Well, the government is all nice and reopened, and it looks like smooth sailing from here on out! Why, I bet everything calms down now, and we can go right back to the good ol’ days, when things were so normal and quiet, you didn’t even pay attention to the news most of time. Or maybe we’re are still locked in the funhouse with a bunch of Klansmen jacked up on bath salts and hate speech. Let’s find out…

Well, the government is merrily humming along exactly the way it’s supposed to, with Border Patrol agents frantically searching for any shred of evidence, however flimsy, to back up President Crotchrot’s creepy, racist, entirely fabricated, BDSM fantasy about human traffickers gagging women with tape at the southern border. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that the doddering old twit’s lies stay basically within the realm of realism; if he ever suddenly proclaimed that griffins are real, you’d have Betsy DeVos ordering her staff to break into zoos to staple wings to the lions.

So, during the shutdown, the Tangelo-Tinted Taint Tumor apparently had a flock of ultra-super-mega-far-right maniacs, including Ginni Thomas, Frank Gaffney and other similarly batpoo-encrusted loons, over to the White House for a pleasant little rant about gay/transgender rights and how there are way too many of them, and even to rail against women serving in the military. He won’t listen to generals or scientists or our oldest, most trusted, allies, but the Cuckoo Klux Klan gets an audience. Cool.

So a bunch of journalists got laid off last week, and President Gas Station Urinal Cake celebrated the news like it was his birthday and Mick Mulvaney had just ordered a whole platoon of piss hookers for residence. Cheerleading for unemployment from the Oval Office…I miss having a President who actually liked the American people, y’know?

Good news, everyone! We’re saved! Howard Schultz, with an eagle-eyed reading of the public will, understands that what we’re really looking for in these tumultuous times is a self-righteous billionaire with all the charisma of melba toast, proposing drastic cuts to entitlement programs, because we all secretly want to retire in poverty and die of treatable diseases.

You may think Schultz doesn’t have much of a constituency, but if you ever worked for Starbucks for even a day, I suggest you check the fine print on your contract…that’s right, you may’ve enjoyed health insurance coverage for part time work in your 20’s, but now you’ve been drafted into Howard’s army, motherfucker! Rest up, we’re marching on the capitol at dawn! Hope you saved that free weekly bag of coffee, because that’s your whole field ration, son.

Desperate to claw back the fleeting esteem of his dirtbag base in the wake of his recent cucking at the hands of Speaker Pelosi, Strawberry Shartcake pathetically lobbed out a pandering little tweet advocating for “Bible literacy classes” in public schools, because he had just seen something about them on the magical teevee box, and that is how Presidential policy initiatives get launched nowadays, how fun.

Maybe that’s also why his company finally got around to firing the undocumented workers at his tacky-ass New York golf club. “See? See you guys? I can still hurt brown people! Can I get a ‘lock her up,’ for old time’s sake? Guys?” Of course, Eric’s just turning right around to hire a new batch of foreign guest workers at his winery, but maybe the America First crowd will be content if America stays in the top 10-or-so.

Hey, look, the Big Dumb Shartdown cost the economy $11 billion! With $3 billion pissed completely away, never to be recovered! Once, when I was a kid, I threw a tantrum, and broke one of my mom’s favorite lamps. I got grounded for like, a whole month. All I’m saying is, there should be consequences for a multi-billion-dollar ego-driven shitfit. No taxpayer-funded golf vacations for six months, mister! (Also, impeachment, and then prison.)

Meanwhile, Oleg Deripaska finally got that sweet, sweet, sanctions relief he’d been angling for. Because taint-punting the American economy while simultaneously paying off a Putin-connected oligarch is exactly the sort of thing you do when you’re totally not a Russian asset, right?

Word is, Donnie Dotard is shaking his tiny, inadequate, fists in rage at former staffer Cliff Sims, partially out of envy that he can read and write at a high school level, and partially because he put those skills to use writing a saucy tell-all memoir of his time inside the Clown Car Full of Rectums men call “The Trump Administration.” The book is full of all kinds of embarrassing shit, including a section that reveals Littlefinger prefers playing Shart House “tour guide” to doing his dumb ol’ real job. Apparently he likes to waddle around, making Bill-n’-Monica jokes, pointed out all the historic chairs he’s farted in.

And Perpetually Enraged Beach Bum Chris Christie has a book of his own, full of digs at Team Treasonweasel for being 2 Dumb 2 Collude, taking special time to laugh Nepotism’s Most Perfect Cautionary Tale, Jared Kushner, for believing he’d triumphed over the Russia scandal simply by firing Mike Flynn.

We’ve actually seen quite a bumper crop of articles lately on young Jar-Jar’s comically undeserved sense of self-regard, and its recent hilarious collisions with reality. The kid really seems to have believed he’d worked that Ol’ Kushner Magic on congressional Democrats, hoodwinking them into supporting Boss Turdmaggot’s Big Stupid Wall, and was shocked when they didn’t. Despite these very public, very costly, failures, expect the kid to continue taking point on pretty much everything going forward, because learning from your mistakes is for CUCKS.

On the one hand, I think it’s pretty hilarious that the President’s most trusted advisor is incapable of reading the political landscape as well as I, a drunken moron in a luchador mask and superhero bathrobe, can. On the other hand, it’s positively terrifying that the President’s most trusted advisor is incapable of reading the political landscape as well as I, a drunken moron in a luchador mask and superhero bathrobe, can.

I’m starting to think maybe Roger Stone slept through civics class, as he seems to be under the impression that a series of weird, jaggy, media appearances will deliver him from the rather serious legal jeopardy he faces. Still, the freshly-indicted Ratfucker Prince wanders the streets, bloviating at any camera foolish enough to come too near, insisting he’s been treated even worse than Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, of course, famously whined that he wasn’t allowed to don his full Jack Skellington cosplay outfit before all those Navy SEALs shot him to death.

A new study shows that the only significant legislative accomplishment of the entire Shiteweasel Administration, the scam tax bill, failed to produce the economic stimulus that Republicans promised. Me, I think this an unfair metric. The bill did EXACTLY what it was always intended to do: distribute the fruits of recent growth upward to the GOP donor class. Is it really fair to hold these fucks accountable for the empty, insincere, rhetoric that they never even meant? The sneering lies they chuckled while telling, seeking just enough cover to dupe the rubes as they loaded up the getaway car and drove away? Be reasonable.

The Genocidal Mustache Symbiotically Attached to John Bolton’s Upper Lip could barely conceal its visibly-secreting endorphins as it discussed the possibility of a military intervention in Venezuela. “Look, I didn’t join this administration to sit around, waiting for wars to start themselves! I travelled here from beyond the stars to murder me some humans, and that’s what I intend to…I’ve said too much,” muttered the Murderstache, before skittering away, Bolton in tow.

Hot Tub SpokesGoon/Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker claims the Mueller investigation is just about ready to wrap things up and head over to Chili’s for margaritas and wings. I think it’d kinda cute that this cud-brained partisan hack imagines Bodacious Bob lets him in on anything important, rather than simply sending him on his way with a pat on the head and a lollipop.

And now that the government is open again, and people are getting paid, Nancy Pelosi called up the President to say, “Very well, Little Man Shart. You may have your State of the Union speech now,” and Wee Don said, “Oh thank you Miz Nancy, please don’t hurt me anymore,” and Pelosi said “Well, we’re fitting you with a shock collar that goes off every time you lie, so we figure you’ll get about six minutes in before you pass out.”

‘Tis the season for rescheduling, it would seem, as the Fascist Farthuffer’s Former Fixer, Michael Cohen, has agreed to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, now chaired by Adam “Hey, Let’s Do Our Jobs For a Change” Schiff, though the session will be behind closed doors. Expect Devin “Pigfucker” Nunes to take advantage of the privacy by selectively leaking Cohen’s testimony, or who knows, maybe even straight up trying to murder him?

Anyway, in spite of his approval ratings being sent directly to jail without passing go or collecting $200, Government Cheese Goebbels has somehow convinced himself that he’s winning, that America’s love for the Big Dumb Wall is matched only by their adoration for their Turd Emperor himself, and that threatening another shutdown is a good idea. It’s like burning your hand on a stove, and then immediately tea-bagging the very same stove.

Or maybe he’ll just declare a state of emergency, at some non-specific point in the future, after he’s exhausted all other avenues. That isn’t how emergencies work, old man. If you can schedule it, it can’t be an emergency. I know words are hard for you.

Well, I hope I survive the week to blog again, my friends. Word is, it’s getting mighty dang cold up here in Chicago. Don’t worry though, I have plenty of supplies* to see me through the worst of it.

*Beer