Hey, you’re welcome. After more than two years of rumor and speculation, of COURSE my decision to take three whole days away from the sturm und drang of the incessantly churning news cycle led to the immediate conclusion of the Mueller investigation. Some vacation. I tried to leave my phone in my pocket, I really did.

The news was accommodating at first, just a light sprinkling of madness, easily ignored. Like, for example, noted biblical scholar Mike Pompeo’s new, avant-garde, theory that maybe God sent Donald Trump, who, I’ll remind everyone, is a white nationalist, to save Israel, which seems like an awfully strange thing to expect of a white nationalist, don’tcha think?

People lose track of the fact that Pompeo is a crazed religious fanatic because he doesn’t shit himself in public like Michele Bachmann, but he’s 100% as nuts as the nuttiest nut in that crowd. And that’s on top of being a cookie-cutter tea party loon with no diplomatic background. Don’t worry, America, what Mike lacks in experience, he makes up for with blind, frothy, zealotry!

I feel like I should just keep a short sentence on the clipboard, ready to cut and paste into every other blog, something like “Shart Garfunkel nominated a completely unqualified buffoon to a position of extravagant power, because he is an incurious dolt who values loyalty over expertise and doesn’t give 1/16th of a fuck about running the country well.” In this particular case I’m talking about Stephen Moore, a Heritage hack who’s been nominated to the Federal Reserve Board, probably because he complimented the President’s hair once. Even by Ronny Jackson/Ben Carson standards, this is some maybe-we’ll-make-a-hamster-one-of-the-Joint-Chiefs shit.

And I see President Used Enema Water decided to do his BFF, Kim Jong-un, a solid, rolling back a proposed new round of sanctions. Yup yup, that’s our President, working to cut vital safety net programs for millions of citizens while bending over backwards to do favors for murderous dictators! I haven’t been this proud to be an American since Two and Half Men got renewed for that 12th season!

At the risk of offering unbidden advice, I’d like to suggest the following personal guideline: live your life so that nobody ever feels the need to research the effect your presence in a given area has on the local hate crime rate. I mention this because we’ve found yet another standard by which our President is an abominable moral failure. The headline here is “Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes,” which is simultaneously the most horrifying and least surprising thing I’ve read in months.

While we’re already dealing with the abhorrent, let’s talk about some other genuinely awful shit that’s going on. No jokes for a little bit. I know these last few days have been hard enough, but we need to look this shit square in the eye, if only to remind ourselves what we’re fighting for, and against, and of the people who need us to keep on fighting. That’s what being a Democrat, or a liberal, or a progressive, or whatever label you use, is all about, right?

There is, of course, a fresh new wave of atrocities from the border “security” apparatus. A DREAMer, with DACA protections, was imprisoned by ICE for five weeks. Five weeks, can you imagine what that must’ve been like? And then, some maniacs in Border Patrol detained a 9-year-old girl, an American citizen, for 32 fucking hours, because the dirtbag officers said she “provided inconsistent information during her inspection.” She’s NINE, you fucks. I know I’ll sleep soundly tonight knowing my government is keeping me safe by bullying frightened little kids, and grilling them like terror suspects.

And in possibly the most heartbreaking story of an era swamped with tragedy, we’re seeing a wave of suicides among the survivors of recent mass-shootings. Two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students took their own lives, as did Jeremy Richman, who lost his daughter at Sandy Hook.

…yet somehow, NRA Spokesdemon Dana Loesch insists she’s the real victim here. Look, I know we’re all perpetually enraged at one another these days, but I honestly don’t understand how a human soul gets so rotten and so broken. We fight for gun control to save lives and spare people this sort of unbearable pain. How do you stand against that? And why the living fuck are you forcing your phony self-righteousness on grieving families? 

And yeah, you’ve probably heard by now, but in an effort to ruin my vacation, Rugged Robert Mueller finally wrapped up and delivered his report on collusion n’ stuff. To signify the importance of his findings, Mueller sprung for the deluxe package at the FedEx Store*, with a laminated cover and everything.

On receiving the report, Attorney General William Barr bought a big ol’ box of wine, lit some candles, put on some England Dan & John Ford Coley, and settled into the bathtub for a leisurely evening of trying to figure out just how the hell to spin this fucker.

Naturally, everybody is full of takes about what the report they haven’t seen says or doesn’t say. Since I dress-up and play pundit, I may as well get in on the game. The Mueller Report reveals the precise number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, offers a series of insightful rewrites and edits of the Justice League movie, and formally recommends that Jose Canseco vacate the 1988 AL MVP award in favor of Mike Greenwell.

As for Barr, well, weirdly enough, the dude who wrote a whole dang memo last year, saying Hairplug Himmler hadn’t obstructed any justice, decided that William Barr was right all along! And there was no collusion and steaks really do taste better well-done and with ketchup and you’ll just have to trust me on all this because fuck no I’m not letting you see what Mueller actually wrote.

Now, honest to God, this really should have been basically good news for Team Treasonweasel, but because they are clods who have elevated incompetence to a goddamn art form, they somehow managed to fuck it up for themselves in just a few short hours.

Look, the Craigslist posting for the Attorney General gig under Tangerine Idi Amin said simply, “PLEASE GOD SOMEBODY SAVE ME FROM MUELLER” and Barr is doing the job he was hired to do. But it’s telling that even this dutiful lackey had to admit that Mueller refused to exonerate Lil’ Man Shart on obstruction of justice. Now, Billy B. helpfully made the snap judgement for Bob, and indeed for all America, in the process revealing himself as just another corrupt partisan hack. I know these are not the brightest folks around, but do they really think they’ve closed the book now?

Apparently so. Sarah Slanders pulled herself away her typical weekend of recreationally torturing sea monkeys to proclaim “complete and total exoneration,” which, again, is very much not what Barr’s very short and therefore very easy-to-read letter says. Honestly, the news was good enough! But these “elite communications professionals” just can’t stop themselves from lying.

And Visibly-Deteriorating Cousin-Fucker Rudy emerged from exile (sources tell me he was molting) to proclaim the Mueller probe “never should have happened in the first place,” which is kind of a strange thing to say about an investigation that unearthed quite a few crimes, including a coordinated attack on the United States by hostile foreign power. I guess “protecting the country from its enemies” is partisan now, and once again I find myself happy in the side I’ve chosen.

Lindsey Graham polished up the Junior Stooge badge he got in the mail by saving up Trump Vodka bottle caps, and told the press that now he wants to return to the Leave-it-to-Beaver-by-way-of-Breitbart days of investigating Hillary’s e-mails and the bloody TARMAC MEETING and pizzagate and why Roseanne got fired. Real forward thinkers, our Republicans.

Yeah, there’s this strange smugness that all of Donnie Dotard’s legal problems just vanished forever, and now his grifter cabal has carte blanche to turn the tables, investigate the investigators, and punish his enemies, like “Now that’s done with, let’s do Jell-O shots and purge some law enforcement agencies! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FASCISM?!?!??!”

Dude, no. You’re still facing more investigations than Taylor Swift has stalkers. You’re still the unindicted co-conspirator in the Michael Cohen case. You still got caught stealing from your own frickin’ charity. You’re still violating the emoluments clause at every available opportunity. And obviously this obstruction of justice shit doesn’t magically vanish if you just look in the mirror and say “totally exonerated” three times real fast.

Government Cheese Goebbels’ 2020 campaign was feelin’ that autocrat swagger so much, they actually sent a memo to TV news stations with a precious little “enemies list” of guests who should no longer be booked in light of the Exoneration That Most Certainly Has Not Happened. On the one hand, the impulse towards free-speech-crushing dictatorship is terrifying, but on the other, the blundering overplaying of the hand is absolutely fucking hilarious. It’s like trying to bluff with a pair of twos, only you’re playing with your cards face up.

Like, Kevin McCarthy’s strutting around, demanding Adam Schiff step down from as the House Intelligence Committee chairman. Bro, you are in the minority now. You don’t get to decide who chairs what, or who gets investigated, or even the elevator music in the fucking Capitol bathrooms. If Adam Schiff feels like playing Dan Fogelberg’s Greatest Hits on loop during Intel meetings, then Devin Nunes best get used to the tale of a quiet man of music denied a simpler fate, ‘kay?

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell’s out there, shutting down Chuck Schumer’s resolution to make the Mueller Report public. Why Wrinkly Gamera is so eager to suppress this tome celebrating the Marmalade Shartcannon’s all-encompassing innocence is a question for wiser minds than mine.

Anyway, I’m sending Michael Avenatti a fruit basket. He’ll appreciate it in jail. But seriously, Mike, your rapid descent from fame-crazed law thug with delusions of grandeur to cartoonishly inept criminal gave me a good sturdy gut laugh on a day I really needed one. Yes, it seems like Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer thought it would be a good idea to try to extort 20 million bucks from Nike, and, because he is a genius, allowed himself to be recorded making super-illegal threats over the phone.

Looking forward to Mike’s tweets insisting that establishment Democrats are too soft to commit the crimes they’d need to commit to win in 2020, and what voters really want is an egomaniacal scumbag loser who thought a few television appearances rendered him invincible. Anyway, have fun in jail, kid.

But yeah, I’ve seen a lot of disappointment, even despair, in lefty circles over the last few days. Like the Mueller news condemns us to a second Trump term, and then probably Junior, but the whole thing likely falls apart in 2033 when Eric tries to replace the public water supply with grape soda. Folks, I know there’s nothing a Dem loves more than gloom n’ doom, but all is far from lost, and I still wouldn’t swap places with Weehands McNodick for all the trademarks in China.

My friends, Robert Mueller didn’t flip 40 House seats last November. He didn’t raise all that money or make all those phone calls or knock on all those doors or get out all those votes. That was us. We had to wait and wait and wait for our chance to get in the ring and finally fight the fuckin’ fight, but when at last the time came, we were Butterbean, and Trumpism was Bart Gunn.** We can, and will, do it again.

And if you’re feeling helpless, there’s plenty you can do now. Remember the voter registration initiative Andrew Gillum launched in Florida last week? And now Stacy Abrams has a new nonprofit, Fair Count, that will work to make sure the 2020 Census accurately surveys hard-to-count populations. Maybe toss a buck or two to your favorite House freshmen, they still need your help.

In conclusion, keep your chin up, nothing is over.  From my own personal point of view, fuck everybody and everything, the world still owes me a motherfucking vacation. Going someplace with no cell service next time. Maybe a nice cave somewhere. So long as there’s a beer fridge.

*I wish these were still called Kinko’s. Kinko’s woulda been funnier.

**If you click only one link in this blog, make it that one.