Yyyyeah, the vibes’re pretty strange on this, objectively the least American July 4th celebration to date. And may we never top it.

My god, they actually passed the fucking thing.

The legislative process has been likened to sausage-making. This one was more like every dumb, mean kid you ever met locking themselves in the butcher shop to stuff casings with dog turds and broken glass. And then throwing themselves a party to eat ‘em.

Can’t imagine they’ll be teaching the Murkowski Maneuver at West Point any time soon. “You guys, whatever you do, don’t vote for this bill I just voted for; it’s nowhere close to ready! Okay, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to YOU GUYS WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”

Congrats on doing that thing the public told you in no uncertain terms not to do, I guess. If the plan to avoid the electorate’s wrath next November rests on the final throttling of American democracy, just recall that your little strongman couldn’t even throw himself a birthday parade a couple weeks back.

One of the big reasons to vote Democrat is that your congressional representative would never swap your health insurance for a rapist’s autograph. And that’s partisan now.

See, whatever Fashy Daddy wants, he gets. And if his grip on the actual policies the bill enacts seems shaky, well, all he really wants is another holiday party to sully, and you could probably get twenty bucks for the signature on eBay.

I guess we’re finally gonna find out how much air is left in the wingnut disinformation bubble, though. Because when folks start passing out, there won’t be hospitals to take ‘em to, or, for that matter, insurance to cover ‘em.

As you bid your premature farewells to loved ones deemed insufficiently worthy of otherwise available health care, may you draw comfort from imagining yourself traveling alongside Clarence Thomas in lavish style, while Harlan swings by Argentina for an impulse splurge on the Hitler memorabilia black market, cuz that’s where the money went instead.

I don’t mean t’be a Negative Nellie, harping on the Bleak, Bloated ‘Bomination’s many losers (aka filthy pleb taker “minutiae,” as the Vice President might put it, aka millions of working Americans), because I can think of at least one unaccountable proto-fascist secret police force that came out way, wayyyyyyyyy ahead!

No one could reasonably argue that ICE doesn’t require a larger budget than almost any military force on the planet; grade school kids aren’t going to expose themselves to public urination, y’know!

We are now spending more on this agency, which sends masked, heavily armed men into our communities to abduct hardworking, law-abiding people, than Israel spends on their whole military. Even if they peel off a few billion to remake Birth of a Nation with Kristi Noem, that’s, gosh, a lotta firepower handed to some of the shittiest kakistocrats in the whole cabal.

Stephen Miller will not be settling for two dolls this Xmas.

Incidentally, th’Shart of th’Deal fell around ninety deals shy of his 90 Dealz in 90 Dayz pledge, so now he’s petulantly lobbing tariff rates between naps. And of course I enjoy paying Dear Leader’s vanity tax as much as the next loyal citizen, but surely this means there’s room for cancer research, since there’s $25 million for grandpa’s North Korea-themed birthday pillow fort.

So Elon wants to start his very own political party. And hey, maybe he is a genius; maybe antagonizing both halves of the political spectrum in swift succession opens a Mushroom Kingdom-esque warp pipe to electoral glory. Or maybe single-handedly doing as much ketamine as Fleetwood Mac did cocaine does a number on the ol’ prefrontal cortex.

Of course, none of that matters, for Elon is to be deported. And this brown socialist fellow in New York is to be arrested.

Can’t slow down for any silly ol’ due process; gotta get the undesirables to the foreign torture prisons before they’re able to DEI any more of our children.

Gotta keep ‘em there, too, lest they return to report on the conditions in the torture prisons once the Secretary’s publicity team has flown home. And since there’s apparently enough money lying around to pass to every felon who still had enough cash on hand to donate to the president’s campaign, there is no question we owe Kilmar Abrego Garcia compensation for rushing so negligently to violate his human rights.

That goes for the poor bastards who’re still stuck there, too. And it should come out of ICE’s budget, but no, let’s give them more money than Israel’s, again, ENTIRE MILITARY BUDGET instead.

I would very much appreciate it if everyone would just STOP FUNNELING POWER TO THE TYRANT. America has one job right now, and that’s it. Mr. Roberts, I was addressing you and your giggling cohort.

6-3 Day is always a gut punch, and I’m secretly delighted I took that week off. But honestly, what goes through these folks’ heads?

Are they just poking our democracy to see what the old coot will try to get away with next? For lolz, at the pinnacle of power while the nation teeters on the brink of actual fascist collapse, an erotically charged game of chicken with the entire American experiment and one another? Honestly, I could respect that.

But otherwise…what the fuck, you guys?

The last thing you should give a guy who asks for the power to deport people to active conflict zones without due process is more power. The asking is a fairly clear tell, I’d argue. All this guy ever does is grab power and fail to clear ever-lowering ethical hurdles.

What was the last ethical hurdle our president made the slightest effort to clear? “I’m selling fragrances in bottles shaped (allegedly) like my body now; if you can smuggle one into your federal prison cell, that’s gotta be worth a pardon, right?

He swapped members of MS-13 to a foreign dictator in exchange for the aforementioned torture prison. That’s right, the very gang he’s been fearmongering about for a fucking decade. Turned some of its most murderous leaders loose. They’re eating somebody’s pets right now.

There is to be a “Great American State Fair,” personally overseen by Mighty Leader, Passer of the Cognitive Test, Undisputed Golf Champion of That Place He Owns. There shall be not merely fighting on the White House lawn, but (fifties sci-fi trailer voice) ulllllllllltimate fighting!

I hope you’re happy, America; you won’t have Thom Tillis or Don Bacon to sop up your milk anymore! You’ll have to make your own increasingly inaudible bleats of “principle” the next time there’s authoritarian overreach to cave to!

Golly gee, how wonderful it would be to replace these two specific feckless windbags on history’s stage with a pair of red-blooded, all-American, Whatever We Decide to Call Ourselves This Time DEMOCRATS. Blue Wave or whatever.

They’re gonna try to anoint the Tom Petty-defiling daughter-in-law? While they’re cutting off hurricane relief and Medicaid? Good luck. (Please don’t Cal Cunningham this one up, you guys.)

As much as I hate everything he’s doing to my country, it’s the slow-motion backstabbing of Ukraine that’s going to wind up determining Hegseth’s circle assignment in Hell. Running interference for Pootie Pie’s military operation to set a European capital ablaze? Seriously? Second banana to a fifth-rate Stalin, who’s bankrupting his country to murder civilians in Kyiv?

Your mom must be almost as proud of you as Mike Lee’s mom is of Mike Lee.

He wants that red necktie he sent for Volodymyr’s birthday back, incidentally. It was, of course, far too long anyway.

See, these Ukrainians need to die, along with the Medicaid poors plus everybody who dies from the shit we don’t cure, because American ingenuity has instead been redirected into developing a concentration camp that can be assembled in eight days flat.

Can’t say I’m in love with those priorities.

“Alligator Alcatraz” triggers the corner of the MAGA brain that involuntarily drools whenever a maniac breaks into a political opponent’s home with a hammer and homicidal intent. There’s merch, of course, because we live among people who desire such things as the official baseball cap of a concentration camp.

As we begin to tabulate the butcher’s bill from Elon’s little chainsaw romp through USAID, it’s pretty fucking sobering how quickly the numbers have climbed into the tens of millions, and that’s not dollars, that’s lives.

Sorry, we need the money for the parades and the marines on our streets and the prefab concentration camps. You’ll appreciate the craftsmanship on your way out.

Can’t afford the funding we promised for all those school programs that were just about to start, can’t afford to refund that $80 million the Navy Federal Credit Union stole from our servicemen and women, and definitely cannot afford Patriot missiles to defend those children Vladimir Putin wants to murder. Or cancer research, or oversight of anything we’re doing, obviously.

You traitors are banned from Independence Day. For life. 86’d from patriotism generally by virtue of being the shittiest Americans ever. May thy cupcake’s frosting turn to ash in thy mouth. May thy sparkler fizzle and fade.

I couldn’t actually muster any outrage over Coach Tuberville’s “inner-city rats” remark, because my brain refuses to accept dehumanizing rhetoric from such an unimpressive specimen. The one and only person I’ve ever encountered where I thought, “Okay, sure, THIS guy is inherently inferior to Tommy Tuberville,” turned out to be a mannequin. It’s adorable that you think you get to talk down to anybody, you smooth-brained, collaborating wanksock.

Growing up, I remember hearing about the school-to-prison pipeline, never dreaming I’d live to see the ribbon cut on a Capitol Riot-to-DoJ pipeline. Pardoned wannabe cop killer Jared L. Wise works for our old friend Ed Martin on something even Orwell would be ashamed to call the “Weaponization Working Group,” so perhaps putting that Russian spy in charge of staffing wasn’t the best call?

Watching institutions cave to the authoritarian bullying of my government’s executive branch is easily my least favorite thing about the Turd Reich Restored. And I know these are ultimately the decisions of a handful of wealthy cowards (who get to spend the rest of their lives avoiding eye contact in all the finest mirrors), but the film junkie in me sees these headlines about Paramount submitting to petty tyranny, and it gets my dander up.

Feels like Don Corleone kneeling, or Norma Desmond. Jake Gittes. Hud. Hud would kick all your dork Nazi asses.

SHABBY, DECLINING WANNABE TYRANT: Mumble mumble windmill cancer, mumble mumble Shylock, mumble mumble stolen el-

HUD: (slugs SDWT for using a slur.)

Anyway, my plan is to buy up a bunch of shipping containers (I bet they’re cheap from the trade war), fill ‘em with Hellboy comics and beer, and ship ‘em to all the deportation hot spots, so I’ll have a place to crash when I’m disappeared.

So if you found this diatribe at all amusing, please contribute to my Shipping Containers Full of Beer fund, now accepting, you guessed it, PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo!

Oh, and THE NEW COMIC IS FINALLY COMING, so now more than ever, follow @john_luzarand sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com! I’ll be raffling off spots in the shipping containers, but until then, stay safe out there, campers…