Friends, I confess it’s increasingly challenging to chronicle current events with anything resembling humor. Ummmm…why don’t we try, like, “How many state-sanctioned Proud Boys does it take to zip-tie a bunch of children in the dead of the night?”

300, GIVE OR TAKE, THOUGH IT’S HARD TO TELL FOR CERTAIN ON ACCOUNT OF THE MASKS HAW HAW HAW

Yeah, a battalion of the increasingly lawless but not-at-all-fascist ICE army rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters to terrorize the residents of a Chicago apartment building, breaking down doors without warrants and detaining U.S. citizens in unmarked vans for hours without cause, and the closest thing I can find to a punchline here is that this is somehow not front-page news from coast to coast.

In fairness, if the media covered every ICE assault on a journalist or a senior citizen or an elected official, every lie about a fatal shooting, and every infant showered with shattered glass, there wouldn’t be space for the crossword.

On the bright side, I’ve finally been cured of that nightmare where I’m standing in front of my entire high school in my underpants; from now on I’ll wake up in a cold sweat from a dream where I’m an overmatched weekend teevee host lecturing a bunch of generals and admirals about physical fitness.

They say Secretary Pete is cracking up under the pressure of the gig, which, as someone who is equally qualified to run the Pentagon, I certainly understand.

Still, he strapped on his funnest socks to tell the nation’s warfightingest warfighters to bring back performatively abusive drill sergeants like in the movies (also, no fatties). You could’ve not only sailed an aircraft carrier through the awkward pauses Pete left for applause that never came, but watched a $70 million jet fall off the deck and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

But just when the brass thought it was safe to report back to their actual posts around the globe, out waddled the surprise headliner, straight from the dementia ward at Walter Reed, for a meandering rant about the challenges inherent in walking down stairs.

Oh! And also to declare war on the “enemy within,” aka the clear majority of Americans who disapprove of the economic catastrophe and the fascism and what have you. The nation’s cities are to be reimagined not as communities, but “as training grounds for our military.”

(Looks like that training is underway in, um, my immediate neighborhood, so if you see a guy in a superhero bathrobe getting dragged away on the evening news…somebody water my plants, okay?)

Anyway, the government is shut down again, and I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, billionaire tax cuts, and sombrero memes. Certainly no Epstein files, as Speaker Moses keeps weaseling out of seating Adelita Grijalva, this time with a weeklong “district work period.” Yeah, one more vacation oughta do it, Mike.

Don’t worry, though, construction of Princess President’s precious ballroom will proceed uninhibited, because what government function could possibly be more essential than preserving the fantasy of Prince Charming wrapping his royal fingers around those sweaty cankles to slide that glass slipp—forgive me, I am unable to complete this joke without projectile vomiting. Moving on.

Nor will the shutdown impede Javier Milei’s $20 billion bailout, because sometimes “America first” means subsidizing the nation that’s sliding into our spot in the Chinese soybean market. Yes, the spot we vacated via the Dotard’s petulant trade war, which put America even firster. Obviously the proposed bailout of soybean farmers would be the America firstest bailout of all!

According to Mike Lee, OMB director Russ Vought has been fapping to this very scenario since he was just a pubescent reaper, hiding racy Grover Norquist centerfolds under his mattress. Now here he is, imposing sanctions on his own countrymen. Never give up on your dreams!

Speaking of Horatio Alger/Twilight Zone mashups, Stephen Miller’s rise from janitor-tormenting teen to directing extrajudicial strikes on Venezuelan boats is pure reverse Capra. You can almost see it: a guardian angel shows a weeping audience the happier, healthier alternate reality where that vicious little dork was never born, only to get deported to CECOT for his trouble.

Anyway, the shutdown happened because dastardly Dems want to give your hard-earned medbeds to illegal immigrants, or that’s what JD Vance said anyway, because Grampa Goebbels has been too tuckered out from his rant about stairs to appear in public since. Why, he barely has the strength to compliment his own abominable decorating taste or to re-truth QAnon AI slop, for example a video suggesting that “medbeds” are real.

(I guarantee his search history contains “can medbeds cure cankles,” or at least 6-7 misspellings frantically mashed out by those stunted, ineffective phalanges.)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was denied bathroom access by one of the states she’s invading, which seems fair. Surely the old campaign donors you’ve been steering FEMA funding to will accept your fashy waste; I mainly worry about corroding the plumbing.

Over at the FBI, Kash Patel fired a group of agents for kneeling at a George Floyd protest five years ago and then another trainee for displaying a gay pride flag, on top of the agent who got fired for refusing to perp-walk James Comey. The penalty for falsely declaring victory during an active assassination investigation remains, of course, non-existent. In fact, you get to pass out dorky little challenge coins in the shape of the Punisher logo, which I bet impresses the shit out of 11-year-olds.

Also fired was Todd Arrington, director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, for refusing to let Donnie Two-Dolls give away a sword that doesn’t belong to him. Oh, plus yet another prosecutor. Not the guy from the Signal chat leak or the insurance lawyer who lied to a judge’s face about the Comey indictment or the FEMA director who can’t be reached during disasters, of course. Don’t be silly.

Lil’ Howie Lutnick may be in trouble, though, for contradicting the official party line that Jeff Epstein gets a bad rap as a blackmailer. Tell us more about these recordings, Howard…

EJ Antoni will not, alas, be doctoring the nation’s unemployment numbers going forward, having been deemed officially Too Abhorrent by the craven sycophants who confirmed the likes of Hegseth, Patel, and Bondi, which is like a turd getting kicked out of a porta-potty for smelling bad.

Unforgivably violent leftist rhetoric once again led to the targeted slaughter of Christians, and that’s why the First Amendment no longer appl—hang on, what’s that? The killer had what sign outside his house, now? Ah. My bad, this was actually another one of the thousands of mass shootings that shameless Democrats are wrong to politicize. Honest mistake.

Leaders of Albania and Azerbaijan officially tied for the Nobel Ingratitude Prize, cruelly mocking the great peacemaker who ended their millennia-old conflict, which so famously began over the last Pop-Tart when the two nations were roommates in college. Turns out, all it took was a fresh box of Pop-Tarts. THE ART OF THE DEAL, YO!

Me, I want to take negotiating classes from whoever bought Qatar Article 5-level protection from the world’s only superpower for the low, low price of one used airplane.

I’ve been trying to piece together Jesse Watters’ unified theory of masculinity, and as near as I can figure it, eating soup and drinking through a straw are banned (obviously), but speculating about a teenage boy’s sex life on live television is somehow super manly. Sure, okay. Mind your drink around Jesse, is all I’m sayin’.   

The National Football League crucified Charlie Kirk all over again, announcing Bad Bunny as the headliner for the Super Bowl halftime show, prompting a wave of threats from Reich officials to turn the big game into one gigantic ICE raid. (But don’t call ‘em fascists.) A proposed MAGA counter-concert by Creed sounds like something I’d make up for a laugh, but no, it’s real.

The QAnon Shaman proclaimed himself the rightful President of the United States, and I’m not a constitutional scholar or anything, but it can’t hurt to look into it, right? Surprised there aren’t more Capitol rioters in the line of succession already, frankly.

According to prominent bomb threat inciter Chaya Raichik, an “employee at a Build-A-Bear Workshop in Tukwila, WA, REFUSED a request to write Charlie Kirk’s name on the bear’s birth certificate for a customer,” so, y’know…hold your loved ones extra tight tonight.

Well, if all this fuckery has left you hankerin’ for some good news, I’ve got it, because my NEW COMIC BOOK is finally ready and will be launching on Kickstarter in a matter of weeks!

How do you fight for truth, justice, and the American way in an America that’s ripping itself to shreds over those very concepts? Find out in…GENERAL WASHINGTON AND THE LIBERTY TREE #1! Coming sooooooooon, only on Kickstarter! Get signed up on that prelaunch page, friends!

And in the meantime, feel free to toss a couple bucks in the ol’ tip jar (now accepting Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal!) so I can stay lubricated ahead of the campaign. And if you sign up on the email list at showercapblog.com and/or follow @john_luzar, I’ll pester you about the Kickstarter EVEN MORE. Either way, stay safe out there, friendo…