So, Kristi Noem appears to have invaded Minnesota.

The cursed Choose Your Own Adventure book we’ve been trapped in since 2015 started so innocuously. Page one, chapter one: “A buffoon descends an escalator. To make the buffoon president, turn to page 718,256.”

Ten years later, our eyelids have rotted away.

“Our most faithful allies are moving troops to Greenland to deter our threatened invasion. To tear gas children on American streets, turn to page 2,119,402. To arrange the handover of the Nobel Peace Prize as a bribe, turn to page 6.”

Turns out, if your culture really, truly commits to making the dumbest possible choice at each and every possible opportunity, you can wind up in some pretty wacky predicaments.

Like ours, for example, here in January 2026, where the Mad King, who was already the Dumb, Shitty, Rapist King before flinging himself down this cognitive Slip ‘N Slide, paws at the pages of history, desperate to leave as large a smudge as possible before the cankles carry him to the MAGA afterlife, where there are no midterm elections to subvert.

Look. I have no doubt it’s challenging for a cult of personality to watch its deified game show host deteriorate into incoherent rants about “hole milk,” but perhaps it’s time at last for this spoildest of all possible rich kids to hear the word “no.”

No, you may not invoke the Insurrection Act to crush the Wine Mom Rebellion. You may not have your “day of reckoning and retribution.” That’s a weird thing for a president to want, by the way. You’re supposed to want stuff like safety and prosperity, not a legion of roly-poly brownshirts running amok.

Somehow, despite a recruitment campaign aimed at white nationalists who’re swiftly armed with military surplus, promised immunity, and thrust, without background checks or training, into residential neighborhoods where they’re not wanted, to unconstitutionally harass American citizens, ICE isn’t polling well these days, possibly on account of all the threatening and shooting and blinding and gassing and window smashing and what have you, though I suppose the chokeholds may also be a factor.

(Pollsters should ask us how we feel about videos of ICE slipping on ice, though. I’ve been saving up a “strongly approve” for just such an occasion.)

Kakisto-fascism polls poorly generally, it turns out. It’s just a branding issue, though; the ungrateful masses will be made, at gunpoint if necessary, to understand and appreciate the glory waiting to be won for the fatherland in the fields (or fjords or whatever) of Greenland. Perhaps they don’t understand how tantalizingly large it appears on certain maps.

It’s actually for the mausoleum that is to be constructed to house Dear Leader’s magnificent remains in the unlikely event the perfect machine that is His body ever gives out. The island’s populace is to be conscripted, at gunpoint if necessary, as a hospitality labor class, eternally polishing his sports trophies and Purple Hearts and the Nobel Peace Prize he finally, finally extorted from María Corina Machado.

I don’t know how many more peace prizes I can take, you guys. Feels like watching Veruca Salt unwrap an Oompa-Loompa on Xmas morning, y’know?

Nice that they were able to squeeze the handoff in between the saber-rattling and all his new duties as Acting President of Venezuela, not that anybody’s mad with power or anything. Nope, noooooo decomposing megalomaniacs here. Where are we with that triumphal arch, Susie?

I see they also took a drunken/feral swipe at the Federal Reserve. WE’RE *hic* BUSTING THE NOTORIOUS POWELL REDECORATING SYN *hic* SYNDICATE! Of course you are.

Republican Senator Kevin Cramer finds this sloppy corruption “elegant,” which…(chuckle) no. “Either Jerome Powell resigns, or some disbarred dental lawyer tries to put him away for felony mattress tag removal” is not, to clarify, an “elegant” plan but rather a super, super dumb one.

After the latest wave of principled resignations, who’s even left at the clumsily weaponized Department of Justice? Lindsey Halligan barricaded in an office she’s legally barred from holding, and the odd white nationalist?

During these dark times, I find it necessary to season my internet feed with cute animal videos, just to regulate the ol’ mood a bit. I’m partial to red pandas and baby hippos, but there’s really nothing more adorable than watching Mike Johnson attempt to legislate.

Even with the most awesome military force in human history at his push-button disposal, Pete Hegseth can’t sink a boat with 11 people onboard without committing the war crime known as “perfidy,” which must be this “warrior ethos” we’ve been hearing so much about.

While the global economy rearranges itself around us, the Führer frolics with the MAGA furries down at Mar-a-Lago, and if, at his latest screening, he said the drawing of the cow was a “horsey,” well, that’s close enough for government work, surely.

Yeah, it’s a little freaky out there. Why, if it wasn’t for Ag Secretary Rollins’ $3 nutritional allotment, I imagine I’d be pretty worked up. Fortunately, I find the piece of chicken/piece of broccoli/tortilla/one other thing combo keeps me close enough to malnourished to remain reliably docile.

Still, I’d like to think I could muster the strength to shout a little somethin’ if the Dotard happened to waddle within earshot. Something to earn a petulant waggle of that stunted, inadequate middle finger. No, Donald…fuck you.

For all of it. And for sneaking in yet another round of pardons while we’re focused on defending our fundamental civil rights from deputized Proud Boys. “What was that about Congresswoman Lisa McClain’s blatant insider trading? I couldn’t hear you over the crack of the nightstick.”

Or those files. I distinctly remember files of some sort.

Ah well, it’s probably nothing. (Parachutes into the Danish countryside, armed with forty-seven days of training and two dolls.)

Yes, I’m off to slay the filthy Dane, as is my duty. Care packages will be accepted at the front, provided they are beer. (Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, etc.) Gonna keep late pledges open on the comic book Kickstarter for juuuuuuuuust a bit longer, so get on that if you haven’t!

Follow @john_luzar, and oh golly, please stay safe out there, folks!