.

Doug is one of those loons who composes apocalyptic fanfic about “real men” saving civilization from the vile, hedonistic forces of People Who Disagree With Doug Mastriano, who must, of course, be destroyed at all costs, and he’s running on the promise to commit the crimes no one was willing to commit last time out. “Vote for me, and I’ll hand-pick the votes that count, in this pivotal swing state.”

“Vote for me, and we’ll never give the power back.”

Pennsylvania Dems think they’ve got the next Todd Akin here, but as someone who spent a substantial chunk of 2016 reveling in Donald Trump’s toxic unelectability, I’m gonna leave my gloating pants in the closet for now. If you can spare a buck, give Josh Shapiro’s campaign a boost, because democracy is pretty cool, and I imagine we’d all like to keep it around.

Well, not all of us. Not Doug, certainly. Not Ginni Thomas. Or Mark Meadows. Not Donald Trump, or his dirtbag lawyer, John Eastman. Not Jody Hice, or any of the other MAGA candidates seeking control over our election infrastructure. Not the Republican primary electorate in Pennsylvania, that’s for sure…we’re actually in the fight of our goddamn lives, aren’t we?

…with a regressive grievance cult that finds feeding hungry children during a formula crisis immoral. I’m willing to admit some of my previous assumptions about the fundamental decency of the average American were on the overoptimistic side.

See? Vomitorium. And while there’s no reason to think beer can wash the memory of any of this crap away, I’m gonna give it a try anyway, for science. Stay safe out there, folks.

*Putin reads my blog, right? Or Lavrov gives him bullet points, anyhow.