I was several hours into reading the day’s news before I realized, to my chagrin, that I had neither consumed hallucinogenic drugs nor experienced severe head trauma, and therefore all this shit was really happening. Which is a shame. Well, let’s dive in.

Mike Pompeo got all pissy with Chris Wallace for doing journalism at him, which is totally unfair, what with all those hoity-toity ivory tower elitist questions about whether or not it’s ok for hostile foreign nations to install personal pet presidential puppets. I tell you what, if Mikey were half as good at diplomacy as he is at feigning outrage, he’d been one helluva Secretary of State, but of course he’s not and he isn’t.

PUBLIC HEALTH ALERT: It looks like treason might be contagious, as a disturbing number of congressional Republicans are showing symptoms. Take Utah’s Chris Stewart, who agrees with his Turd Emperor that accepting intelligence from foreign nations is just the bee’s knees, as the kids would say. The whole fucking GOP has become a shitty hive mind, like a bloated, sloppy, Borg cube, careening through space, hitting on teenagers at intergalactic shopping malls, and lying about the number of races they’ve assimilated, all while wearing an enormous, too-long, space necktie.

Faced with the problem of humiliating leaked internal polling showing him trailing Joe Biden like so much toilet paper stuck to the bottom of a shoe, the Bonespur Buttplug demonstrated the sort of deft, outside-the-box leadership that enabled him to build extravagant wealth from the humble beginnings of Daddy Handing Him Extravagant Wealth; he fired the pollsters. The strategy of ignoring unwelcome information until it disappears in a puff of wishful thinking has never worked with my utility bills, but I’m more than happy to watch Littlefinger surrender to his delusions.

He seems quite comfortable in his little fantasy land, actually, confident that the American people are so enamored with mortifying failed summits with murderous dictators and multi-billion-dollar trade war payoffs to damaged farmers that they’ll demand he stay in office past the second term he’s not going to win, and maybe next time he goes to England they’ll let him ride the Hogwarts Express. I’m starting think the reason they nearly fucked up that first Easter Egg Roll was Donnie thinking the Bunny would take care of it.

And the Dopey Dotard with Diminutive Digits ordered a massive, government-wide cut to science advisory boards, as part of his ongoing Revenge of the Subpar initiative. The operating theory here is that science, like an unflattering poll, will simply go away if you ignore it. I bet Jar-Jar’s Middle East peace plan ultimately comes down to just covering Palestine with a little piece of gaffer tape on every White House map and globe.

It fucking may as well, it turns out. Let’s take a moment to roll around in the absurdity of a sentence like, “A White House official says that Israeli representatives have not been invited to the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Bahrain next week.” Oh, did I mention the Palestinians aren’t coming either? I think this is just Jared going on a really long flight to play Scattergories with MBS. Maybe wander around a bit later, get some drinks and a funnel cake, dismember a couple of journalists, y’know, make a night of it.

Speaking of Israel (smooth transition, Cap), Benjamin Netanyahu did indeed follow through on his promise to slap Shart Garfunkel’s name across a settlement, a rare ego boost when it’s far more common to see that name pried off hotels and apartment complexes by eager crowbars*. Of course, the truth about this particular settlement turns out to be hilarious and fitting.

After seemingly months of teasers, we finally got to see the whole interview between the Marmalade Shartcannon and George Stephanopoulos. Beyond the famous “gosh yes I love treason and would like to sprinkle Russian intel on my breakfast cereal” bit, he reminded us that he is still chronically dishonest, dumber than a box of hair, and curiously incapable of emotionally processing the simple act of a colleague coughing. In short, he remains blatantly unfit for literally every job on Earth, and we’ve given him the single most important one.

In a rare break from whining like a spoiled rich kid who doesn’t like his Intro to American Lit grade, Little Donnie Two-Scoops showed off his redesign of Air Force One, which he colored all by himself, and he stayed inside the lines and everything. Oh, and a fun little sidebar on this story; apparently the whole reason the President of the United States spends his time handpicking the racing decals for his plane is because his staff has learned to distract him with shiny things to keep him from getting so bored he starts actually wielding the power of his office, and that’s a really really good idea but also sorta HOLY FUCK WHO’S RUNNING THE COUNTRY and nobody’s let Stephen Miller see the nuclear codes, right?

But what are they districting the Candycorn Skidmark from? Oh nuthin’ much, just  cyberoperations against Russia. See, the military has to hide this stuff from the COMMANDER IN CHIEF because they’re worried he might tell Putin on account of maybe being a Russian asset or just really terrifically fucking dumb, who’s to say? But definitely either too traitorous or too stupid to trust. One of the two. Sleep tight.

So just to recap, we’re distracting the President with airplane coloring books so we can run military operations without him tipping our enemies off in advance. You know, I don’t believe that I, personally, will demand this Trump fellow serve any additional terms at all.

And with the keen political instincts of a Lyndon Johnson (Only With Festering Custard Instead of Brains), Pumpkin Spice Pol Pot pledged to return to his signature fuckup, excuse me, “signature issue” of health care, promising once again to repeal the ACA, and replace it, probably with Folgers Crystals and a Dr. Teeth bobblehead. Normally, our president’s boneheaded inability to learn anything about anything is detrimental, and in fact, really quite dangerous, but if he’s hellbent on repeating the mistakes that washed 40 members of his party out of the House last November in that big, beautiful, blue wave, I’m willing to look the other way this once.

In the end, all the projectile idiocy and airplane drawings in the world weren’t enough to rescue Strawberry Shartcake’s interview in the ratings, as it appears the nation’s appetite for watching spray-tanned nimrods lie badly has diminished. Looks like the only thing the American people are demanding of you, old man, is that you go away so Celebrity Family Feud can come back. Ouch.

Screeching Rage Geyser Alex Jones finds himself neck-deep in a fresh new pile of steaming hot shit, as he seems to have, in the process of turning discovery files over to lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families he terrorized for years, included a little child pornography. Now Jones actually may not be guilty here (the images in question were sent to InfoWars e-mail addresses rather than from them; we’ll see what the investigation turns up), but if the universe feels like being a little less than fair to this odious human fistula, I plan on shedding nary a tear. Oh, and he’s 100% guilty of threatening to murder one of the lawyers, sooooooooo…

The Colonworm Administration officially cut off all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador until they agree to to construct a giant, magical, End Undocumented Immigration button, and press it. Now, it takes a fucking potato to understand that reducing this aid will make these nations poorer, and therefore make MORE residents seek better lives elsewhere, thus exacerbating the very problem this action is intended to address, but the American people, in their wisdom, found Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server to be so egregious a sin that a President with a sub-potato IQ was deemed preferable.

And now 1,000 additional troops are headed to the Middle East. Congrats, y’all get to be the very first sacrifices in the blood ritual which will bond John Bolton and the Genocidal Mustache Symbiotically Attached to His Upper Lip for another hundred years.

I always like to top things off with good news when I can, and y’all have dutifully consumed several servings of overcooked spinach and succotash-but-with-broken-glass-instead-of-corn, so I figure you deserve a little dessert. The Supreme Court upheld the un-gerrymandering of Virginia’s state legislative maps, meaning the Republican majority has to actually face the will of the voters this fall, rather than simply removing their power to choose their lawmakers. Nice win, yes?

And y’know, if you feel like sneaking down to the kitchen a little later, when everybody else is asleep, for a second serving of pie, how about the delicious little morsel of Future Reality TV Contestant Anthony Moochawhocareswhathisrealnameis trying to pick a fight with E Street Band legend Nils Lofgren?  I’m not saying this was a lopsided battle, but maybe picture Mike Tyson boxing Dustin Diamond?

Anyway, yeah, it’s kinda light tonight. Just a little saber-rattling with Iran and that thing about the military hiding what it’s doing from the President. Hardly worth mentioning. Slow news day. (cackles insanely)

*My forthcoming children’s book, The Eager Crowbar, tells the tale of a socially awkward but determined young crowbar who eventually achieves her dream of liberating a grateful skyscraper from the taint of the Trump brand.