I hope the leather-bound, multi-volume tomes on the Rise and Fall of Whatever the Fuck We Wind Up Calling This Madness are able to capture just how goddamn irritating it was to live through. Like, when you open the book, maybe a speaker in the spine emits a shrill, piercing whine? There’s a mood you need to set, y’know?

Well, this week, we learned it’s a helluva lot easier to loot lucrative state secrets when you can judge-shop until you land your case in front of some scruples-free sycophant auditioning for a gaudier uniform in the Reich to come.

Judge Aileen Cannon helpfully made Donnie Dotard’s case for him, since his idiot lawyers couldn’t, fabricating statutes as necessary to grant magical executive privilege rights to a cheap thief who was rather decisively stripped of executive powers by the American people not so very long ago.

Naturally, DoJ appealed Cannon’s loony attempt to elevate a larcenous reality television personality beyond the reach of the law, citing the damage caused to national security by her clumsy, clownish power grab. Since we’re trying to determine the whereabouts of the docs that once dwelled in all those empty folders, y’know? Like, did he swap ‘em to MBS for a golf tournament and a crate of experimental hair tonic, or just roll ‘em up to whack Eric on the nose for wetting the bed again?

Permit me to suggest that if former presidents were indeed allowed to hang onto classified intelligence pertaining to foreign nations’ nuclear capacity, like hotel towels or some shit, there would be extremely clear laws stating as much. There aren’t, of course, because that would be insane, though Kevin McCarthy’d probably instate jus primae noctis if asked.

Anyway, you can see why Team Treason tried to get their ridiculously frivolous (fridivulous?) lawsuit targeting Hillary Clinton and her Nebulous Confederation of Deep State Accomplices (who’ll be touring next spring in support of a new album, I’m told) heard by Cannon. Denied the crucial element of a robed accomplice, that one just got laughed out of court so derisively, Rudy Giuliani booked the parking garage next to Hyatt Regency Tuckpointing to complain about it.

Now, all this shameless lawlessness went a long way towards proving President Biden’s “semi-fascist” theory, but the MAGA-infected Republican Party still spent most of the week enthusiastically offering additional evidence at every opportunity.

Pumpkin Spice Pol Pot led the charge himself, throwing a cozy little hate rally for the Pennsylvania GOP’s absolutely batshit 2022 ticket. You definitely want to publicly praise oppressive dictators when you’re trying to prove how not fascist you are. Make sure to wank enviously to Xi Jinping’s “iron fist” while you’re at it, though I’d be hesitant to bring up fists of any kind, iron, ham, or otherwise, were I notoriously hypersensitive about my own tiny, inadequate, baby hands.

But surely only the unfascistest boy in the whole wide world would volunteer such a sad, simpering endorsement of flailing tyrant Jair Bolsanaro, right?

There’s certainly no better character witness to call than Marjorie Taylor Greene; it’s not like she’s world-renowned for spewing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories or anything. Speaking at the Pennsylvania rally, Marj credulously spread that silly furry-kids-shitting-in-litter-boxes-at-school hoax from a few weeks back, because fucking of course she fell for something so obviously fake…I’m sure it’ll be a staple in mass shooter manifestos going forward.

Meanwhile, some MMA fighter got it into his head (erroneously) that some new study finally proved that suck it Fauci, ivermectin really actually truly worked this whole time, and the wingnut internet gathered for yet another giddy, taunting victory lap, because Some Guy Said Something Incorrect on the Internet. The fun thing about MAGA culture is you never know which random blockhead’s stray tweet’s gonna tumble into the scripture.

I’ve never seen people so willing, so positively horny to be lied to. No wonder the papers’re full of stories about criminal investigations into various rube-bilking operations. My god, the fucking money the ticks suck out of these fevered fuckwits. More than $135 million to Save America PAC, a three-card-monte-obvious scam that’s now the target of yet another federal investigation earning subpoenas from grand juries.

“I gave Steve Bannon money, because he said he’d use it to build a wall on the Mexican border!” Wow, what a stupid fucking thing to do! Does Steve Bannon strike you as someone who knows one fucking thing about building anything? Did you check? Before you gave him your money? Yelp reviews? Anything? No? Huh.

Bannon got indicted again, which of course you already knew. Forgetting his gag reflex-triggering personality, he seems to believe he has a shot at being perceived as some sort of heroic political prisoner, like incel Nelson Mandela, I guess. Still, in a cult that canonizes the likes of Donald Trump and Kyle Rittenhouse, his chances aren’t awful.

(Incidentally, at a certain point in the very near future, I think we’ll need to examine whether or not recent unemployment figures have been warped by the sheer number of Americans serving on grand juries investigating the Trump cabal.)

Let’s not move on without belly-laughing at the institutional GOP’s fundraising woes; everybody’s bitching and moaning and pointing fingers as the grifter gravy train reroutes to Marm-a-Lago. Yeah, turns out that once the wall-builders and the Big Liars and the wild-eyed pillow merchants have taken their tithe, there isn’t much MAGA mad money left over for JD Vance, Adam Laxalt, or Blake Masters. I may be up all night crying about that.

Bet they could use some of those millions of dollars Rick Scott set on fire. Or the millions Rick Scott flushed down the toilet. The millions Rick Scott flung at the peasants from his luxury yacht during his recent Italian vacation, hoping to induce them to fight to the death for his amusement would surely be most welcome, but that money’s gone forever, alas; may I interest you in Rick Scott’s toxic policy platform instead? Cuz that’s what’s left.

Well, that and the exploitation horror movie roadside circus you weirdos nominated for Senate seats. You guys, Herschel Walker is polling well right now, and all he does is wander around Georgia, demonstrating how badly his brain works. Why is it so important to these people to grant fearsome political power to the manifestly unfit? Don’t you at least want competent assholes?

Nope, they want the freakiest freaks flopping around in their increasingly freaky mosh pit. Dangerous creeps with sinister ideas about democracy and freedom, because what the MAGA Republican base wants right now is leadership that condones law-breaking and violence. Because they’re such patriots, you see.

Heck, if watching video of a fake elector ushering a couple of Sidney Powell associates (or “kraken tentacles”) into a county elections office to breach the voting system doesn’t make you want to salute an apple pie, I don’t know what will. Seein’ folks come together like that, in a criminal conspiracy to steal our government from us, and lay it at the feet of a man who’s spent years bragging about passing a cognitive test, that’s Norman Rockwell shit.

Like those Michigan GOP officials, training poll workers to break rules in order to serve the party as “undercover agents.” Excuse me for a moment, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to fondle a bald eagle.

See, they tell one another that they’re justified in cheating because WE cheat, in the same way they tell each other that horse dewormer cures Covid, or that liberal teachers let children shit in boxes; misconceptions used to justify misbehavior, demands of vengeance for imaginary wrongs…just because it’s become so commonplace doesn’t make it any less insane.

And the dirtbag propagandists stoking this madness know exactly what they’re doing, as proven by the leaked Fox Nooz email reading:

While we’ve all learned to tolerate, and perhaps even quietly enjoy Jeanine Pirro’s drunken racist aunt shtick, those’re actually some fairly dangerous lies she’s belching up between boxes of Franzia, so maybe we ought to, I dunno, deplatform her before the country catches fire?

Anyway, she got promoted.

A New Mexico judge removed capitol rioter Couy Griffin from his post as Otero County Commissioner, on account of his seditious terrorism and general brownshirtiness. What a great fuckin’ idea that is. Barring violent insurrectionists from positions of power? Yes, please.

‘Specially with the Anti-Defamation League’s new list of “elected officials, military members, and law enforcement officers” on the Oath Keepers’ membership roll. 373 of those fuckers, if you’re curious, “including at least 10 chiefs of police and 11 sheriffs.” Three hundred and seventy-three card-carrying members of a known domestic terror org, each wielding their own, personal slice of state power. How fun.

Former U.S Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s new book details all the pressure his not-all-fascist bosses in the Turd Reich applied, hoping to force unjustified prosecutions of political opponents, essentially the same sort of gangster corruption Government Cheese Goebbels got impeached for pulling with Ukraine. Anyway, no semi-fascists, quasi-Nazis, or I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Klansmen here, clearly.

Dr. Oz says that the filthy takers don’t deserve health and that his daughters don’t want to fuck him because his musk repels them and also that he should be a United States Senator, and, well, there’s a lot to disagree with there.

I see Vladimir Putin has arrived at the hope-nobody-notices-me-buying-weapons-from-North-Korea phase of his inevitable march to immortality, amidst a shockingly successful Ukrainian counteroffensive. Somewhere in the world, there’s a restaurant so exclusive you have to be the leader of a superpower to get in, and the maître d’ at that joint has been openly rude to Pooty since April.

…the book should not only scream at you while you read it, they should print it on paper that smells bad, like room temperature fast food farts and the brittle rage of the petulantly mediocre. Christ. No wonder I always need beer by the time I’m done writing this. Well, whatever your circumstances or preferences happen to be, my friends, I hope you find some equivalent way to take the edge off. Stay safe out there.